Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the effect of television viewing duration of a household on its annual category-level conspicuous consumption and also the enhanced level of this relationship for the bottom of the pyramid (BoP) households.

Design/methodology/approach

Hypotheses formulation was guided by cultivation theory and the concept of compensatory consumption. The hypotheses were later examined by using ordinary least square (OLS) regression on the data from the large nationally representative India Human Development Survey, 2011 (IHDS-II) database.

Findings

Television viewing duration of the household exerts a positive effect on its annual category-level conspicuous consumption expenditure. The nature of this relationship is enhanced for the BoP households. The annual category-level conspicuous consumption for the BoP households increases by close to four percent for every hour increase in their television viewing duration while such increase for other households is close to one and a half percent only.

Research limitations/implications

Findings can be further strengthened by using time-lagged dependent variable taken at monthly intervals, as well as survey data linking household television viewing duration with desirability of conspicuous goods.

Practical implications

Managers can rely on television for reaching BoP consumers while being cognizant of the negative effects of promoting conspicuous consumption among them. They need to adopt a responsible marketing approach. Besides regulating television, policymakers need to work toward increased provisioning of educational and financial services for BoP households. They can leverage television for promoting beneficial behavior in BoP households.

Originality/value

The study empirically establishes the external validity of cultivation theory at the household level in an emerging economy by using a large nationally representative database. It also establishes the higher vulnerability of BoP households to increase category-level conspicuous consumption in response to television viewing. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to empirically examine the effect of television viewing duration of household on its annual category level conspicuous consumption.

中文翻译：

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电视收看和家庭的显眼消费：来自印度的证据

目的

本文的目的是通过实证研究家庭的电视观看时间对其年度类别水平的炫耀性消费的影响，以及金字塔底层（BoP）家庭这种关系的增强水平。

设计/方法/方法

假设的制定以耕作理论和补偿性消费的概念为指导。后来，对来自全国有代表性的大型印度人类发展调查（IHDS-II）数据库中的数据使用普通最小二乘（OLS）回归对假设进行了检验。

发现

家庭的电视收看时间对其年级显着消费支出产生积极影响。对于BoP家庭，这种关系的性质得到了增强。BoP家庭的年度类别显着消费量随着电视收看时间的每小时增加而增加近4％，而其他家庭的这种显着增加仅接近百分之一半。

研究局限/意义

通过使用按月间隔获取的时滞因变量，以及将家庭电视收看时间与明显商品的可取性联系起来的调查数据，可以进一步增强发现。

实际影响

管理者可以依靠电视吸引BoP消费者，同时意识到在他们当中促进炫耀性消费的负面影响。他们需要采用负责任的营销方法。除了监管电视外，决策者还需要努力为BoP家庭提供更多的教育和金融服务。他们可以利用电视促进BoP家庭中的有益行为。

创意/价值

该研究通过使用庞大的具有全国代表性的数据库，从经验上建立了新兴经济体中家庭层面的耕作理论的外部有效性。它还建立了BoP家庭更高的脆弱性，以响应电视收看而增加类别级别的炫耀性消费。据作者所知，这是第一项以实证研究家庭的电视观看时间对其年度类别水平炫耀性消费的影响的研究。