Product Personality and its Influence on Consumer Preference - Essay Example

As markets have become competitive, marketers can no more rely on the segmentation based on demographics and age. Lifestyle changes have enhanced howpeople see themselves and there is always a tendency to live up to a certain image. Individuals also want to conform to certain social standards and are keen to enhance their self image. Self-concept is the collection of attitudes that people hold towards themselves (Goldsmith, Moore & Beaudoin, 1999). It includes self-esteem and how people value themselves. It includes self-image or the perception that an individual has of him/her self. Consumers select brands or products that fit or match their image of themselves. Self-concept is important because self-perception motivate behavior giving direction to how humans behave. People learn their self-concepts through interaction with the external environment, especially how they react with other people. Marketing plans are now based on this concept of self-concept as it helps the marketers to devise their strategy. Self-concept is relevant to the study of consumer behavior because self-perceptions directly motivate behavior (Hart & Dewsnap, 2001). Self-concept has many dimensions – the actual self, the ideal self and the social self (Goldsmith, Moore & Beaudoin, 1999; Govers & Schoormans, 2005). There is always a difference in how one would like to be and how one really is. Some others consider that self-concept is a multiple construct having four dimensions but most of the studies focus on the real self and the ideal self. Consumers would buy products that are congruent with or enhance their actual image or the ideal self-concepts. It is also believed that a product or a brand is used as an instrument in improving self-concept through transferring socially attributed meaning of the product or the brand to one self (Hogg, Cox & Keeling, 2000). Consumers who perceive the product image to be consistent with their actual self-concept could be motivated to consumer and purchase that product (Heath & Scott, 1998). The self-concept has special meaning in the fashion industry. Body image is a part of the self-concept. Women derive varying degree of satisfaction or dissatisfaction from different parts of the body (Alexander, Connell & Presley, 2005). The self-feeling or the self-concept plays a major role in clothing preferences and attitudes. It has symbolic meanings in social interaction. Today people use clothes to identify themselves with a social class or project a positive image. Banister and Hogg (2004) contend that in the fashion industry consumers are defined as much by what they choose to reject as by what they actively purchase and display. The concept of self-esteem has been recognized by marketing managers as one of the most important motivational drivers as consumers’ decisions are most often made for either enhancing or protecting their self-esteem. They value their self and based on this self-concept they make their decision which makes it important for marketers to be cognizant of this concept which consumers carry. It is not the demographics but attitudes, personality, values, and self-image that are important to determine the needs of the individuals in the fashion industry (Goldsmith, Moore & Beaudoin, 1999). A motive can either push an individual towards positive incentives (goals) or they would strive to avoid negative incentives when they consider them as threat. Accordingly, self-concept has two motives – self-esteem and self-consistency (Banister & Hogg, 2004). Self-esteem pushes an individual to seek experiences that enhance or protect the self-concept whereas self-consistency urges one to behave consistently with the views of the self. An understanding of self-esteem is important for marketers as they know what the consumer would accept or what they would avoid. In approach behavior the self-esteem is enhanced while in the avoidance behavior there is a tendency to protect the self-esteem. The marketers have to take into account the attitudes of the consumers because attitudes help in maintaining or protecting self-esteem. It also encourages consumers to distance themselves from particular brands or products. The self-esteem also needs to be protected so that it can project a sense of public self. This implies that an individual would like to avoid negative evaluations from the others that have self-esteem in the society. They also need to maintain a group sense of the collective self. Thus to maintain self-esteem, one needs to protect and enhance the sense of the self, and also avoid self-abasement by rejecting products with negative imagery. In the fashion and apparel industry the marketers segment the consumers based on demographics, lifestyles, attitudes, and social communication. This helps them to develop the promotional and advertising appeals that could influence the fashion innovators. The fashion innovators are the earliest buyers who provide much of the revenue needed by the clothing manufacturers to fund the development costs in the beginning (Goldsmith, Moore & Beaudoin, 1999). Such consumers have a unique self-image and the marketers try to include such advertising that would be congruent with the self-image of such consumers who visualize themselves as what they would like to be and what they would like others to see them as. The apparel industry has been a choice of consumer studies quite extensively and it has been found that purchase decision for outer apparel differs significantly from that of intimate apparel. People seek to reflect a certain self-image through the clothes they buy or wear and hence the clothing they wear is closely linked to self-concept. In particular, the bra manufacturers and marketers have to focus on the different shapes and sizes of women (Hart & Dewsnap, 2001). In addition to the physiological problems, lifecycle stages affect the breast shape, child-bearing, menopause and hormones too affect the breast mass. This is the reason that there are more than 60 different sizes across a wide range of different engineered styles. Even the footwear category does not have such an extreme marketing problem. Women are extensively involved in the purchase process as the purchase of bra has high pleasure value, personal relevance, and high symbolic value. The decision can lead to mispurchase and hence it is associated with a high level of risk. Bra has to conform to the social image as the contours are intricately linked with the women’s sexuality and body image. Studies have confirmed that women undertake extensive research before they actually purchase a bra. They evaluate a bra based on factors like product attributes, wired or non-wired, type of fabric, seam positioning, and components. They then try to imagine the contour through the outer clothing. This is all because the consumer is motivated to consider her social image and there is a clear link between the bra and her self-image. Hence self-concept is an important factor that impacts the consumer’s decision making process, which is why the marketers need to understand this. In the tourism industry also the tourist identifies the destination for