Consumers Aren't Just 'Treating Themselves' — They're Reclaiming the Right to Define Who They Are

I.

There’s a film that has been making waves lately — The Odyssey.

It’s a story that has circulated in Europe for three thousand years, told in a work known as the Homeric epics. The hero, Odysseus, having fought the Trojan War, sets sail for home with his fleet. From Troy to his island of Ithaca should normally take no more than a few days. But the journey took him a full ten years.

What happened along the way? He was captured by the Cyclops, who locked him in a cave; he escaped by cunning, blinding the giant’s eye. He ventured into the underworld and met his dead mother. To resist the song of the Sirens, he had his crew bind him to the mast, listened to the entire song, and survived. The nymph Calypso used beauty and tenderness to keep him on her island for seven years, yet he never wavered in his resolve to return home.

Ten years later he arrived back in Ithaca, and his wife could barely recognize him. He was older, covered in scars, dressed in rags.

But he was more complete than when he set out. He left as “General Odysseus”; he returned as, at the same time, the son who wept in the underworld, the prisoner of desire struggling against the mast, the homesick man shedding tears in a lover’s paradise. He was no longer just one identity — he had lived out more versions of himself.

The Swiss psychologist Carl Jung called this process “individuation” — the idea that a person’s life is not about continually becoming who society wants you to be, but about slowly recovering the selves that were suppressed, overlooked, and never lived out.

What does this story have to do with consumption today?

A great deal.

Look at all the “disobedient” phenomena in today’s consumer market: middle-aged men dyeing their hair blond. People in their forties and fifties going to music festivals, riding motorcycles, playing video games, wearing youthful clothes. Young people no longer willing to pay for “successful person,” “elite,” or “respectable.” The wealthy, if anything, dressing more casually. Many people preferring to buy something “useless, but it makes me happy.”

These behaviors don’t fit their age, don’t fit their status, don’t fit their income, don’t fit social expectations.

But like Odysseus, all of these people are trying to touch another version of themselves through some external experience.

And that is the subject I want to discuss with you today:

What are consumers really consuming for?

II.

Traditional consumer theory would call this self-indulgent consumption, emotional consumption, personalized consumption.

But these terms only describe the surface.

One level deeper is this: the structure of human subjectivity is changing. Consumers are beginning to reject a single identity and demanding to reclaim the right to interpret “who I am.”

To understand this shift, you first need to meet someone — the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung.

Jung was one of the most influential psychologists after Freud. His most essential contribution was a single insight: a person does not have only one “self.” At least four layers live inside each of us.

The first is the Persona — the social mask. It is the self that society wants me to be. At the company you are a manager; at home you are a father; at a business dinner you are “Director So-and-so.” These roles are not fake, but they are masks — you put them on to meet external expectations.

The second is the Ego — the self I believe myself to be. I believe I am rational, mature, steady — but that very belief has blind spots.

The third is the Shadow — the self I refuse to acknowledge and have never lived out. An executive who spends all day in a suit and tie may have, living inside him, a teenager who wants to ride a motorcycle to Tibet. A devoted wife and mother may harbor a side of herself that longs to travel alone, to be needed by no one. The Shadow is not bad; it has simply been pushed down. And this suppressed part, as we will see later, is becoming a new driving force of consumption.

The fourth is the Self. This is the most important concept in Jung’s theory. The Self is not as simple as “being your true self.” What it means is: the more complete me that emerges once the Persona, the Ego, and the Shadow have all been included.

Jung believed that the core task of a person’s life is to move from living only in the Persona toward living out the complete Self. This process is what he called “individuation.”

Once you understand these four concepts and look back at China’s consumption history over the past three or four decades, you will notice something:

The second consumer era was, in essence, the era of Persona consumption.

From 1999 to 2019, China went through two decades of economic ascent. The Engel coefficient fell from nearly 50% to below 30%, and society moved from subsistence to affluence. In this phase, what was a person’s most important task? To enter the order of things. Find a job, buy a home, get married, get promoted, become middle class, become a success.

