CONSUMER PERSONALITY

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LEARNING OBJECTIVES
How personality reflects consumers’ inner differences

Views of various theories explaining the impact of personality

on Consumers’ Attitudes & Behavior

How Personality reflects consumers’ responses to product &

marketing messages

How marketers seek to create brand personalities-like traits.

How Products & Services Enhances consumers self-Image

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PERSONALITY
Those inner psychological characteristics that both determine and reflect how
a person responds to his or her environment

Personality influences the individual product choices & even certain brand
choices. The consumer response to a firm’s promotional efforts, and when,
where, & how they consumer particular products or services. For marketers its
highly useful with regards to consumer personality characteristics for the
development of a firm market segmentation strategies.

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PERSONALITY
Examples: Tiffany's (famous jewelry & gift retailer) appeal to individualism
(headline: ‘’Every women has a signature’’)
Clairol Ultress (hair color) appeal to the inner self (headline: “New Ultress
lets express your inner
Samsara’s (fragrance) appeal to confidence (headline: “A look inside.
Serenity born of confidence”)

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NATURE OF PERSONALITY
1-Personality reflects individual differences:

Many people can be described as “High” in sociability while others can be described
as “Low” in sociability. It enables marketers to categorize consumers into different
groups on the basis of a single trait or a few trait

2-Personality is Consistent & Enduring:

Individual’s personality showing consistent, consumption behavior often varies because

of psychological, socio-cultural,& environmental factors affecting behavior. If an
individual personality is stable, the specific needs or motives, attitudes, reactions or
group pressures, and even responses to newly available brands may cause a change
in the person’s behavior

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NATURE OF PERSONALITY
3-Personality can Change:

Individual’s personality may be altered by major life events, such as the birth
of a child, the death of loved one, a divorce, or a major career promotion. An
individual’s personality changes not only in response to unexpected events, but
also as part of a gradual maturing process

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VIEWS OF VARIOUS THEORIES EXPLAINING THE IMPACT OF
PERSONALITY ON CONSUMERS’ ATTITUDES & BEHAVIOR

Freudian Theory

Neo-Freudian Theory

Trait Theory

‘’These Theories played a prominent role in the study of the relationship

between consumer behavior & personality’’

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FREUDIAN THEORY
This theory was built on the unconscious needs or drives, especially sexual
& other biological drives, are the heart of human motivation and
personality

Id: It is the basic physiological needs such as thirst & hunger for which seeks
immediate satisfaction without concern for the specific means of satisfaction

Super Ego: Its role is to see that the individual satisfies needs in a socially
acceptable fashion

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FREUDIAN THEORY
Ego: The ego is individual conscious control. It provides balance between Id &
Super ego

Freudian theory & Product personality

People are usually unaware of their true reasons for buying what they buy
One appearance –how well groomed one ism what one wears, carries and
displays – are taken to reflect the individual’s personality

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NEO-FREUDIAN PERSONALITY THEORY

Believe that social relationships are fundamental to the formation and

development of personality

Complaint: Individuals who move towards others (they desire to be loved,

wanted & appreciated) E.g. Slogan of Starter Sports Wear Product‘’Its about
Team’’ targets directly to the complaint individuals

Aggressive: Individuals are those who move against others (they desire to
excel and win admiration)
E.g. “Old Spice’’ because of its masculine appeal
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NEO-FREUDIAN PERSONALITY THEORY

Detached: Individuals are those who move away from others ( they desire
independence, self-reliance, self sufficiency & freedom from obligations)
E.g.: Students who scored high in self reliance – who preferred to do things
independently of others. Such persons were less likely to be very brand loyal
& more likely to try different brands

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TRAIT THEORY
Trait theory quantitatively measure personality in terms of specific
psychological characteristics called traits

Trait – How an individual differs from another

Personality tests conducted on single-trait personality which involves consumer

innovativeness, consumer susceptibility, consumer materialism & consumer
ethnocentrism

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SOUP AND SOUP LOVER’S TRAITS
Chicken Noodle Soup Lovers
 Watch a lot of TV
 Are family oriented
 Have a great sense of humor
 Like daytime talk shows
Vegetable Soup Lovers
 Enjoy the outdoors
 Usually game for trying new
things
 Gardening is often a favorite
hobby

