Learning Objectives
How personality reflects consumers’ inner differences
Views of various theories explaining the impact of
personality on Consumers’ Attitudes & Behavior
How Personality reflects consumers’ responses to product
& marketing messages
How marketers seek to create brand personalities-like
traits.
How Products & Services Enhances consumers self-Image
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Understand how personality reflects consumers’
inner differences.
Personality
The Nature of Personality
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Personality
Personality is defined as those inner psychological
characteristics that both determine and reflect how a person
responds to his or her environment
Personality influences the individual product choices & even
certain brand choices. The consumer response to a firm’s
promotional efforts, and when, where, & the reaction of
particular products or services on consumers. For marketers
its highly useful with regards to consumer personality
characteristics for the development of a firm market
segmentation strategies.
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Examples: Tiffany's (famous jewelry & gift retailer) appeal
to individualism (headline: ‘’Every women has a
signature’’)
Clairol Ultress (hair color) appeal to the inner self
(headline: “New Ultress lets express your inner Feelings)
Samsara’s (fragrance) appeal to confidence (headline: “A
look inside. Serenity born of confidence”)
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Nature of Personality
1-Personality reflects individual differences:
Many people can be described as “High” in sociability while
others can be described as “Low” in sociability. It enables
marketers to categorize consumers into different groups on
the basis of a single trait or a few trait
2-Personality is Consistent & Enduring:
Individual’s personality showing consistent, consumption
behavior often varies because of psychological, socio-
cultural,& environmental factors affecting behavior. If an
individual personality is stable, the specific needs or motives,
attitudes, reactions or group pressures, and even responses to
newly available brands may cause a change in the person’s
behavior
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3-Personality can Change:
Individual’s personality may be altered by major life events,
such as the birth of a child, the death of loved one, a divorce,
or a major career promotion. An individual’s personality
changes not only in response to unexpected events, but also
as part of a gradual maturing process
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Views of various theories explaining the impact of
personality on Consumers’ Attitudes & Behavior
Freudian Theory
Neo-Freudian Theory
Trait Theory
‘’These Theories played a prominent role in the study of
the relationship between consumer behavior &
personality’’
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Freudian Theory
This theory was built on the unconscious needs or drives,
especially sexual & other biological drives, are the heart
of human motivation and personality
Id: It is the basic physiological needs such as thirst &
hunger for which seeks immediate satisfaction without
concern for the specific means of satisfaction
Super Ego: Its role is to see that the individual satisfies
needs in a socially acceptable fashion
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Ego: The ego is individual conscious control. It provides
balance between Id & Super ego
Freudian theory & Product personality
People are usually unaware of their true reasons for
buying what they buy
One appearance –how well groomed one is, what one
wears, carries and displays – are taken to reflect the
individual’s personality
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Neo-Freudian Personality Theory
Believe that social relationships are fundamental to the
formation and development of personality
Complaint: Individuals are those who move towards others
(they desire to be loved, wanted & appreciated) E.g. Slogan of
Starter Sports Wear Product‘’Its about Team’’ targets directly
to the complaint individuals
Aggressive: Individuals are those who move against others
(they desire to excel and win admiration)
E.g. “Old Spice’’ because of its masculine appeal
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Detached: Individuals are those who move away from
others ( they desire independence, self-reliance, self
sufficiency & freedom from obligations)
E.g.: Students who scored high in self reliance – who
preferred to do things independently of others. Such
persons were less likely to be very brand loyal & more
likely to try different brands
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Trait Theory
Trait theory quantitatively measure personality in terms of
specific psychological characteristics called traits
Trait – How an individual differs from another
Personality tests conducted on single-trait personality
which involves consumer innovativeness, consumer
susceptibility, consumer materialism & consumer
ethnocentrism
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Soup and Soup Lover’s Traits
Chicken Noodle Soup Lovers Vegetable Soup Lovers
Watch a lot of TV
Enjoy the outdoors
Are family oriented
Have a great sense of humor Usually game for trying
Like daytime talk shows new things
Tomato Soup Lovers Gardening is often a
Passionate about reading
favorite hobby
Love pets
Like meeting people for coffee
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Personality reflects consumers’ responses to
product & marketing messages
Customer Innovativeness
Cognitive Personality Factors
Consumer Materialism
Consumer Ethnocentrism
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Customer Innovativeness
Customer Innovativeness: How receptive consumers are to new
products & services. This personality trait gives insights about
consumer’s willingness to innovate
Dogmatism: It’s a trait which measures the degree of rigidity
which consumers display towards unfamiliar & toward
information contrary to their own established beliefs. Consumer
who are low in dogmatism prefer innovative products for
benefits. Highly dogmatic consumers prefer ads for new
products & services that contain authoritative appeal i.e.
