Ideal Self Concept versus Actual Self Concept - Literature review Example

Brand Personality: Ideal Self Concept vs. Actual Self Concept Introduction The relationship betweenpeople and brands has been a core hotspot area of attention from scholars and the marketers alike. A key important branding issue within the marketing world today is developing strong attachments between a brand and the consumers using the brand. Brand personality showcases the values that consumers hold in a multidimensional manner with research suggesting brands enhance the personality of individuals using them (Khare & Handa, 2009: 63). In addition, consumers have been noted to evaluate the value of brands based on their self concept and what they aspire to be (Swaminathan, Stilley, & Ahluwalia, 2009). This implies that a consumers self concept is critical in developing a brand’s personality, where the brand personality is matched to the self. Research in consumer behaviour have shown that brand personality is a key tool in consumer expression and instrumental in enabling consumers express their ideal or actual self, or in expressing certain specific aspects of the self (Swaminathan, Stilley, & Ahluwalia, 2009:2). One of the key notable problems in marketing is whether the brand personality should be matched to the self that consumers aspire to be (ideal self) or to the self that they are (actual self) (Malär, Krohmer, Hoyer, & Nyffenegger, 2011:35). This paper evaluates this issue to understand which of the self aligns well with brand personality and what this implies to marketers. Brand personality and the consumer self concept. Brand personality is defined as “a set of human characteristics associated with a brand” (Mahle & Supphellen, 2011:96). It is a critical emotional part of a brand image and therefore is highly involving in determining how attached consumer’s become to such brands. (Sung and Kim, 2010:645). It also often appeals to consumers who wish to enhance, affirm or express their sense of self or their personalities using the brand personality of the products they use (Park & Roedder, 2010). On the other hand, self concept is defined as a “multidimensional construct” in how individuals view themselves (Swaminathan, Stilley, & Ahluwalia, 2009; Khare & Handa, 2009: 64). Self concept is based on both group identity where people purchase certain goods in order to identify with a given group and a unique individual level self identity and expression based on individual autonomy. However in independent individualistic cultures such as western cultures, self concept is mainly associated with personal identity strongly then with group identity (Swaminathan, Page and Gurhan-Canli, 2007:249). Indeed, Fuornier (cited in Swaminathan et al, 2007) acknowledges that self concepts emphasizes a consumers individual identity where by the relationship a brand and a consumer is based on what a brand symbolises for the consumers unique self. However, self concept is highly influenced on what consumer’s know or can know about themselves (Mkhize, 2010:21). It is crucial for marketers to understand what effect consumers self concept has on their decisions to purchase certain products. In most of the research carried out on self concept, the underlying assumption has been that strong brand attachments are developed through a person’s self concept (Gao, Wheeler, and Shiv, 2009). Brand personality in this sense has been instrumental in facilitating consumer self expression as they enable the consumer to perceive how well a given brands enhances their self view (Swaminathan et al, 2008). Indeed Park and Roedder John (2010: 655) acknowledge that “when consumers use brands with appealing personalities”, such brands “rub off on them” where they feel that they have the personality represented by the brand. Such views imply that brand personality enhances a person’s self concept. As noted above, self concept is based on individual identity, and this is often highly influenced by how consumers view themselves, and what they know about themselves. Every consumer has the ideal self in which they perceive themselves, and the actual self by which they see themselves. A key question to marketers would be, which of these two are effective in strongly appealing to a brand personality or are strongly congruent to such brand personality. Brand personality and Ideal self versus actual self: a critical evaluation The idea that consumers prefer brands that represent how they see themselves or how they envision their perfect self has a huge appeal in determining marketing efforts. It has often been argued that consumers are what they consume (Swaminathan, Stilley, & Ahluwalia, 2009). Such consumptions manifest themselves through different identities that consumers take (Power and Hauge, 2008). As noted above, brand personality is important in helping consumers express their self concept. In fact, a wide array of research has positively linked brand performance to strong connections of brand personality and self concept (Krohmer, Malär, & Nyffenegger, 2007; Auruskeviciene, Salciuviene, & Skudiene, 2008; Armutlu, & Üner, 2009; Achouri, & Bouslama, 2010; Khare, &Handa, 