The most important function of consumption was to supply social identity. The role brands played in this phase was, at bottom, that of an identity-certifying authority.

Mercedes-Benz told you what success meant. Moutai — China’s most prestigious liquor — told you what status meant. Louis Vuitton told you what class meant. Business formalwear told you what maturity meant.

What brands did best was tell consumers one thing: “Buy me, and you will become a certain kind of person.”

This is the core logic of Persona consumption: whether a product has value depends on whether it makes you conform more closely to some social expectation. When I drive it, what will others think of me? When it’s on the table, does it give me face? When I wear it, does it signal class? The answers to these questions are the Persona at work.

But then a problem emerged.

As a society grows ever more materially abundant, as identities grow more plural, and as the internet keeps dismantling authority, people’s sense of their own subjectivity begins to awaken and loosen. They start to ask a question:

“Why should I live according to the template you gave me?”

In the past, consumers asked: “What will others think of me?”

Today, more and more consumers ask: “Do I actually like it?”

And going one step further, some are beginning to ask: “Besides the me I am now, who else could I be?”

The moment that question is asked, it is no longer the Persona speaking. It is the Self speaking.

So the real change is not that consumers have become more rational, or more emotional, or more self-indulgent. All of that describes the surface.

What has truly changed is the coordinate system by which consumption is valued: it has migrated from the outside to the inside.

III.

We used to understand consumption upgrading as a one-way street: functional value → emotional value → meaning value.

This model is useful, but it has a flaw: it is still studying “what the product gives the consumer.” Function gives efficiency, emotion gives pleasure, meaning gives belonging.

But if we look at the question again through Jung’s psychology, we can actually go one level deeper:

Why do consumers need these values in the first place?

At that point you discover that what has really changed is not the type of value, but the coordinate system by which value is judged.

Under the Persona logic, whether a product has value depends largely on: can it make me conform more closely to some social expectation?

Under the Self logic, whether a product has value increasingly depends on: can it bring me closer to the self I want to become?

Note that this is not a semantic game. It leads to completely different purchase decisions.

Take the same car. The Persona logic asks: when I drive it, what will others think of me? The Self logic asks: when I’m driving it, what state am I in?

Take the same bottle of liquor. The Persona logic asks: does this bottle give me face when it’s on the table? The Self logic asks: why must I drink this at all? Do I want to drink it, or does the occasion require me to?

So the real migration is from an external coordinate system to an internal one. This is the first business judgment this essay must land.

The concept of the Self is easily misread as “just be yourself.” Buy whatever you want, quit whenever you want, never mind what anyone thinks. But that is merely the Ego’s desire, not Jung’s Self.

The Self in Jung’s sense is closer to a state: I no longer permit only one version of myself to exist.

A 40-year-old man can be a father and also play video games. A corporate executive can be rational and also love rock music. A 50-year-old woman can care for her family and also travel again, love again, exercise again.

So what is really happening today is not “personalization.” It is that consumers are beginning to reject a single identity.

And if consumers are beginning to reject a single identity, then the old methods of studying consumers run into fundamental trouble.

IV.

In the past, when brands studied consumers, they loved to ask two sets of questions.

The first set: who is he? Age, income, occupation, family, city.

The second set: what does he need? What function is he missing? What experience does he want?

Then came the deduction: male, 35–45, married, first- or second-tier city, monthly income of 30,000 RMB, business professional — therefore he should drink this, drive that, wear the other.

But if consumers are moving from Persona toward Self, both sets of questions fall short.

Because “who is he” only describes an existing identity. The questions truly relevant to the Self are dynamic: What is he trying to escape? Who is he trying to become?

Take a 45-year-old man. The traditional profile: first-tier city, upper-middle income, corporate manager, married with children. Practically useless.

Persona research would go a step further: he needs maturity, quality, a sense of status.

But the Self perspective would ask: Has he grown tired of the “mature and steady” role? Which parts of himself that never had the chance to be lived out are now surfacing? What does he most want to escape right now — the constraints of being a father, of being a boss, or of his age? When he buys a given product, is he reinforcing his existing self, or temporarily escaping it?