celebrities & experts used for non-innovators to accept
innovation.
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Customer Innovativeness
Social Character: Consists of Inner (inner Values) &
Outer Directedness consumer. Inner directedness rely on
their own inner values in evaluating new products & are
likely to become consumer innovators->personal benefits.
Outer Directedness (tend to look to others direction & less
likely to be consumer innovators->social acceptance)
Optimum Stimulation Level: Consumers with more
willingness to take risks, to try new products, to be
innovative, to seek purchase info
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Cognitive Personality Factors
Visualizers v/s Verbalizers: Visualizer are those consumers
who prefer visual information and products stress the visual.
Verbalizers are those who consumers who prefer written or
verbal information and products
Need for Cognition: A person’s craving for enjoyment of
thinking. Consumers who have high NC prefers ad that is rich
in product-related information & those consumers who have
low NC are attracted to the background of an ad, such as an
attractive model or well-known celebrity
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Consumer Materialism
Consumer Materialism: Consumer who especially value
acquiring & showing-off possessions. They are self-
centered & selfish. They got desire to have lots of things
rather then simple lifestyle. Possessions doesn’t lead to
greater happiness. E.g. Sports Car & Diamonds
Fixated Consumption Behavior: Those consumers who do
not keep their objects or purchases of interest a secret;
rather, they share a similar interest
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Compulsive Consumption Behavior: Consumer who are
compulsive have an addiction, abnormal behavior, in some
respects out of control & their action have damaging
consequences to them and those around them
Those consumers who comes under the category of
uncontrollable gambling, drug addiction, alcoholism, &
various food and eating disorders
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Consumer Ethnocentrism
Consumers who are receptive to foreign made products
CETSCALE is to identify consumers with a tendency to accept
(or reject) foreign-made products.
Consumers who are highly ethnocentric are likely to feel that
it is inappropriate or wrong to purchase foreign made
products because of the economic impact on the domestic
economy, whereas non-ethnocentric consumers tend to
evaluate foreign made products more objectively for their
extrinsic characteristics
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Brand Personality
Personality-like traits associated with brands
Provides an emotional identity to a brand & triggers
consumer to respond with feelings & emotions towards
the brand
E.g. Nike as in athlete in all of us, BMW is performance
driven & Limca as representing Freshness
Strong, positive brand personality leads to more favorable
attitudes towards the brand in-terms of Brand preference,
brand purchase intentions, brand loyalty & brand
differentiation among competitive brands
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A Brand Personality Framework
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Brand Personification
Recast consumers’ perception of the attributes of a
products or service into a human-like character.
Consumers express their inner feelings about products or
brands in terms of their association with known
personalities
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Products & Services Enhances Consumers Self-Image
Actual Self Image: How consumer in-fact see themselves.
Dealing with household products consumer like to be guided
by actual self image. Every household products
Social Self Image: How consumers feel others to see them.
For some socially enhancing products consumer like to be
guided by social image
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Products & Services Enhances Consumers Self-Image
Marketers can segment their markets on the basis of
relevant consumer self-images. Such strategy is fully
consistent with the marketing concept in that the
marketer first assess the needs of a consumer segment
(with respect to product category & self image) then
proceeds to develop and market a product or service that
meets both criteria
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Discussion Questions
Pick three of your favorite food brands.
Describe their personality. Do they have a gender? What
personality traits do they have?
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