The Concept Of Self Brand Connection

A brand is a portfolio of qualities associated with a name, which in turn invokes certain images to individuals and hold values beyond the benefits of a product (Iacobucci, 2018). Brand association occurs when customers make a cognitive or emotional association with a particular brand. For instance, when a customer sees a certain color, symbol, logo, or name they automatically can make a connection to a particular brand. Brands start with a name that conveys information, suggest their benefits, or can even be named after their founders (Iacobucci, 2018). In the marketing perspective marketers can control the brand which they are marketing by using catching logos, colors, slogans, or even the products shape and appearance. In marketing a marketer can control the message they are trying to convey but cannot really have control over an individual’s association with that particular brand. Once a customer has an association with a particular brand they may favor the brand based on a past experience or even that individual’s sense of style or they may dislike a brand because of an association they

Marketing research is best defined as, “a way of investigating and answering questions about human behavior,” (Bont, Et. Al, 2007). Essentially, marketing research is a tool that helps businesses stay ahead of the trends and maintain a competitive edge in the constantly changing global market. Companies that make marketing research a central part of their business plan will see the business grow and develop to not just achieve their business goals, but exceed them. Robert Duboff puts it into perspective in a way that anyone can understand in terms of why marketing research is a valuable tool, “Marketing

First, Baudrillard’ (1993, 1994, 1998) theory, symbolic consumption, as a focal notion of the study, is found to be a good foundation to understand consumers’ purchasing decisions for fashion brands. The findings show that consumers choose brands which have relevance or desired ‘symbolic value’ for them. Not only Baudrillard, the findings are also in line with the studies of Dittmar (1992, 1994, 2004, 2008), Elliott & Wattanasuwan (1998a) and Wattanasuwan (2003, 2005) regarding how consumers use fashion products; symbolic consumption is used to represent actual self-identity, and also to create ideal self-identity.

As part of their means of segmenting consumers, marketers and the media have usually demonstrated some bias for the individuals' life stage and demographics. The main reason for the use of these factors to segment consumers is because the economic, cultural, and age-specific characteristics have a significant influence on the consumer's behaviors and their purchase decisions. However, life stage does not necessarily cover for the entire reason that influences a person's behavior and purchase decisions. This is mainly because the way with which an individual lives his/her life is also a major contributing factor to their purchase decision and behaviors.

Since an increasing number of people focus on brand names instead of product, brands become important elements for customers to choose products (Carroll, 2008). When customers trust the brand, the benefits for the manufactures are generated. In the first place, brands can be used by products as the tool to identify and differentiate themselves from various products. Secondly, brands are helpful for companies to build a competitive advantage (Bick, 2009). Therefore, organisations take more attention to branding.

I believe a brand can forge an emotional bond with me. It is easy for the brands to forge an emotional bond with people because most people are tended to be persuaded by a brand’s marketing. Emotional brand is one of marketing communications that appeal consumer’s emotion and trigger people to desire the brand by feeling of needs. I have experienced this with many brands. One of the brands

Throughout the case Vicki’s brand preference shows that she is often proud of her various associations and exhibits loyalty across certain brand families. She is, without question, a stickler for brand consistency and a systematic variant selection depending on her mood or the functionality of the brand at topic. Despite this, Vicki also shows signs of openness to using new brands if she see’s their functional benefits driven by striking a balance between the brand’s cognitive and affective beliefs. Finally,

Last November, I wrote a blog on the rise of the personal brand as the next great disconnect in online marketing. I named four reasons why personal brands would become more important in the near future. But I see a fifth reason why how a person brands themselves will be an important part of the future.

Consumerism and the effects of branding affect people’s lives. Branding allows consumers to easily identify which products are made by which companies. Yet, the brands create more of an influence on consumer’s lifestyles and in the end decide what kind of consumer that person is. Branding creates a blurred divide in our society. Consumers who are ore likely to purchase the branded products that are associated with better quality and higher prices are put into their own category bucket versus the consumers who choose the cheaper priced products that are made with less quality. When it comes to deciding who you are based off of the products and brands that you associate yourself with, it creates a capital divide in our society. Consumers than associate brands with personal feelings based upon whether or not they associate themselves with those brands. Lives of consumers are heavily influenced. Their lives are worse off when they feel the need to ‘keep up’ with brands in order to feel as if they are portraying themselves in the best light. In a way, this is similar to how all of branding began with livestock. Consumers want to physically brand themselves with specific brands by wearing logos and identifying with a brand. They might not be burning the brands directly onto their skin but they are burning the brands onto their clothes and burning holes in their wallets to keep up with society standards about brands.

1. A brief history of the brand: origins, key stages in its growth , etc.

The self-concept is an important consideration for marketers due to the necessity of gaining the attention and loyalty of consumers. There are a number of ways in which the self concept can be applied, one of which is to position the brand as aspirational, appealing to peoples ‘ideal-self’. In this instance consumers are likely to buy a product or invest in the brand as they feel they inherit aspects of the product that match how they want to be (their ideal.) A good example of how this is used can be found in the cosmetic industry, where companies advertise their products to make you look and feel beautiful, therefore by using them you will achieve this feeling (Malär, 2011, p35.) However there is a risk to companies that the ideal-self being portrayed is far beyond the consumers self-image, consequently creating incongruence between the consumer and the brand. This is not the desired effect of marketers, as there is extensive research

Branding is an essential part of a company upon foreseeing consumer brand preference and product evaluation. Recent studies outlined by Dumitriu (2012, p 130) suggest that “branding means more than establishing the name for a company or for a product line”. Further investigation on this study can answer questions in relation to better marketing strategy and fill in gaps in line with consumer behaviour. In particular, this review will focus on the influence of Self-Congruity on consumer brand preference and customer satisfaction.

In recent times, branding has played a pivotal role in some brands’ success. This has been made possible through the ability of some marketers to capture the essence and minds of people (consumers), and put the trends and characteristics into the personality of a brand. Customers have always found ways to identify themselves with certain products, and on several occasions, branding campaigns

Likewise, it is perceived that young adults are mostly influenced by product placement because of the growing materialistic values among them. The young adults purchase things that mostly serve the utilitarian purpose and boost their image while doing so (Lee et al., 2011). Young adults are concerned with their perceived image, and how their image looks after the consumption of a certain brand. Due to this, people even tend to subconsciously imitate the lifestyle of the character: like choosing the same kind of food, dressing style and so on, eventually leading them to purchase the brand. Thus, a positive brand association with a strong sense of lifestyle or brand image would always be an additional advantage in the market.

Marketing researchers studies the behavior that is rational. Very often, they do not express their feeling correctly what they think. In such cases their habitual, practice, preferences cannot be assessed correctly.