Tomato Soup Lovers

 Passionate about reading
 Love pets
 Like meeting people for coffee

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PERSONALITY REFLECTS CONSUMERS’ RESPONSES TO
PRODUCT & MARKETING MESSAGES

Customer Innovativeness

Cognitive Personality Factors

Consumer Materialism

Consumer Ethnocentrism

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CUSTOMER INNOVATIVENESS
Customer Innovativeness: How receptive consumers are to new products &
services. This personality trait gives insights about consumer’s willingness to
innovate

Dogmatism: It’s a trait which measures the degree of rigidity which consumers
display towards unfamiliar & toward information contrary to their own
established beliefs. Consumer who are low in dogmatism prefer innovative
products for benefits. Highly dogmatic consumers prefer ads for new products
& services that contain authoritative appeal i.e. celebrities & experts used for
non-innovators to accept innovation.

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CUSTOMER INNOVATIVENESS

Social Character: Consists of Inner (inner Values) & Outer Directedness

consumer. Inner directedness rely on their own inner values in evaluating new
products & are likely to become consumer innovators->personal benefits.
Outer Directedness (tend to look to others direction & less likely to be
consumer innovators->social acceptance)

Optimum Stimulation Level: Consumers with more willingness to take risks, to try
new products, to be innovative, to seek purchase info

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COGNITIVE PERSONALITY FACTORS

Visualizers v/s Verbalizers: Visualizer are those consumers who prefer visual
information and products stress the visual. Verbalizers are those who
consumers who prefer written or verbal information and products

Need for Cognition: A person’s craving for enjoyment of thinking. Consumers

who have high NC prefers ad that is rich in product-related information &
those consumers who have low NC are attracted to the background of an ad,
such as an attractive model or well-known celebrity

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CONSUMER MATERIALISM

Consumer Materialism: Consumer who are especially value acquiring &

showing-off possessions. They are self-centered & selfish. They got desire to
have lots of things rather then simple lifestyle. Possessions doesn’t lead to
greater happiness. E.g. Sports Car & Diamonds

Fixated Consumption Behavior: Those consumers who do not keep their

objects or purchases of interest a secret; rather, they share a similar interest

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CONSUMER MATERIALISM

Compulsive Consumption Behavior: Consumer who are compulsive have an

addiction, abnormal behavior, in some respects out of control & their action
have damaging consequences to them and those around them
Those consumers who comes under the category of uncontrollable gambling,
drug addiction, alcoholism, & various food and eating disorders

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CONSUMER ETHNOCENTRISM

Consumers who are receptive / non receptive to foreign made products

CETSCALE is to identify consumers with a tendency to accept (or reject) foreign-

made products.

Consumers who are highly ethnocentric are likely to feel that it is inappropriate
or wrong to purchase foreign made products because of the economic impact on
the domestic economy, whereas non-ethnocentric consumers tend to evaluate
foreign made products more objectively for their extrinsic characteristics

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BRAND PERSONALITY

Personality-like traits associated with brands

Provides an emotional identity to a brand & triggers consumer to respond with feelings &
emotions towards the brand

E.g. Nike as in athlete in all of us, BMW is performance driven & Limca as representing
Freshness

Strong, positive brand personality leads to more favorable attitudes towards the brand in-
terms of Brand preference, brand purchase intentions, brand loyalty & brand differentiation
among competitive brands

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A BRAND PERSONALITY FRAMEWORK

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BRAND PERSONIFICATION
Recast consumers’ perception of the attributes of a products or service into a
human-like character.

Consumers express their inner feelings about products or brands in terms of

their association with known personalities

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PRODUCTS & SERVICES ENHANCES CONSUMERS SELF-IMAGE

Actual Self Image: How consumer in-fact see themselves. Dealing with
household products consumer like to be guided by actual self image. Every
household products

Social Self Image: How consumers feel others to see them. For some socially
enhancing products consumer like to be guided by social image

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PRODUCTS & SERVICES ENHANCES CONSUMERS SELF-IMAGE

Marketers can segment their markets on the basis of relevant consumer self-
images. Such strategy is fully consistent with the marketing concept in that the
marketer first assess the needs of a consumer segment (with respect to
product category & self image) then proceeds to develop and market a
product or service that meets both criteria

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CHEESE FACTORY
Pick three of your favorite food brands.

Describe their personality. Do they have a gender? What personality traits do

they have?

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