The variables of consumer research have thus changed.

This yields a very important new judgment: don’t just study “who the consumer is” — study “who the consumer is leaving behind, and who they are becoming.”

That is the first judgment tool you can take away.

Following this logic downward, JTBD (Jobs To Be Done) also needs to go one level deeper.

JTBD usually asks: what job does the consumer hire this product to do? Buying coffee isn’t buying coffee — it’s hired to keep you alert. Buying a diamond ring isn’t buying a diamond — it’s hired to confirm a relationship. Psychological JTBD goes further and asks: what feeling does he hope to gain, what psychological job is he trying to complete?

But through Jung’s theory, this insight can go down yet another level.

Some consumption is not about getting a thing done — it is about completing a personality task.

For example: I want to prove I am no longer who I used to be. I want to step away from the “boss” identity for a while. I want to allow myself to be young again. I want to confirm that I still have the power to choose. I want to make myself a more interesting person.

Here the product is completing not a functional job, and not merely an emotional job, but a job of personality migration.

So the JTBD model can be extended downward:

Functional Job: I need to get something done.

Emotional Job: I want to obtain a certain feeling.

Identity Job: I want to confirm who I am.

Becoming Job: I want to try becoming another version of myself.

This last layer is the genuinely new variable that Self theory gives us. It is not a relabeling, because it leads to completely different product design.

V.

Once we reach this layer, we can even redraw the map of consumer behavior.

Industries used to be classified by category: liquor, cars, apparel, travel, gaming, sports. But viewed through the Self, a different map emerges.

First: reinforcement consumption. The consumer is reinforcing an existing identity. A boss buys a watch befitting a boss; a business professional wears a tailored suit. This is the Persona being fortified.

Second: escape consumption. The consumer wants to leave their existing identity for a while. The executive goes off-roading on weekends; the father plays video games at night; the office worker changes into streetwear after hours and heads to a live-music club. This is not “neglecting one’s proper duties” — it is temporarily taking off the mask.

Third: compensatory consumption. The consumer wants to recover what was never lived out. A forty-year-old man buys the sneakers he couldn’t afford at eighteen — he wears them not for the outfit, but to make it up to the younger self who once stood outside the shop window. In Jungian theory this is close to the compensation of the Shadow — the suppressed parts now demanding to surface.

Fourth: exploratory consumption. The consumer doesn’t yet know what they truly like, but wants to try. Diving, camping, hiking, music festivals, photography. This is the Self exploring — he doesn’t already know “I am an outdoors person”; he just wants to find out whether that outdoors self is really him.

Fifth: transformational consumption. The consumer uses a ritual to tell themselves: the previous chapter is over. Traveling after a divorce, buying a motorcycle after retirement, renovating the house after the children leave home. In psychology this is called an identity transition.

You see — by this point, Jung is no longer merely “explaining a phenomenon.” He is becoming a classification model for consumer behavior.

And once this model is established, brand strategy has to change with it.

VI.

Suppose you are facing Persona consumption — reinforcement consumption. What is the most effective move for a brand? Give the identity a clear symbol. “The choice of successful people.” “What professionals use.” “A lifestyle that belongs to the elite.” Because what the consumer needs is identity confirmation, all you have to do is confirm it.

But if you are facing Self-driven exploratory consumption, this kind of language backfires. The consumer is preparing to escape definition — and here you come, defining him again.

So the correct move becomes: lower the barrier to entry, and expand the room for trial and error.

Rentable. Try-before-you-buy. Small sizes. Short commitments. Beginner-friendly. Easy to exit. Modular. Personally configurable.

Why? Because the consumer doesn’t already know “I am an outdoors person” — he just wants to find out whether that outdoors self is really him.

So a very important product principle of the Self era is: don’t require the consumer to embrace an identity before buying the product; let him experience the product first, and discover the identity afterward.

