Consumer's personality and brand choice

Orth Ulrich in his article consumer personality and other factors in situational brand choice variation in the journal of brand management emphasize on what benefits a consumer is looking for in order to make a choice about a product or a brand. Consumer-perceived or desired brand benefits have been classified into six dimensions: quality/performance, price/value for money, social, emotional, environmental and health benefits. These benefits are le main cause of a brand selection. A brand selection is usually influence by two factors: informational influence; given by the marketing agent, and interpersonal influence; our personality.

The benefits that a consumer is looking for in the product fall into the definition of “personality”. The psychologists define personality as the sum total of the physical, mental, emotional, and social characteristics of an individual.in other words, a consumer selects a brand or product based on the relationship the attributes of the brand or product  have with his/her personality. A person is generally looking for a product that reflects oneself.  This phenomenon is also observed at the stage of adolescence. The teenagers try to step out from the crowd and being unique by dressing up a certain way and using certain types of products.

Jennifer Baumgartner in her book You Are What You Wear: What Your Clothes Reveal about You, tells how a product, a brand or you way of dressing reflects your personality. In the book Consumer Behavior, the author said that the marketers use the concept of personality in brand communication by presenting some symbolic personality meaning to hit their desired target market. They also select carefully the person promoting the brand. This person has to reflect the personality related to that specific brand. Let’s take few examples. Victoria’s Secret by its colors, its fashion models and the stores design reflects sexuality. When women want to enhance their self-esteem, feel, and look sexy, Victoria’s Secret stores are one of the places they want to go shopping.

Also when you walk into a mall, there are different types of stores; GAP for kids, bakers for fancy shoes, Louboutin for Luxurious shoes. These different types of stores represent different personalities. For example, forever 21 customers are mostly young girls. Agaci’s clothing style is mostly designed for night clubs. Gucci, Hermes, Coco Channel, Cartier, and other luxurious brand are designed for people of high social class level. 

the ladies at the front can be seen as marketing agents or sales representatives. This type of service is generally available in elegant and prestigious stores. It tells a lot about the target market and the customers of this type of store and brand.

Work cited

Avery , Jill, Sharon Beatty, Morris Holbrook, and Robert Kozinets. Consumer Behavior Human Pursuit of Happiness in the Worl of Goods. 2. Open Mentis, 2010. 136. Print.

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Orth, Ulrich. "Consumer personality and other factors in situational brand choice variation." Journal of Brand Management. 13.2 (Nov2005): 115-133. Print.

KELLER'S BRAND EQUITY MODEL

Brands represent enormously valuable pieces of legal property, capable of influencing consumer behavior, being bought and sold, and providing the security of sustained future revenues to their owner. The value directly or indirectly accrued by these various benefits is often called brand equity (Kapferer, 2005; Keller, 2003).

The figure below illustraes the four steps that you need to follow to  build strong brand equity.

Brand Equity Pyramid

From Kevin Lane Keller's Brand Resonance Model
from Strategic Brand Management (1998 & 2002, Prentice Hall)

Step 1: Salience: Brand Identity “Who are you?”

The brand has to be known. The consumers have to be aware of the existence and the availability of the product of service. Assure that the target market can recall and recognize the brand or product.

Step 2: Performance and Imagery “What are you?”

Performance is measures by the reliability and durability of the product, the service effectiveness and efficiency, and by the price. Performance is what makes the consumers select a particular brand over others.

Imagery meets consumers’ needs on social and psychological level by the consumers’ experience or by word to mouth.

Step 3: brand response “What about you?

Consumers respond to a brand by judgments of the actual or perceived quality, satisfaction, credibility, consideration, and superiority.

Customers also respond to your brand according to how it makes them feel. Your brand can evoke feelings directly, but they also respond emotionally to how a brand makes them feel about themselves. According to the model, there are six positive brand feelings: warmth, fun, excitement, security, social approval, and self-respect.

Step 4: Resonance or Equity “What about you and me?”

You have achieved brand resonance when your customers feel a deep, psychological bond with your brand. There are four components of brand resonance.

• Behavioral loyalty: This includes regular, repeat purchases.
• Attitudinal attachment: a customer’s sense that they would miss a brand if it disappeared. The consumers love the brand and see it as a special purchase.
• A sense of community, in which a customer’s attachment extends to the company itself, or to other people associated with the brand.
• Active engagement: This is the strongest example of brand loyalty. Customers are actively engaged with your brand, even when they are not purchasing it or consuming it. This could include joining a club related to the brand; participating in online chats, marketing rallies, or events; following your brand on social media; or taking part in other, outside activities.

Professor Kevin Keller, of Dartmouth College, lists the following seven benefits of brand equity:

1. Be perceived differently and produce different interpretations of product performance.
2. Enjoy greater loyalty and be less vulnerable to competitive marketing actions.
3. Command larger margins and have more inelastic responses to price increases and elastic responses to price decreases.
4. Receive greater trade cooperation and support.
5. Increase marketing communication effectiveness.
6. Yield licensing opportunities.
7. Support brand extension.

Citations:

http://www.marketingresearch.org/brand-equity-models

http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/keller-brand-equity-model.htm

keller, kevin. Brand Equity Model. 1998. Image. google.comWeb. 22 Oct 2013.

Keller, Kevin. "Brand Resonance as a Strategic Measurement Tool." Journal of Marketing. (2010): n. page. Web. 22 Oct. 2013. <http://www.marketingpower.com/ResourceLibrary/Documents/Whitepapers/Brand Resonance as a Strategic Measurement Tool.pdf>.