Personality 1

Consumer and Brand Personality

Professor Aditi Bajaj
Consumer Behavior
Fall 2014
Scheller College of Business
Personality 2
The Nature of Personality
Definition
Inner psychological characteristics that both determine and
reflect how a person responds to his or her environment

Some key properties
Reflects individual differences
Consistent and enduring , but
Personality can change


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Using Personality Information
Utilized together with individuals choice of leisure
activities, social views, aesthetic tastes, other individual
factors:
Reach out to the right people (segmentation)
Change strategy based on characteristics of target market
(positioning)
To develop entirely new offerings



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Two Major Approaches to Personality
Freudian and neo-Freudian theory
Unconscious needs or drives are at the heart of human
motivation

Trait theory
Quantitative approach to personality as a set of psychological
traits
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Freudian Theory in a Nutshell
Id
Warehouse of primitive or instinctual needs
for which individual seeks immediate
satisfaction
pleasure principle

Superego
Individuals internal expression of societys
moral and ethical codes of conduct

Ego
Individuals conscious control that balances
the demands of the id and superego
reality principle
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Motivational Research
Outgrowth of psychoanalytic/Freudian theory
Popularized w/in marketing in 1950s by Dr. Ernest Dichter
Research procedures designed to identify consumers
subconscious feelings, beliefs, underlying motivations
Consist of a variety of disguised projective tests
Based on premise that individuals are not always aware (or
willing to reveal) their motivations

Examples:
Storytelling, word association, sentence completion
metaphor analysis, etc.


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Classic Example: Rorschach Inkblot
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What has led up to
the event shown?

What is happening
at the moment?

What are the
characters feeling
and thinking?

What is the
outcome of the
story?
Classic Example:
Thematic Apperception Test
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Trait Theory
Personality traits: enduring and stable patterns of behavior,
attitudes, emotions, that vary between individuals.

Some broad trait-based theories:
Eysenck Model (P-E-N) link
Psychoticism, extroversion, neuroticism
Cattells 16 Factors link
The Big Five (OCEAN) link
Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion,
Agreeableness, Neuroticism
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Traits Linked to Consumer Behavior
Some traits linked to consumer behavior:
Need for Uniqueness
Self-Consciousness
Materialism
Variety Seeking / Novelty Seeking
Innovativeness
Need for Cognition (NFC)

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Need for Uniqueness
Measures desire to avoid conforming to expectations
or standards of others
Sample items link

Implications for consumer behavior?
How might marketers use this knowledge?
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Need for Cognition
Measures the extent to which people engage in and enjoy
effortful cognitive activities. Persons scoring high on the
scale intrinsically enjoy thinking, whereas persons
scoring low on the scale tend to avoid effortful cognitive
work.
Sample items:
Item # 3: Thinking is not my idea of fun.
Item # 18: I usually end up deliberating about issues even when they do not
affect me personally.

Implications/uses for marketers?
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Limitations of Personality Approaches
Personality measures have been problematic for
predicting particular behaviors
Level of specificity problem
Situational influences are also powerful
People act inconsistently in different situations

May be best thought of as a moderator of the effects
of other variables
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Brand Personality: Brand Analogies
Imagine that this brand is a person. What would he/she be like?
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Brand Personality
Set of human-like traits people attribute to a brand.
For instance, Pepsi is often perceived by consumers as more
young, Coke as more real and honest, Dr. Pepper as
more non-conformist and fun
If [brand X] was a person, what kind of person would it be?
Rooted in basic tendency of anthropomorphism i.e. the
attribution of uniquely human characteristics to nonhumans
A brand with a well-defined personality can serve as a vehicle
of consumer self-expression.
Can also be understood as a subset of brand image.

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How is Brand Personality Created?
A brands personality is determined by any direct and
indirect brand contact
In a direct transfer, the personality traits of the people
associated with the brand- such as the brands user imagery,
the companys employees or CEO, and the brand endorsers-
are transferred directly to the brand.


Indirect transfer occurs through product category
associations, brand name, logo, advertising style, price and
distribution channel.
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Role of Advertising Elements
Consumers may draw inferences from
behaviors enacted by brand characters, mascots (e.g., the
California Raisins, the Pillsbury Doughboy, the Green Giant,
or Tony the Tiger)
brand names (e.g., Mr. Kleen or Mrs. Fields) which conjure
up imagery of real people
executional elements (e.g., music, typography, color scheme)
symbols such as logos



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Role of Advertising Elements (contd)
Geography (actual or fictitious)
Color
black = sophisticated, red = exciting, blue = respectable
Use of spokesperson, endorser, mascot
Direct transfer of personality traits



Dos Equis Geico BK
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Customers will Infer Traits from
Marketing Actions!
Brand Action Trait Inference
Repositioned several times or changes slogan
repeatedly
Flighty, schizophrenic
Uses continuing character /symbol in advertising Familiar, comfortable
Charges high prices and/or uses exclusive
distribution
Snobbish, sophisticated
Frequently available on deal Cheap, uncultured
Offers numerous line extensions Versatile, adaptable
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Consumer Response to Brand
Personality
Consumers choose brands with appealing personalities
in an attempt to affirm and enhance their actual self,
ideal self or specific dimensions of the self
For example, when a confidently held self-view (e.g., I am
an exciting person) is temporarily cast in doubt by primes,
consumers are more motivated to choose brands with
exciting brand personalities (Gao, Wheeler, and Shiv 2009)

Role of attachment style

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Aakers Five-Factor Brand
Personality Framework
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Aakers Brand Personality
Framework (contd)
Aaker factor analyzed the individual ratings of 40
brands on 114 personality traits by 631 respondents
recruited in the United States.

Strengths of Aakers framework:
it is generalizable across product categories;
it has been validated by other researchers who have
confirmed the number and nature of these dimensions and
it is generalizable across cultures


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Consumer Lifestyles
Definition
Patterns of consumption reflecting choices about
how one spends time and money

Lifestyle marketing perspective:
People sort themselves into groups on the basis of:
What they like to do with their time
Topics they view as important and interesting
How they spend disposable income
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Most popular proprietary measure:
VALS2 (Value and Lifestyle Survey)
Classifies consumers into eight major segments using two
underlying dimensions:
Motivations: ideals (principles-oriented), achievement
(status-oriented), or self-expression (action-oriented)
Resources: determined by age, income, education,
energy, self-confidence, intellectualism, novelty seeking,
innovativeness, impulsiveness, leadership, etc.
Psychographics: Combining
Values, Personality, and Lifestyles
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VALS-Based
Segmentation
Consumers who are primarily
motivated by ideals are guided by
knowledge and principles.
Consumers who are primarily
motivated by achievement look for
products and services that
demonstrate success.
Consumers who are primarily
motivated by self-expression desire
social or physical activity, variety,
and risk.
Ability to act on motivation
depends on resources
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For next class:
Exam Review
Bring your textbook!