And once the product principle changes, the way you speak to the outside world has to change too.

Communication must change accordingly. Persona-era communication was “proclamation”: here is who you are, here is what success means, here is what premium means, here is the standard answer. Big brands had to stand on high and speak with the voice of authority.

Self-era communication is closer to “invitation”: Want to give it a try? You could do this too. There is no standard answer. Another kind of life is available to you.

From “this is the correct life” to “so life can be lived this way too.” The former is definition; the latter is opening up possibility.

It’s not just product and communication — even the starting point of innovation is different now.

In the past, when developing new products, the question was: what function is the consumer still missing? Doesn’t wash clean enough? Not fast enough? Not enough flavors? That is the functional gap. Later, the question became: what emotion is the consumer missing? Comfort? Ease? Companionship? A sense of ritual? That is the emotional gap.

If we follow the Self one level further down, the question becomes: within the consumer’s current personality structure, which part has no outlet?

Do adults have a legitimate outlet for being childish? Does a father get two hours of “not being Dad”? Does a professional woman have a setting where she doesn’t need to be “polished”? Does a middle-aged man have a consumption space where he doesn’t have to be mature? Do young people have a brand that doesn’t demand ambition?

This is a genuinely new product-innovation question: not what function the consumer lacks, but which part of themselves has nowhere to live. If this question holds, it can directly generate new categories.

VII.

If the judgments above hold, then whenever you see any consumption phenomenon from now on, you can ask four questions.

Question one: What Persona is this consumer performing? Who does society require him to be? A 42-year-old corporate executive is assigned the roles of maturity, steadiness, rationality, responsibility. That is his mask.

Question two: What is this Persona costing him? Which desires, emotions, and parts of his personality have been pushed down? He may have lost the right to be “childish,” the right to be “uncertain,” the right to “not care about anything.”

Question three: Is this purchase reinforcing the Persona, or escaping it? The same person’s different consumption behaviors may correspond to entirely different personality tasks. When he buys a Patek Philippe, he is fortifying the “successful person” mask. When he rides his motorcycle into the mountains on the weekend, he is temporarily taking the mask off. The motivations behind these two acts are completely different, and the product design and communication that serve them should be completely different too.

Question four: What “new version of themselves” is the consumer actually buying? Through this purchase, who do they hope to confirm? To escape? To try on? To become?

Answer these four questions, and you can go far deeper than “this is self-indulgent consumption.”

VIII.

So let’s return to the opening question: what are consumers really consuming for today?

The answer is not “they’ve become more rational,” not “more emotional,” and not “more self-indulgent.” All of that describes the surface.

The real change is that the power structure of consumption is moving from a Persona monopoly toward the coexistence of Persona and Self.

The Persona will never disappear. People will always need social identity, will always need masks. But in the past, the Persona was almost the sole driver of consumption. A brand only needed to answer one question: “How should I make others see me?”

Now consumers have added a checkpoint. In the chain of “society defines → brand encodes → consumer buys,” a new gate has appeared in the middle: “Is this really what I want?”

That single checkpoint changes everything.

It changes how you study consumers: from “who he is” to “who he is leaving behind, and who he is becoming.”

It changes how you classify needs: from category classification to personality-task classification.

It changes how you design products: from “giving identity a symbol” to “giving exploration an entrance.”

It changes how you tell brand stories: from “buy me, and you are somebody” to “use me, and you can become the self you want to try.”

But one final question remains: when Persona and Self coexist, how does a brand judge whether a consumer, in a specific purchase scenario, is managing the Persona or exploring the Self?

The criterion comes down to a single line: in this purchase, is he trying to be seen by others, or to feel something for himself?

If the former, give him certainty and symbols. If the latter, give him possibility and an entrance.

The same consumer buying a suit in the morning is the former; buying camping gear that evening, the latter. A brand cannot play the whole game with one script.

So the truly formidable brands of the future will not choose between Persona and Self. They will serve both coordinate systems at once — giving consumers an identity that others can see, and giving them a new version of life that they themselves can experience.