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Got to Get you into my Life: Do brands Personalities Rub off on Consumers
-Brand personality often differentiates a brand from competitors, and it is appealing to consumers who
wish to express, affirm, or enhance their sense of self.
-Research shows that consumers often prefer and choose brands with appealing personalities in an
attempt to affirm and enhance their sense of self.
Conceptual Background
Implicit Self-Theories
Incremental theory Entity Theory
-View their personal qualities as malleable, which -Believe that their personal qualities are fixed,
they can improve through their own efforts. which they cannot improve through their own direct
efforts.
-Believe that their personal qualities can be -View personal qualities as something they cannot
improved if they exert effort to do so, they seek out change by their direct efforts to learn, improve, or
ways to become a better person through grow. In order to enhance the self, they seek out
opportunities for learning, self-improvement, and opportunities to signal their positive qualities to the
growth self or others.
-Perceive the self in a more positive way through -Perceive the self in a more positive way through
self-improvement opportunities. opportunities to signal positive qualities to the self
or others
Implicit Self-theories and Brand Personalities
-Incremental theorists are unlikely to feel more -Using a brand association with appealing
positive about themselves just because the brand personality traits provides entity theorists with an
has a desirable personality. opportunity to signal that they possess the same
appealing personality traits as the brand.
-Signaling one’s personal qualities through
appealing brand personalities does not match their
approach to self-enhancement.
-Incremental theorists have resources to deal with -Entity theorists are pessimistic about
self-threats. self-improvement, which reduces the emotional and
psychological resources to cope with negative
self-views.
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Study Graph Results
1.Conducted in a Entity Theorists perceived themselves as
shopping mall, where better looking, more feminine, and more
female consumers were glamorous after using a Victoria’s Secret
given the opportunity to bag.
use a Victoria’s Secret
shopping bag or a plain Incremental Theorists were not affected by
pink bag. the shopping bag they carried.
2.MBA students who Entity Theorists perceived themselves to be
were given the more intelligent, harder working, and more of
opportunity to use an MIT a leader (traits associated with MIT) than
pen for a period of 6 entity theorists who used the regular pen.
weeks or a regular pen.
Incremental Theorists the type of pen used
did not affect self-perceptions on these traits.
3.Female students used a Entity Theorists- participants who read an
Victoria’s Secret shopping article promoting entity theory perceived
bag or a plain pink themselves to be better-looking, more
shopping bag to collect feminine, and more glamorous after using a
items during a treasure Victoria’s Secret shopping bag
hunt.
-They were manipulated Incremental Theorists- participants who
by reading an article read an article promoting incremental theory
presenting views about were not influenced by using the bag they
entity theory or used.
incremental theory.
People can be persuaded
to adopt a particular
mind-set.
4. Undergraduate Entity Theorists faced with self-threat, entity
students solved a set of theorists used an MIT pen to recover their
math problems and threatened self. Entity theorists who used an
received negative MIT pen perceived themselves as more
feedback on their intelligent, hardworking, and a leader than
performance (self threat). entity theorists who used a regular pen.
They were then given an
opportunity to use an MIT Incremental Theorists incremental theorists
pen or a regular pen for a recovered their threatened self regardless of
subsequent task. the pen they used.
, The Future of Brands and Branding: An Essay on Multiplicity, Heterogeneity and
Integration
-Brands come in many forms and perform multiple roles and functions for a variety of different types of
individuals and organizations. Focusing on companies or non-profits marketing to consumers, this
essay speculates on the future of branding in five main areas: 1.Brand Elements; 2. Brand Drivers;
3.Brand Meaning; 4.Consumer Heterogeneity; 4.Consumer Insights
-Across these five areas, the main theme that emerges is that branding is increasingly being defined
both by multiplicity, in terms of what marketers can do, and by heterogeneity, in terms of the
consumers being marketed to.
Brand -Marketers will increasingly develop dynamic multi-dimensional brand elements
Elements and trademarks, and be more flexible in how they are used.
-Fueled by technological advances marketers will profoundly change the manner
by which they build and grow their brands.
Brand Drivers -To better satisfy consumers' needs, marketers will develop systems and
platforms that span traditional product and service categories.
-Marketers will skillfully integrate multiple channels of distribution and
communication - balancing their strengths and weaknesses and leveraging the
synergies - to better inform, persuade and sell their products.
-To strengthen consumer loyalty and engagement, marketers will increasingly
add a rich set of intangibles to their brands.
Brand -Marketers will find meaningful ways to tap into their past, define their present
Meaning and map out their future with consumers
.
-Marketers will create value-laden emotions and experiences and tie all of this
together with compelling brand stories and narratives.
-Marketers will better appreciate individual differences across consumers and
Consumer develop more effective marketing programs across key market segments.
Heterogeneity
-Marketers will also be guided by individual differences in finding appropriate
ways to increase personalization and customization.
-Marketers will assemble a more complete set of brand metrics and methods to
achieve a deeper and broader understanding of how consumers think, feel and
act towards brands.
Consumer
insights -Marketers will accurately profile brand meaning and depict consumer decision
journeys on an individual and aggregate basis.
-Marketers will learn to respect privacy concerns and use data in an ethically
sound, managerially productive and mutually rewarding way.
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