1. Chapter 6 Personality and Psychographics
CONSUMER BEHAVIOR, 10e Michael R. Solomon
Chapter 6 explains how personality affects our decisions as consumers.
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2. When you finish this chapter, you should understand why:
Chapter Objectives
When you finish this chapter, you should understand why:
A consumer’s personality influences the way he or she responds to marketing stimuli, but efforts to use this information in marketing contexts meet with mixed results.
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3. When you finish this chapter, you should understand why:
Chapter Objectives
When you finish this chapter, you should understand why:
Psychographics go beyond simple demographics to help marketers. understand and reach different segments.
Consumer activities can be harmful to individuals and to society.
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4. Learning Objective 1
A consumer’s personality influences the way he or she responds to marketing stimuli, but efforts to use this information in marketing contexts meet with mixed results.
Personality is a person’s unique psychological makeup. It influences the way a person responds to his or her environment. Marketing strategies often include some aspect of personality. These dimensions are usually considered in conjunction with a person’s choice of leisure activities, political beliefs, aesthetic tastes, and other personal factors that help us to understand consumer lifestyle.
The advertisement shown in the slide focuses on the conflict between desires for hedonic gratification and the need to engage in rational, task-oriented activities. It references the work of Sigmund Freud.
Sigmund Freud proposed the idea that much of one’s adult personality stems from a fundamental conflict between a person’s desire to gratify his or her physical needs and the necessity to function as a responsible member of society. The id seeks out immediate gratification. The superego is the counterweight to the id. It is a person’s conscience. The ego is the system that mediates between the two. It tries to find ways to gratify the id that are acceptable to society.
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5. Motivational Research and Consumption Motives
Power-masculinity-virility
Security
Eroticism
Moral purity-cleanliness
Social acceptance
Individuality
Status
Femininity
Reward
Mastery over environment
Disalienation
Magic-mystery
Motivational research borrowed Freudian ideas to understand the deeper meanings of products and advertisements. The approach assumed that we channel socially unacceptable needs into acceptable outlets including product substitutes. The perspective relies on depth interviews with individual consumers. The slide shows a list of consumption motives identified by Ernest Dichter. Dichter was a psychoanalyst who trained with Freud’s disciples in Vienna. Dichter conducted in-depth interview studies on more than 230 products.
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6. Neo-Freudian Theories
Karen Horney
Compliant versus detached versus aggressive
Alfred Adler
Motivation to overcome inferiority
Harry Stack Sullivan
Personality evolves to reduce anxiety
Carl Jung
Developed analytical psychology
Freud’s work has a huge influence on theories of personality. However, many of his colleagues and students felt that there should be less emphasis on sexual conflicts and more on relationships. These theorists are known as neo-Freudian theorists. Some of the most notable are listed on the slide. Karen Horney described people as moving toward others, away from others, or against others. Adler proposed that a prime motivation is to overcome feelings of inferiority relative to others. Sullivan focused on how personality evolves to reduce anxiety in social relationships. Carl Jung is discussed more on the following slide.
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7. Carl Jung, Father of Analytical Psychology
Disciple of Freud
Established concept of collective unconscious
Explained the creation of archetypes
Old wise man
Earth mother
Young & Rubicam uses the concept of archetypes in its BrandAsset® Archetypes model
Carl Jung was also a disciple of Freud but their relationship ended in part because Jung did not accept Freud’s emphasis on sexual aspects of personality. Jung developed his own method psychotherapy known as analytical psychology.
He believed that we all share a collective unconscious. You can think of this collective unconscious as a storehouse of memories we inherited from our ancestors. From these shared memories, we recognize archetypes. An archetype is a universally recognized idea or behavior pattern. They typically involve themes like birth and death and appear in myths, stories, and dreams.
Young & Rubicam, a major advertising agency, uses the archetype approach in its BrandAsset Archetypes model shown in Figure 6.1 (and depicted on the next two slides).
