How brands define consumers:

the impacts of values and identity

on consumption and buying
Are you what you buy?

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education 7-2

We choose
some products
because:
1. we think they are
consistent with
our actual self; or
2. we think they help
us reach our ideal
standard (many
products and
services appeal to
our fantasies).
• Marketers try to develop a gap between real
and ideal body image and motivate people to
purchase products and services to narrow this
gap.
 Social
comparison
• Exposure to adds
can trigger a process
of social
comparison, in
which the person
tries to evaluate her
appearance by
comparing it to the
people depicted in
artificial images of
adds.
 Comparing actual self to ideal self
• Comparing some aspects of self to an ideal influences self-
esteem.
Examples:
– Do I make as much money as I should?
– Am I as good-looking as I would like to be?

• The ideal self is a person’s conception of how he would like

to be

• The actual self refers to our more realistic appraisal of the

qualities we do and don’t have.
The way we think about ourselves and the way
our culture tells us we should think is a key
component of self-esteem.
 Social
comparison
• Exposure to adds
can trigger a process
of social
comparison, in
which the person
tries to evaluate her
appearance by
comparing it to the
people depicted in
artificial images of
adds.
The way we think about ourselves and the way
our culture tells us we should think is a key
component of self-esteem.
 Self-consciousness
• Some people seem to be more sensitive in general to the image
they communicate to others (i.e. they are more self-conscious)

• Self-consciousness: A heightened concern about the nature of

one’s public image

• Self-consciousness results in more concern about the social

appropriateness of products and consumption activities.
Example:
• Consumers with high level of self-consciousness are more
interested in clothing and use more cosmetics
 Symbolic interactionism

Symbolic interactionism stresses that

relationships with other people play a large part
in forming the self.
 The Looking-glass Self
• Like the distorted mirrors in a funhouse,
our appraisal of who we are varies
depending on:
– whose perspective we consider, and
– how accurately we predict their evaluations of
us.
 Symbolic interactionism
• In a given situation, each of us pose the questions:
– Who am I in this situation?
– Who do other people think I am?

• We tend to pattern our behaviour on the

perceived expectations of others as a form of self-
fulfilling prophecy (we act the way we assume
others expect us to act).
 Dramaturgical perspective
• Dramaturgical perspective on consumer behaviour
views people as actors who play different roles.

• Each role has its own scripts, props and costumes!

• The self has different role identities (components)

and only some of these roles are active at any
given time.
 Multiple
selves
• Depending on the situation, we
act differently, and use different
products and services.

Example:
• A woman may choose an
understated perfume when she
plays her professional self, but
wear something more
provocative on Saturday night as
she transitions to her femme
fatale self.
 Marketing implications
• Marketers pitch products needed to facilitate
active role identities

Sister

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education 7-18

 Marketing implications
• A marketer may want to ensure that the appropriate role
identity is active before she pitches products that
customers need to play a particular role.

• One way to do this, is to place advertising messages in

contexts in which people are more likely to be well aware
of that role identity.

Example:
• Handing out free samples of fortified drinks to runners at a
marathon.
 The extended self
• Props and settings consumers use to define their social roles are called
extended self.

• Extended self are external objects that we consider them part of us (e.g. high
heels, cars, pets, …)

• They are objects that help us to form our identity.

• They are objects that influence our self concept.

Examples:
• Usually we can construct a pretty accurate biography of someone when we
catalogue the items he/she displays in his office or bedroom.
• One might feel smarter if he/she wears a T-shirt with a logo of a reputable
university!
 Four levels of extended self
• Individual level (jewellery, cars, clothing, …)
• Family level (consumer’s residence and
furnishing)
• Community level (neighbourhood, town, …)
• Group level (attachments to certain social
groups e.g. sports team)
People can construct digital versions of
their selves online.

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education 7-22

 Digital self
• Digital self expresses our online identity.

• The growth of real-time, interactive virtual worlds allow us to assume

virtual identities (avatars) in cyberspace.

• Virtual worlds allow us to engineer our identity and modify our online
persona at will (digital identity management).

Interesting research question:

• How do digital selves influence consumer behaviour?
• How identities we choose in virtual world relate to our real life identities?
• Are we as self-conscious as we are in our real life when we are in a
computer-mediated environment?
 Personality
• A person’s unique psychological makeup which influences
the way a person responds to the environment.

• Some psychologist argue that the concept of personality may

not be valid.

• Some studies find that people do not seem to exhibit stable

and coherent personality.

• They argue that people might act differently in different

situations.
 Modern View: Personality as a dynamic
system
• Cognitive units
• Affective units
• Psychological needs
• Appraisal and self-reflective processes

Personality
system
Traditional Views: Freudian Systems
 Freudian Systems
According to Freud, three systems influence behaviour:

• Id (our basic desire to maximise pleasure an minimise pain)

guides our behaviour. Our id directs us towards pleasurable
acts without considering consequences.

• Superego: This system internalizes society’s rules. It

considers right and wrongs and norms.

