Personality and Lifestyle
Chapter OBJECTIVES
When students finish this chapter they 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 have met with mixed results.
• Consumers’ lifestyles are key to many marketing strategies.
• Psychographics go beyond simple demographics in helping marketers understand and reach different consumer segments.
• Identifying patterns of consumption can be superior to knowledge of individual purchases when crafting a lifestyle marketing strategy.
Chapter SUMMARY
The study of personality is one of the most interesting undertaken in studies of consumer behavior (it is also one of the more difficult explorations). The concept of personality refers to a person’s unique psychological makeup and how it consistently influences the way a person responds to his or her environment. When marketers attempt to use personality in formulating marketing strategy, several difficulties may arise. Among the most common difficulties are the differences in personality traits among consumers and problems with measurement of the traits. A variety of schools of thought (such as Freudian psychology) have been applied to these studies. Only mixed results have been achieved. Several schools of thought are explored in the chapter.
In addition to the personality of the consumer being of interest to the marketer, brands are also thought to have personalities. Brand equity refers to the extent that a consumer holds strong, favorable, and unique associations about a brand in memory. Personality dimensions can be used to compare and contrast the perceived characteristics of brands (such as old fashioned, rugged, outdoors, sexy, etc.). The creation and communication of a distinctive brand personality is one of the primary ways marketers can make a product stand out from the competition and inspire years of loyalty to it.
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When students finish this chapter they 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 have met with mixed results.
• Consumers’ lifestyles are key to many marketing strategies.
• Psychographics go beyond simple demographics in helping marketers understand and reach different consumer segments.
• Identifying patterns of consumption can be superior to knowledge of individual purchases when crafting a lifestyle marketing strategy.
Chapter SUMMARY
The study of personality is one of the most interesting undertaken in studies of consumer behavior (it is also one of the more difficult explorations). The concept of personality refers to a person’s unique psychological makeup and how it consistently influences the way a person responds to his or her environment. When marketers attempt to use personality in formulating marketing strategy, several difficulties may arise. Among the most common difficulties are the differences in personality traits among consumers and problems with measurement of the traits. A variety of schools of thought (such as Freudian psychology) have been applied to these studies. Only mixed results have been achieved. Several schools of thought are explored in the chapter.
In addition to the personality of the consumer being of interest to the marketer, brands are also thought to have personalities. Brand equity refers to the extent that a consumer holds strong, favorable, and unique associations about a brand in memory. Personality dimensions can be used to compare and contrast the perceived characteristics of brands (such as old fashioned, rugged, outdoors, sexy, etc.). The creation and communication of a distinctive brand personality is one of the primary ways marketers can make a product stand out from the competition and inspire years of loyalty to it.
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