The Relationship between Self-Concept and Brand Personality

Our results have important implications for marketing managers as well. Marketers are increasingly interested in finding ways to develop strong emotional brand attachments among their consumers, which can lead to stronger brand loyalty and brand performance (Park et al., 2010). Our findings indicate that there are four important issues for managers to consider when trying to increase emotional bonding between brand and customers: (1) Considering people's self-concept in branding and advertising activities, (2) Performing authentic branding, (3) Considering idealistic and realistic marketing (attention to ideal-self and actual-self), (4) Focusing on one-to-one marketing (personalized). Given the confirmation of the relationship between self-concept and brand personality and its impact on emotional attachment to the brand, we can offer general executive suggestions according to our findings.

Executive suggestions to strengthen the dimension of "congruity between self-concept and brand personality"

1. Paying attention to promotional strategies that are realistic) i.e., targeting the brand personality toward the customer's actual self), as well as those who pay attention to the idealistic ones (i.e., branding strategies that aim at ideal self-congruence).

2. Identifying the customer's personal-self strengths and weaknesses. For example, aspirational marketing can be used for individuals who are low with self-awareness. And realistic branding would be beneficial for consumers with high self-esteem and service involvement.

3. Involving the consumers in the marketing processes of the organization or company. According to our findings, engaging customers in building a brand personality can create a lot of consistency between their self-concept and brand personality (collaborative marketing).

4. Determining the personality aspects of the brand of Parsian Bank and trying to prove these aspects to the customers, observing this principle that brand advertisements are not raised as a single slogan. For example, if one of the personalities of the brand is innovation, then the definition of innovation should be identified by customers and be developed in all activities of the organization, including service management, human resource management and etc. This way, more consistency is established between the customer's self and brand personality.

5. The personality analysis of the target community of the brand and that what do customers often expect from the use of the services; what kind of brand personality features they look for. In fact, these surveys should be in the form of field researches on the side of the company's management, asking customers which personality aspects of the brand (e.g., Parsian Bank) are most desirable for them? In fact, exploring the actual expectations of customers towards the bank services is a valuable guideline for building a proper brand personality and moreover, tightening the bonds between the organization and customers. After all, these procedures help the marketing managers to find the right direction for investment

Executive suggestions to strengthen the dimension of "emotional attachment to the brand”

1. To communicate emotionally between customers and brand, marketers should use a customer-oriented perspective in defining brand identity to target individuals.

2. Moving from a comprehensive marketing approach to a one-to-one marketing (Individualization of the marketing process); Advertising based on the characteristics of individuals can affect the emotional attachment of audiences to the brand. This is based on our findings that the impact of self-congruence on emotional brand attachment depends on the consumer-specific context, which is consistent with the current trend in the marketing of moving away from mass marketing to person-to-person marketing.

3. Managers and marketers are advised to make advertising and marketing activities tailored to their customer's information needs in order to move towards brand building and enhancement.

4. Self-enhancement activities can lead to a positive relationship between ideal self-congruence and emotional brand attachment. Though this seems to occur mainly for consumers with low levels of self-esteem, product engagement, or public self-awareness. In the case of consumers with low self-esteem, for example, a brand that comes close to the ideal self can help consumers to compensate their low self-esteem, get closer to their ideal self and increase their emotional attachment toward the brand. For those with low product involvement consumer can “bask” in the reflected ideals that the brand posses. However, in the case of low self-consciousness, it is recommended to prime consumers for an increased awareness of themselves as individual persons. For instance, communication activities could concentrate more on the private and intimate dimensions of an individual's life.

5. Our results suggest that on a general level, the real-self is more important in forming the consumer's emotional brand attachment. So, authentic branding could have a meaningful impact on creating brand affection.

6. The construal level may have an impact on consumer's evaluations of emotional branding activities. Considering activities such as service involvement can help the customer feel more psychologically closer to the brand which could result in a more concrete mindset about the brand.