OUGD501 - Study Task 06 - Consumer Identities

An extract from Cathrine Jansson-Boyd's Consumer Psychology, Chapter 4: Identity and Consumption:

In what ways can products and services relate to consumer’s identities?

• A person can have a number of different identities and some may be more relevant than others in certain situations

• People use their possessions to express who they are - since the 1970's it has become a more prevalent concept and research confirms that possessions play an important role in how people perceive themselves and others.

• We consume products in the hope of reinforcing or establishing the roles in which we frequently find ourselves or that we would like to be in. We consume to protect the social role and the expected behaviours that we believe we have.

• Brands symbolise different meanings and therefore inanimate objects can become associated with human characteristics. Brands and products can be turned into symbols - the meaning of the product mostly comes from marketing and is subsequently reinforced by the social environment.

• The symbolic meaning of products and brands can act as tools for make-believe identities

• People use products and services to negotiate between the Actual Self (the way people are at the present point in time), the Ideal Self (the self that we aspire to be), and the Ought Self (the way we think we should be, humility but also entitlement)

How do consumers use products and services within social interaction?

• The Social Comparison Theory states that the continuous comparison of ourselves to others is driven by a need to maintain and sometimes increase positive self-esteem

• Downward Social Comparisons allow us to compare ourselves to those who do less well, and therefore we appear to do better. This is something of a default for humans. 

• Upward Social Comparisons often occur in situations in which we cannot choose who we compare ourselves with, and are often people who are deemed more desirable - this can have a harmful effect on our self-esteem. Within branding, celebrity endorsement can be used as an example of this. 

• Brands and consuming a particular brand can form communities and allow us to bond and form a sense of cohesion - symbolic interactionism.

Using the theories discussed: suggest some visual communication strategies that effectively promote a product to its target audience

• Apple - associate personality types with their brand and their products

• Nespresso - upward comparisons to George Clooney (upward social comparison)

• Perfume adverts relating to body image and the Ideal Self

• Dove campaign advertising the Actual Self and playing against societal ideals

• American Eagle Outfitters use slogans relating to how individuals should live their lives -- Relating to Social Identity Theory - the part of an individual’s self-concept which derives from their knowledge of their membership of a social group together with the value and emotional significance of that membership. Products advertise a certain lifestyle which is attractive to a certain group of people - this group becomes more desirable and therefore more people buy into the brand.

• Popularity in children's toys - certain toys promote the popularity of a particular group status that becomes the desirable and is then reinforced throughout childhood and into adulthood

Are there any ethical issues?

• Brands can create an unrealistic Ideal Self, which most often sits outside the realm of the Actual Self for the majority of people

• Particularly in young children, certain aspects of the consumerist lifestyle teaches that difference in owned products an used services equals a negative difference in popularity, wealth etc.

• At times, possessions are simply used as an extension of the self, but they can also be used to compensate for what is perceived to be flaws in an individual's self-concept. Consequently, the consumer culture is often blamed for physical and psychological problems linked to identity.

• We create a society based on Othering, which relies on aggression to reach self-validation, which is mostly done unconsciously - branding which cynically plays into the reliance on certain groups of people acting certain ways can be viewed as unethical.