What is it about?
Self-brand congruence is an important factor influencing consumers' interactions with brands, but how exactly does it work? We have shown for the first time that consumers tend to favour brands with personality traits complementary to their own. Congruence was previously assumed to only manifest itself in the form of similarity.
Featured Image
Why is it important?
Our findings show the existence of complementarity configurations between consumers' and brands' personality traits. This is important because previously it was assumed that consumers only favoured brands with traits similar to their own. Furthermore, we have developed a way to capture complementarity, along with similarity, and tested it to find it superior to previous measures that only captured similarity. In other words, this new way can explain better a number of brand-related behaviours (e.g. passion, pleasure, separation distress).
Perspectives
Writing this article has truly been a journey where we were all challenged to push through assumptions that have been made for years in consumer behaviour literature. I really hope this article inspires others to re-examine many of the conclusions we have been making about how consumers choose and interact with brands. And this is not just an issue for researchers, but also for managers and consumers themselves, as our interactions with brands are continuous and touch every single moment and occasion in our lives.
Maria Karampela
University of Strathclyde
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: When opposites attract? Exploring the existence of complementarity in self-brand congruence processes, Psychology and Marketing, May 2018, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1002/mar.21107.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
