Chasing the Dream and Buying the Promise in a Conceptual Framework for Consumer Decision-Making

The American dream is a concept that is echoed across our society, and while the data show Americans do not overwhelmingly believe in the dream, marketers continue to pair it and the issue of economic prosperity in their agendas. Through a novel framework that overlaps a deeply studied mass communication theory with a decision-making framework used in marketing, this paper demonstrates a new lens to understand how marketers identify strategies and tactics, build agendas, and make sales by touting the American dream. As separate entities, decision-making models and agenda setting theory are powerful, but together can create an environment that is powerfully persuasive. The conceptual model presented in this paper helps to visualize these interconnected processes in a way that has not been done before in today’s modern media landscape. This model is an important visualization of the power marketers have when they build strategies and plan tactics to move an individual down the path of purchase.