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8. Figure 6.1 BrandAsset Valuator Archetypes
The model shows the relationships among the Archetypes. For each healthy personality, there is a corresponding Shadow. The Shadows are shown on the next slide. A healthy personality is one in which the Archetypes overwhelm their corresponding Shadows. A sick personality results when one or more Shadows prevail. When a brand’s Shadows dominate, this cues the agency to take action to guide the brand to a healthier personality.
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9. Figure 6.1 BrandAsset Valuator Archetype (continued)
This slide illustrates the Shadows that correspond to the Archetypes.
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10. Trait Theory
Personality traits: identifiable characteristics that define a person
Traits relevant to consumer behavior:
Innovativeness
Materialism
Self-consciousness
Need for cognition
Frugality
Trait theory focuses on the quantitative measurement of personality traits. Personality traits are the identifiable characteristics that define a person. For instance, we might say that someone is an introvert or an extrovert. Some of the most relevant traits for consumer behavior are listed in the slide. Innovativeness is the degree to which a person likes to try new things.
Materialism is the amount of emphasis a person places on acquiring and owning products. Self-consciousness is the degree to which a person deliberately monitors and controls the image of the self that he or she projects to others. The need for cognition is the degree to which a person likes to think about things and by extension, expends the necessary effort to process brand information. Frugality is the tendency to deny short-term purchases and to make due with what they already own. The use of standard personality trait measurements to predict product choices has met with mixed success. It is simply hard to predict consumer behavior based on personality! There are several explanations.
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11. Brand Personality
Brand personality: set of traits people attribute to a product as if it were a person
Brand equity: extent to which a consumer holds strong, favorable, and unique associations with a brand in memory—and the extent to which she or he is willing to pay more for the branded version of a product than for a nonbranded (generic) version
A product that creates and communicates a distinctive brand personality stands out from its competition, earns brand equity, and inspires years of loyalty.
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12. Table 6.2 Brand Behaviors and Possible Personality Trait Inferences
Brand Action
Trait Inference
Brand is repositioned several times or changes slogan repeatedly
Flighty, schizophrenic
Brand uses continuing character in advertising
Familiar, comfortable
Brand charges high prices and uses exclusive distribution
Snobbish, sophisticated
Brand frequently available on deal
Cheap, uncultured
Brand offers many line extensions
Versatile, adaptable
Table 6.2 shows some of the things a marketer can do to influence consumers’ perceptions of a brand’s personality. Consumers will infer things about a brand’s personality from the brand’s positioning in the marketplace.
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13. For Reflection
How can marketers link a brand’s personality with the lifestyle of a consumer segment?
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14. Learning Objective 2
Psychographics go beyond simple demographics to help marketers understand and reach different consumer segments.
Psychographics involves the use of psychological, sociological, and anthropological factors to determine how the market is segmented by the propensity of groups within the market and their reasons to make decisions about a product, person, ideology, or otherwise hold an attitude or use a medium. When marketers combine personality variables with knowledge of lifestyle preferences they have a powerful insight into consumer groups.
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15. Psychographic Studies
Lifestyle profiles
Product-specific profiles
General lifestyle segmentation
Product-specific segmentation
Psychographic studies can take on several different forms. Psychographic studies take several different forms:
• A lifestyle profile looks for items that differentiate between users and nonusers of a product.
• A product-specific profile identifies a target group and then profiles these consumers on product-relevant dimensions.
• A general lifestyle segmentation places a large sample of respondents into homogenous groups based on similarities of their overall preferences.
• A product-specific segmentation study tailors questions to a product category.
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16. Table 6.3 Lifestyle Dimensions
Activities
Interests
Opinions
Demographics
Work
Family
Themselves
Age
Hobbies
Home
Social issues
Education
Social events
Job
Politics
Income
Vacation
Community
Business
Occupation
Entertainment
Recreation
Economics
Family size
Club membership
Fashion
Dwelling
Food
Products
Geography
Shopping
Media
Future
City size
Sports
Achievements
Culture
Stage in life cycle
This table lists many of the dimensions used in psychographic research.