2009; Malär, Krohmer, Hoyer, and Nyffenegger, 2011). However, self concept is shaped by both the ideal self and the actual self, where the ideal self is based on imaginations of what one wants to be, and actual self is what the person is. This is further shaped by the individual’s knowledge of the difference between the two. While research clearly shows that the two aspects of self concept all compose of a person’s self image, and which also influences consumer choices of brands based on congruity between the self and the brand (Krohmer, Malär, & Nyffenegger, 2007; Auruskeviciene, Salciuviene, & Skudiene, 2008; Armutlu, & Üner, 2009; Achouri, & Bouslama, 2010; Khare, &Handa, 2009), little research differentiates between the various aspects of self concept (Malär, Krohmer, Hoyer, and Nyffenegger, 2011). Most of the research posit a strong congruency between brand personality and self image whether actual or ideal ones. In fact Kleijnen (cited in Webb & Gountas, 2007) suggests that there is very little difference between ideal and self conceptualization with measurements in brand personality and the two self concepts being negligible. Bandura (Cited in Webb & Gountas, 2007:2-3) supports this, noting multiple self conceptions cannot exist simultaneously as it would require a clear distinct line of what is actual self and what is ideal. It would also require self knowledge (Wu, Cutright, & Fitzsimons, 2011). Wu, Cutright, & Fitzsimons (2011) suggest that an individual’s self concept is influenced by their self knowledge and is often built through self discovery. People have an innate desire to learn about themselves. Through interactions that people have or through the choices made in consumption, people get to learn about themselves and therefore shape both their actual and ideal self image. People incorporate freshly acquired self knowledge into their self concept and behaviour and behaviour, making such self concept dynamic and ever changing (Wu, Cutright, & Fitzsimons, 2011:297). The changing trends could either be one that makes the ideal image actual through actual impact or one which brings a reality check on what is actually existent. This implies that people incorporate consumption decisions and various brands to fit with the newly acquired information on the self. It also implies that whether a person purchases a brand either to fit with actual or self concepts, it all boils down to actual self concept than to the ideal since a strive to attain ideal continually makes the ideal actual or brings insight to a consumer on what is an achievable ideal. For instance, a consumer who purchases a given cosmetic that promises to remove wrinkles would be motivated by the need to attain the ideal self in purchasing the cosmetic product. But after a while, if the cosmetic does not work its magic, the consumer would revert to actual self motivations, and purchase those cosmetics which promise moisturise the skin, or switch to another brand with idealised self image attached to its marketing message. Indeed Malär, Krohmer, Hoyer, and Nyffenegger (2011) in their research to understand which between the ideal and actual self concept has a strong emotional attachment to the brand personality of a product, found that actual self concept had a stronger congruence to emotional brand attachment, than ideal self concept marketing messages. This was mainly attributed to self esteem, public consciousness, and product involvements which bring out the actual self more prominently than the ideal self thereby enhancing a strong attachment to a brand personality that enhances the actual self. Unlike the ideal self concept targeted brand personalities which requires commitment to reach a certain level of perfection or which promise perfection, the actual self concept targeted brand personalities emphasize the already existing key strengths that people have and hence increase self esteem. Wu, Cutright, & Fitzsimons (2011: 298) note that people often desire self discovery of the actual self in order to shape their decisions in life including purchase decisions. For instance, people undertake various personality quizzes and tests to discover the actual self and not the ideal self. This is so as to align actual self with brand personalities. While consumer behaviour literature (e.g., Park & Roedder John, 2010) has acknowledged that the stronger the consumers view a brand to reflect part of who they are, the stronger the brand attachment, individuals who strongly seek to self verify would be motivated to sustain, validate and strengthen their existing actual self concepts, than they would to seek an ideal self they have not yet experienced (Malär, Krohmer, Hoyer, and Nyffenegger, 2011). This has strongly been based on the construal level theory which notes that the greater the psychological distance one has with a brand the more likely they would conceptualise such a brand in an abstract manner (Liberman, Trope, and Stephan, 2007; Trope, Liberman, and Wakslak, 2007). The actual self depict lower psychological distance as it is psychologically close than do ideal self. Such psychological distance is transferred to brand personalities. A brand