Who You Are Affect What You Buy - the Influence of Consumer Identity on Brand Preference

Who you are affect what you buy:

The influence of consumer identity on brand preference

Morgan A. Ilaw

Summary

Ilaw (2014) divided this article into several parts. The first part, the author lists a general literature review to provide the necessary information for background research, which uses three theories from previous studies the self, self-concept and self-image/product-image congruity and brands as symbols. Researchers from psychological and sociological field had divide self-concept into two types, which are actual self-concept and ideal self-concept. In this article, the author uses ideal self-concept as self-theory in order to avoid misunderstanding. The second theory is self-concept and self-image /product -image congruity which identifies that customers have similar shopping tendencies in purchasing mobile phones and cars. After that the author summaries a theory that brands as symbols need to be recognized by people, it will help companies develop as a whole. Then the author goes on to explain the current study purposes and the aim of the article.

Methodology on collecting date used to support this article is quantitative research method. 65 participants have successfully completed the survey although there were 69 initially. The questionnaire includes male and female participants of which 17 were male and 48 female through the use of Survey Monkey which is a free online questionnaire tool. After that this article used hypothesis testing which created two hypotheses self-image congruity and social identity. Using a linear regression model to test those two hypotheses. The results were different. Hypothesis 1 indicated that the relationship between brand preference and self-image is the same in males and females and hypothesis 2 suggested higher social identity, society prefers brands to goods. At the end of this article, a conclusion is drawn by the author that the research results proving the previous studies is correct which consumers preference are consistent with self-concept, however, the author presented a new point that was based on the original data, the result of the research is craftily directed to point towards consumer self-image of a marketing program is the most effective approach such as brand advertising. In addition, the author mentioned the limitations about this article in that this research may not be able to be applied to areas due to the fact that the data is scoped from a small South Liberal Art School which can not represent all of the population and the questionnaire with some errors such as Mac is a product not a brand. Furthermore, the questionnaire was conducted in an enclosed environment, therefore, the number of people included were it insufficient in creating an overall consensus.

Evaluation

Purpose

Reading journals can help us improve the skill of reading which can reduce unnecessary reading time and enable us to read in a more focused and selective manner. It also can help us increase our levels of understanding and concentration that means reading will be more effective. Reading journals can also act as a supplementary reading which can be useful in assignments or class discussions. To some degree, reading journals can help us understand the way of explanations, which can improve our assignment where reasoning of a statement is fairly significant. The reason for choosing this article ‘who you are affects what you buy: The influence of consumer identity on brand preference’ as a reading journal is that this article is consistent with my interests. It is a typical quantitative research method article which would help improve our ability to write better quantitative assignments. Moreover, this article is highly related with my subject through using hypothesis tests and linear regression analysis. Hypothesis testing is a method to test random variables and linear regression analysis is using the linear function based on current data to predict unknown parameters. These are two methods we need to be familiar with and know how to use, this is the reason why I chose this article for my reading journal.

Author stance

The author believes that this article reiterates the previous study that the relationship between consumers and brands. There are two main reasons which are self image needs and social identity needs. The author suggested that the brand prefers untapped markets, marketers must develop a brand image which closely matches the potential customers who know what the needs are and advertising information should be designed to customers requirements. In addition, activities are concentrated in attracting ethnic minority groups. These activities should be consistent with the focus on the cultural identity of minorities’ properties. Overall, the author uses quite strong and definite words to show the reliability of the article. For example, ‘only’, ‘ all’ those words show that author’s confidence. However, the author still uses some hedging words such as ‘ much research’, ‘suggesting’, ‘would’, ‘possible’ and ‘may’ these show that authors point of view is uncertain. For instance, ‘only three participants chose the brand in the first question, suggesting that the majority chose only the brand that was consistent with a protected aspect of their identity’, because there only have three participants the author uses ‘suggesting’ this word to explain there may have additional reasons. Moreover, this is a research to find out the consumer identity preference on brand which has many determinations of the brands selected. This is the reason why the author uses hedging words in the discussion part.

Evaluation

Generally this article is a good journal, clear structure, short questionnaire and many academic references. In terms of structure, the author has a great ability of using sub-headings which will transfer a complex problem into a simple or one direction argument. There is a smooth transition from one paragraph to the next which will increase the readability of the article as well as its overall flow. Questionnaires that we used are located in the appendix of the article which is helpful, it only has 10 short and simple questions which are easy for people to finish. As the author stated questionnaires should not take too much times, indeed, short questionnaire will save time for those who fill the questionnaire in. Moreover, the use of these authors sentences to strength the author’s arguments. For example, the author uses two reference Levy (1959)’ and ‘(Malhotra, 1987)’ to help support his arguments.