• Ego: This system finds ways to gratify the id that the outside
world will find acceptable.
 Implications for marketing
• The influence of these conflicting systems on our
behaviour highlights the potential importance of
unconscious motives that guide our purchases.

• Ego relies on the symbolism of products to compromise

between the demands of id and the prohibitions of
superego.

• The person channels her unacceptable desires into

acceptable outlets when she uses products that signify
these underlying desires.
 Example:
• An Infiniti ad reinforces the belief that cars symbolically satisfy
consumer’s sexual needs in addition to their functional ones
when it describes one model as:

“what happens when you cross sheet metal and desire”.

• The message is that Infiniti is really a sexy car!

• The ad reinforces that cars are supposed to express our

innermost desires.
 Neo-Freudian Theories
• Karen Horney
– Compliant; versus detached; versus aggressive
(tendency to maintain relationships)
• Alfred Adler
– Motivation to overcome inferiority
• Harry Stack Sullivan
– Personality evolves to reduce anxiety
• Carl Jung
– Developed analytical psychology

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education 7-30

 Neo-Freudian theories
Trait theory

• This approach to personality focuses on the quantitative

measurement of personality traits (stable and identifiable
characters that define a person).

• Researchers study relevant personify traits may influence

consumer behaviour.

Examples:
• Influence of extraversion, frugality, or innovativeness, self-
consciousness on purchase behaviour
 Big Five
• One of the most widely recognized approaches to
measuring personality traits is the so called Big Five.
Big Five is a set of five dimensions that form the basis
of personality.

– Openness to experience (openness to new things),

– Conscientiousness (need for structure),
– Extraversion,
– Agreeableness (accepting other’s opinions or decisions), and
– Neuroticism (ability to cope with stress)
 Table 7.4

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education 7-33

 Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
• Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is a personality test
based on Carl Jung’s work.

• It classifies people into 16 categories based upon

whether they fall into one group on these
dimensions:
– Focus on attention (introversion/extraversion)
– Information processing (sensing/intuition)
– Decision making (thinking/feeling)
– Dealing with the outer world (Judging/perceiving)
 Implications for marketing
• Trait theories might help consumer behaviour
researchers to segment market according to
their traits.

• This might help marketers to personalize their

products and services for a specific segment,
and create brand personalities that appeal to
different types of customers.
 Modern approaches towards personality

• More Modern approaches towards personality

put a lot of weight on context-specificity of this
concept.

• They conceptualise personality as a dynamic

system (including cognitive-affective units and
processes) which functions differently in different
situations (different chronic units and processes
might be active in different situations).
 Implications for marketing
• Trait theories might help consumer behaviour
researchers to segment market according to
their traits.

• This might help marketers to personalize their

products and services for a specific segment,
and create brand personalities that appeal to
different types of customers.
 Value
• Value is that ultimate state that you want to
rich.

• Value system is priorities of goals.

 Core values
• Not everyone will indorse universal values equally.

• Nonetheless, it is usually possible to identify a

generic set of core values that uniquely define a
culture.

• Example:
– Core values of Japanese: Security and safety
– Core value of Americans: Achievement, materialism,
freedom, youthfulness, and activity
• Example of culture’s value system:

– Koreans put a lot of weight on family integrity,

collective goals, feeling of harmony with others

– Americans put a lot of weight on self-reliance,

improvement, and achievement of personal goals
There can be two
different ways of
talking to this kid!
• How do you convince your kid to eat his
food?
• If you come from the western world:
• You might say:
• If you eat the vegetable, you become bigger,
stronger, taller!
• You are emphasizing what makes that kid
unique and different from others.
• If you look at what people say in collectivist
cultures, in the East:
• Think about how upset Mummy and Daddy
is tat you are not eating your food!
• By doing this you start on insisting on
connections!
Advertisement for a collectivist culture
Advertisement for an individualistic culture
 Examples:

– U.S. ads are youth-oriented whereas Chinese ads

stress wisdom of older people.
– U.S. ads present facts about products and
suggestions from credible authorities, whereas
Chinese ads focus on emotional appeals
Examples of relying on broad-based values
in ads:
– https://www.adlibbing.org/2017/08/23/seniors-st
eal-the-spotlight-in-these-6-inspiring-ads/

– https://www.forbes.com/sites/ajagrawal/2015/12
/21/10-examples-of-ads-that-pull-on-emotion/#20
13178e15f8
 Types of value
• Broad-based cultural values (freedom,
security, inner harmony)
• Consumption-specific (e.g. prompt service,
convenient shopping) or product-specific (e.g.
ease of use, durability) values
Table 3.1 Terminal & Instrumental Values

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education 3-47

 Measuring Value
The Means-End Chain Model

• Assumes that people link product attribute to terminal

values.

• We value products to the extent that they provide the

means to some end that we desire.

• Hierarchical value maps show how a specific product

attribute links to end state (a terminal value)
 The Means-End Chain Model
An Example of a Hierarchical value map:

Terminal
pleasure independence
values

Product Clear information Easy to use fun

attributes