meetings, conventions, conferences and exhibitions based on the self-image that he carries or would like to have. They identify themselves with the destination image. Choices of destination are based on the degree to which they generate favorable images (Hankinson, 2004). Hence for the marketing managers the destination’s brand image is crucial. They need to develop the destination as a positive perceptual entity or brand. This requires that marketers must seek a fuller understanding of the nature of images that both the individuals and the organization hold of themselves. This information would help the marketers to build favorable brand images and enhance the destination’s attractiveness and economic development. Most of the studies conducted to identify the key attributes embodied in a destination’s image found the standard elements like the environment, facilities and infrastructure. A study of destination images based on self-concept by Hankinson found that consumer attitude towards a product is influenced by the degree of congruity between the product user image and the consumer’s self image. The tourist will have a favourable attitude towards the destination if there higher degree of congruency between the destination’s visitor image and the potential visitor’s self-concept. Tourists derive the destination images from history, heritage and culture. The marketers have to determine to what extent these factors have influenced the visitor’s and the potential visitors’ perception of the destination. This will help them to implement the positioning strategies successfully. When a destination carries a strong positive image, care has to be taken to maintain and develop the image. To reposition themselves the destination would need to enhance and maintain that image through public relations and working closely with the media. Increase in life expectancy and higher birth rates post-Second World War has resulted in high number of older adults today. The aging population has forced the marketers to alter their strategy as well. So far marketers have not paid heed to the needs of the older adults and they have never been segmented as a group. During the 1980s the products that were introduced for the mature market portrayed those above 40 as old and that they were a physically weak lot (Moschis, 2003). This led to failure of products like Kellogg’s cereal and it had to be withdrawn from the market. Today the marketers have started designing products and messages to reach the mature audience. It has become important to understand the needs of the older consumers. While physiological, social and psychological changes take place with aging, people age differently in each of these three respects. Hence even though age seems to the simplest method of segmenting, it is the least effective. This is because older people’s behavior is more sensitive to their needs and lifestyles which are influenced by their experiences and situations. An aging person wants to maintain his youthful self-concept. They would like the perception of being the “same person” despite their age. They would like to continue believing that they are like person of any other age. Hence if an advertisement shows a white-haired mother and daughter using the same product, the mother would end up using the product because it helps to maintain her youthful concept – that she is still like her daughter. Besides, older people like to relive their youth and hence the products for this segment should have a nostalgic appeal. Thus the youthful self-concept, if taken into account by the marketers, would help them in effectively marketing their products to this age group. Ip (2003) cites of a study that found that Chinese are unwilling to pay a premium price for products with eco-friendly attributes. It was later found that if the Chinese are educated about the benefits of such products there is a greater willingness to buy such products. Based on the self-concept theory, people in China can be moulded to accept products with eco-friendly attributes. Self-concept as discussed above is important because purchase behaviors are driven by the images that one has of oneself. So Ip suggests that if customer eco-centrism is presented as a unique prestige social status or a social responsibility, it could make people change their minds and be more willing to respond to such products. If eco-centrism is advocated by the proactive environmentalists by means of self-concept, it would give customers an arrogant sense of identity. They would understand which purchase behavior is acceptable or not acceptable to the in-group. This conforms to the theory that social acceptance is equally important in purchase decision and is part of the self-concept or the self-image of an individual. They would realize what they are and what they need to do to be the ideal image as they want to be. Thus it is evident that using the self-concept can help in planning the marketing strategy in consumer products or services. It is applicable to both the sectors as it has been found in the case of products like apparel and services like tourism. The image that an individual has of oneself is very important in motivating purchases. They also want social acceptance apart from being keen to enhance their image or maintain their image. They would like to be associated with products or brands that have high social acceptance. In fact the product or brand serves as an instrument for the consumers to improve the self-concept and this is what the marketers could capitalize on. References: Alexander, M Connell, L & Presley, AB 2005, Clothing fit preferences of young female adult consumers, International Journal of Clothing Science and Technology, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 52-64. Banister, EN & Hogg, MK 2004, Negative symbolic consumption and consumers’ drive for self-esteem, European Journal of Marketing, vol. 38, no. 7, pp. 850-868. Goldsmith, RE Moore, MA & Beaudoin, P 1999, Journal of Product & Brand Management, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 7-18. Govers, PCM & Schoormans, JPL 2005, Product personality and its influence on consumer preference, Journal of Consumer Marketing, vol. 22, no. 4, pp. 189–197. Hankinson, G 2004, The brand images of tourism destinations, Journal of Product & Brand Management, vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 6-14. Hart, C & Dewsnap, B 2001, An exploratory study of the consumer decision process for intimate apparel, Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, vol. 5, no. 2. pp. 108-119. Heath, AP & Scott, D 1998, The self-concept and image congruence hypothesis, European Journal of Marketing, vol. 32, no. 11/12. Hogg, MK Cox, KJ & Keeling, A 2000, The impact of self-monitoring on image congruence and product/brand evaluation, European Journal of Marketing, vol. 34, no. 5/6, pp. 641-666. Ip, YK 2003, The marketability of eco-products in China’s affluent cities, Management of Environmental Quality: An International Journal, vol. 14, no. 5, pp. 577-589. Moschis, GP 2003, Marketing to older adults: an updated overview of present knowledge and practice, Journal of Consumer Marketing, vol. 20, no. 6, pp. 516-525. Read More