Compare and contrast marketing of a product that is typicall

Compare and contrast marketing of a product that is typically bought with Discretionary Income (or stored/saved wealth) as opposed to a product bought with Disposable Income.

Solution

Disposable income is the income available after paying taxes and discretionary income is income available after paying the expenses that is required to meet a certain standard of living.

For the disposable income, the products that are generally included are the essential products such as food items, cleaning supplies, travel expenses, telecommunications, etc. For these products, the companies selling these products try to emphasize their importance in the person\'s everyday life. For example, a product such as a household car would market itself as a basic requirement for any individual or a family showing family friendly ads. On the other hand, a luxury car maker would not show its product as a daily necessity but rather a luxury product based on the assumption that only a few of target audience can actually afford it.

For a discretionary item, the marketing is more competitive. Luxury and non-essential items fall into this category. For example, a product such as the I-phone, the marketing approach generally involves feature based ads which show luxury. A person with a higher discretionary income would be able to afford more such items.