Let’s take an example. The luxury sector, fashion in particular, has increasingly become a key theater for umami. Throughout the history of human civilization, luxury was premised on being expensive, meaning it resulted from investing an unreasonable amount of work, material or other scarce resources into the making of a thing.

Many people like myself who teach marketing start the course by saying, ‘We’re not about manipulating consumers, we’re about discovering needs and meeting them,’ ” said Eric Johnson of Columbia University. “And then, if you’re in the field awhile, you realize, yes, we can manipulate consumers.