Page 180 - Marketing Management

ANALYZING CONSUMER MARKETS | CHAPTER 6 157

Personality can be a useful variable in analyzing consumer brand choices. Brands also have
personalities, and consumers are likely to choose brands whose personalities match their own.
We define brand personality as the specific mix of human traits that we can attribute to a
particular brand.
Stanford’s Jennifer Aaker researched brand personalities and identified the following traits: 21
1. Sincerity (down-to-earth, honest, wholesome, and cheerful)
2. Excitement (daring, spirited, imaginative, and up-to-date)
3. Competence (reliable, intelligent, and successful)
4. Sophistication (upper-class and charming)
5. Ruggedness (outdoorsy and tough)
Aaker analyzed some well-known brands and found that a number tended to be strong on one
particular trait: Levi’s on “ruggedness”; MTV on “excitement”; CNN on “competence”; and
Campbell’s on “sincerity.” These brands will, in theory, attract users high on the same traits. A brand
personality may have several attributes: Levi’s suggests a personality that is also youthful, rebellious,
authentic, and American.
A cross-cultural study exploring the generalizability of Aaker’s scale outside the United States
found three of the five factors applied in Japan and Spain, but a “peacefulness” dimension replaced
“ruggedness” both in Japan and Spain, and a “passion” dimension emerged in Spain instead of
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“competence.” Research on brand personality in Korea revealed two culture-specific factors—
“passive likeableness” and “ascendancy”—reflecting the importance of Confucian values in Korea’s
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social and economic systems.
Consumers often choose and use brands with a brand personality consistent with their actual
self-concept (how we view ourselves), although the match may instead be based on the con-
sumer’s ideal self-concept (how we would like to view ourselves) or even on others’ self-concept
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(how we think others see us). These effects may also be more pronounced for publicly con-
sumed products than for privately consumed goods. 25 On the other hand, consumers who are
high “self-monitors”—that is, sensitive to how others see them—are more likely to choose
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brands whose personalities fit the consumption situation. Finally, often consumers have multi-
ple aspects of self (serious professional, caring family member, active fun-lover) that may be
evoked differently in different situations or around different types of people. Some marketers
carefully orchestrate brand experiences to express brand personalities. Here’s how San
Francisco’s Joie de Vivre chain does this. 27

Joie de Vivre Joie de Vivre Hospitality operates a chain of boutique hotels,
restaurants, and resorts in the San Francisco area. Each property’s unique décor, quirky
amenities, and thematic style are often loosely based on popular magazines. For example,The
Hotel del Sol—a converted motel bearing a yellow exterior and surrounded by palm trees
wrapped with festive lights—is described as “kind of Martha Stewart Living meets Islands
magazine.” The Phoenix, represented by Rolling Stone, is, like the magazine, described as “adventurous,
hip, irreverent, funky, and young at heart.” Joie de Vivre’s goal is to stimulate each of the five senses in
accordance with the five words chosen for each hotel. The boutique concept enables the hotels to offer
personal touches, such as vitamins in place of chocolates on pillows. There’s even an online personality
matchmaker to help match guests to the most fitting hotels. Joie de Vivre now owns the largest number of
independent hotel properties in the Bay Area.

LIFESTYLE AND VALUES People from the same subculture, social class, and occupation may
lead quite different lifestyles. A lifestyle is a person’s pattern of living in the world as expressed in
activities, interests, and opinions. It portrays the “whole person” interacting with his or her
environment. Marketers search for relationships between their products and lifestyle groups.
A computer manufacturer might find that most computer buyers are achievement-oriented and
then aim the brand more clearly at the achiever lifestyle. Here’s an example of one of the latest
lifestyle trends businesses are targeting.