The Relationship between Self-Concept and Brand Personality

Discussion

The main focus of our research was to develop a better understanding of whether marketers should consider audience's self-concept in marketing procedures and when should they stress brand personality related to aspirations (i.e., tailored to the consumer's ideal self) or the real (actual) consumer self to increase emotional brand attachment. Our findings support the view that self-congruence can increase emotional brand attachment; however, both the type of self-congruence and the context/consumer characteristics must be considered. In general, both actual and ideal self-congruity have positive effects on initiating emotional attachment to the brand, but to be specific we can say that actual self-congruence with brand generated higher levels of emotional brand attachment. This effect was even more pronounced when consumers were involved with the service or had a high level of self-esteem or public self-awareness. However, we found that aspirational (idealistic) branding may still work under certain conditions, specifically when involvement, self-esteem, or public self-consciousness is low.