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17. Psychographic Segmentation Uses
To define target market
To create new view of market
To position product
To better communicate product attributes
To develop product strategy
To market social/political issues
Marketers use the results of psychographic studies in several ways. These are identified in the slide.
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18. Figure 6.2 VALS2TM
The Values and Lifestyles System (VALS2) was developed by the company Strategic Business Insights (SBI). The survey used to collect data contains 39 items. These items are used to divide the U.S. adult population into groups. The figure shows the groups. The typology is divided based on resources on one axis and self-orientation on the other.
Innovators are successful consumers with many resources. Thinkers are satisfied, reflective, and comfortable. Achievers are career oriented and prefer predictability to risk or self-discovery. Experiencers are impulsive, young, and enjoy offbeat or risky experiences. The next four groups have fewer resources:
Believers have strong principles and favor proven brands. Strivers are similar to Achievers but have fewer resources. Makers are action oriented and tend to focus their energies on self-sufficiency. Strugglers are at the bottom of the economic ladder.
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19. Geodemography
Geodemography involves using data on consumer expenditures and other socioeconomic factors with geographic information about the areas in which people live to identify consumers who share common consumption patterns
“Birds of a feature flock together”
Can be reached more economically (e.g., zip code in Redondo Beach, CA)
Researchers use geodemography based on the assumption that people who have similar needs and tastes also tend to live near one another. It may be more efficient to target a zip code to find consumers exhibiting specific characteristics.
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20. For Reflection
Construct separate advertising executions for a cosmetics product targeted to the Belonger, Achiever, Experiencer, and Maker VALS types.
How would the basic appeal differ for each group?
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21. For Reflection
Geodemographic techniques assume that people who live in the same neighborhood have other things in common as well.
Why do they make this assumption, and how accurate is it?
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22. Consumer activities can be harmful to individuals and to society.
Learning Objective 3
Consumer activities can be harmful to individuals and to society.
Sometimes consumers are their own worst enemies. Some actions are relatively harmless, but others are more serious. This section of the chapter focuses on the dark side of consumer lifestyles. The ad shown is from Singapore. It discourages young people from using ketamine, an animal tranquilizer.
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23. Addictive consumption Compulsive consumption Consumed consumers
Dark Sides
Consumer terrorism
Addictive consumption
Compulsive consumption
Consumed consumers
Illegal activities
When terrorists want to make an impact on society, one key way is through consumer terrorism. Disrupting every day life is a powerful fear factor. Another dark side issue is that of addictive consumption. Consumer addiction is a physiological or psychological dependence on products or services. Some are even addicted to technology! Compulsive consumption refers to repetitive and often excessive shopping performed as an antidote to tension, anxiety, depression, or boredom. Shopaholics turn to shopping the way alcoholics turn to alcohol for relief.
Three common elements are commonly associated with negative consumer behaviors. First, the behavior is not done by choice. Second, the gratification derived from the behavior is short-lived. Third, the person experiences strong feelings of regret or guilt afterward. Consumed consumers are people who are used or exploited willingly or not for commercial gain in the market. They include prostitutes, organ donors, and babies for sale. Lastly, illegal activities are a part of consumer behavior including consumer theft and fraud and anticonsumption. Shrinkage is the industry term for inventory and cash losses from shoplifting and employee theft. Anticonsumption ranges from acts like graffiti to serious cases of product tampering.
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24. Give two examples of consumer addiction.
For Reflection
Give two examples of consumer addiction.
Should marketers play a role in helping consumers avoid the dark side?
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25. Lifestyles are an important aid to many marketing strategies
Chapter Summary
Consumer personality influences the way one responds to marketing stimuli
Lifestyles are an important aid to many marketing strategies
Psychographics go beyond simple demographics to help marketers understand different consumer segments
Identifying patterns of consumption are valuable components of a lifestyle marketing strategy
We’ve covered several key concepts in this chapter. Clearly there is much to understand about consumers in order to target them effectively. Personality, lifestyle, psychographics, and geodemographics are all important characteristics in learning the consumer.
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