Aesthetics, its qualities and attributes

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: When one looks at a product, one finds that it has two characteristics which are exogenous variables—one, the hedonic value of a product, which is defined as ‘the level of pleasure that the product or service is capable of giving to the average consumer’, and the other, the utilitarian value of a product, which is defined as the level of usefulness of a product involving the everyday problems faced by the average consumer (Chauduri, 2002). These always make the product get liked or disliked from two different points, that is, its functional and non-functional aspects.

If one studies the definition of aesthetics in the marketplace, then aesthetics, to some extent, may be defined as the study of the buyer’s cognition, affective and behavioural response to media, entertainment and arts. The aesthetic experience involves attending to, perceiving and appreciating an object with regard to whatever utilitarian function it might perform. Starting from the Greek ideas of structural order to the Gestalt psychology of the principle of unity, many functional products have gained competitive advantage by satisfying aesthetic as well as utilitarian needs, which are functional and non-functional (Holbrook and Schindler, 1994).A product is first purely designed from the functional point of view. Once the utility aspect is taken care of, the aesthetic aspect is taken into consideration.

Two qualities of aesthetic response—the first called ‘hedonic value’ refers to the diffuse sense of pleasure or generalised enjoyment that one feels by looking at a beautiful or attractive object; and the second is the profound experience, which deals with the feeling of being deeply moved.

This points to the fact that aesthetics can be broadly looked upon as the sense of pleasure one achieves by mere physical attraction related to any of the faculties. This means that the aesthetics of a product affect us in a complete sense and not just in the visual sense.

It is said that ‘over the time various expressions of beauty have been made and beauty that inspires desire, passion, and pleasure—the beauty of people, clothes, popular act was correlated with fashion, marketing and advertising’. This again focuses on the hedonic value of the product.

Experience is important for aesthetics, partly because pleasure (and more generally intensified feeling) is important and that such feelings are inherently experiential.’ If aesthetic value cannot be separated from understanding, and understanding requires interpretation, and interpretation cannot be separated from experience, then it follows that aesthetic value cannot be separated from experience either.

All this makes it difficult to explain aesthetics and define its characteristics. If one looks at the aesthetic concepts one will find that:

(a) Aesthetic concepts are primarily descriptive, though some of them may also have an evaluation of components.

(b) Aesthetic concepts are not condition governed/they have no application condition.

(c) Aesthetic concepts refer to qualities that are perceivable

Experts contend that ‘as far as aesthetics is concerned, perceptual relativism can be classified into two forms—environmental relativism and relativism of interpretation which leads to various perceptions’. Some work has been done based on aesthetic principles and response to these princ-iples, as the importance of aesthetics has increased over time.

The criteria of aesthetics remain relevant to many marketing decisions. All products inherently have aesthetic components, most often by conscious designs and in certain cases otherwise. At times many products are differentiated from others only on the basis of the aesthetic criteria. Therefore, working on these aesthetic elements can subsequently affect evaluation and attitude formation.

The word ‘aesthetics’ is not to be taken in isolation, but the entire realm which includes the emotions one experiences by the presence of beauty and the subsequent feeling of pleasure.

Many times while referring to aesthetics, the term, fashion or style is frequently used. Therefore, one can say that style is used for combining attributes of aesthetics.

Initially, aesthetics was more associated with art and it was a term that was used more from the philosphical point of view, but later it got related to a product from the emotional point of view.

Reprinted with permission from Response India

Book: Aesthetics in Marketing

Author: Rajat K Baisya & G Ganesh Das