personality that is strongly linked to the ideal self therefore is noted to have stronger congruence, while the one that is reflects a consumers ideal self is more abstract (Malär, Krohmer, Hoyer, & Nyffenegger, 2011:49). Though consumers may be motivated to purchase brands that reflect ideal self in a bid to attain the ideal self, consumers normally do not tend to be loyal or strongly connected to such brands (Achouri and Bouslama, 2010; Armutlu, & Üner, 2009:22). Brand personality and Ideal self versus actual self: Application and illustration The view that actual self -concept has a stronger and more effective connection to brand personality than ideal self concept has several useful applications to companies and scholars. First and foremost, aligning brand personality to the target customers actual self concepts or personalities would tend to have a significant influence on consumer purchasing intentions and brand connections. For instance, there has been a change over the past few years in marketing messages incorporating more actual self concept messages in product advertisements than ideal. Taking the case of the cosmetic industry which for years has focused on incorporating an ideal vision within such product messages that would help consumers attain the ideal perfect image, more recently some companies have changed strategy. For instance, Unilever’s Dove line of cosmetics has focused on depicting more natural and average women users for their products rather than using high-end models. This depicts a more actual self concept to most female consumers of such products with no expectation or pressure to attain the model ideal concept. This approach has had a strong impact in the market, with most consumers forming a strong emotional connection with the product (Malär, Krohmer, Hoyer, & Nyffenegger, 2011:39). In addition, another implication of this issue to managers is that they need to incorporate authentic branding within their products and individualizing the brands in the market. This is because the brand personalities of the various products “rub off” on the consumers who choose to purchase such products (Park & Roedder John, 2010). For instance using a Victoria’s secret shopping bag by consumers enhances consumers self view of being more glamorous, feminine and good looking (pp. 658). On the other hand, a study on Lithuania clothing market found that people shopped for clothing based on their actual self concept where the clothing brand personality aligned with actual self concept rather than the ideal self concept (Auruskeviciene, Salciuviene, & Skudiene, 2008). It is also important for marketing managers to realize the significance of actual self concept on purchasing decisions. This is most notably important since such concepts enhances a customer’s purchasing intention, taking into account difference in cultural values that restrain people in a way that they may not fully be able to express their ideal self. For instance, in a collectivist culture such as the Asia Pacific countries, individuals actual self image guide their purchasing decisions in order to fit within the culture or group, unlike a person’s idealized self which may conflict with group practice. This is especially so for beauty products or clothing (Wallstrom, Steyn, Pitt, 2010: 228). In addition, the strongest motivations that drive consumer behaviour in brand choice with relation to self concept are often the need for self esteem and self consistency (Armutlu, & Üner, 2009). Strengthening actual self enhances self esteem, while strive to attain ideal self wears it down. Managers therefore need to take such findings into consideration. Finally, actual self congruence to brand personality was found to have a positive effect on brand performance in a 2007 marketing conference. In this, consumers’ special emphasis in dealing with brands which they are more familiar with and which confirm their self concept was noted in most shopping trend (Krohmer, Malär, & Nyffenegger, 2007:172). These applications are important to marketing managers in developing effective branding and marketing strategies. Conclusion This paper sought to evaluate whether the brand personality should be matched to the self that consumers aspire to be (ideal self) or to the self that they are. From various research studies and examples, it can be noted that actual self ideal has a greater impact on brand than an ideal self concept. This has been shown to be influenced both by construal level concept and motivations for self esteem consciousness, product involvement, and self consistency. In construal level concept, psychological distance plays a crucial role in constructing actual and ideal self concepts. Actual self depict lower psychological distance as it is psychologically close than ideal self, and therefore a persona can construct a more accurate self concept than ideal. Motivations for self esteem consciousness, product involvement, and self consistency bring out the actual self more prominently than the ideal self thereby enhancing a strong attachment to a brand personality that enhances the actual self. 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