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The saturation of markets, congestion of media and maturity of consumer understanding of brands has steered marketing practice in recent years beyond ‘image branding’ towards ‘relationship branding’. Loyalty is no longer simply won through passive respect. Consumers demand more.
The brand’s role today has evolved from being an object of desire to being a champion of its own philosophy. This is no easy feat for marketers. It takes time, confidence, continuity and a lot of money.
So it’s important to get it right from the start. It’s important to understand how we as consumers relate to brands and why we enjoy the relationships we have with them.
In 1997 Jennifer Aaker published the paper ‘Dimensions of Brand Personality’ in the Journal of Marketing Research. At the root of this paper, Aaker outlines a brand personality scale, mapping out 5 dimensions, or human characteristics that could be associated with brands. These are Sincerity, Excitement, Competence, Sophistication and Ruggedness. This scale is often used to determine the current perceptions of a brand and to describe the desired future status of it.
This is all well and good but how do these traits strengthen a brand’s relationship with its audience? Should we profile consumer personality traits and map these against brand traits? Which characteristics are right for the brand?
These questions have led some academic marketers back to the Psychology text books to try to understand the affinity we as humans develop in our own relationships and whether this thinking can be applied to the consumer-brand relationship.
Social Psychology, put simply, is the study of how we perceive ourselves and how we interact with each other. Potentially there are some rich pickings amongst the research and models that this discipline has created.
As an example let’s look at a study of the development of interpersonal relationships. One of the most influential models in this field is proposed by psychologist, George Levinger (1983). According to his ABCDE model, the natural development of a relationship follows five stages:
1. Acquaintance: Becoming acquainted depends on a number of factors including, proximity, first impressions, attractiveness, similarities in personality, attitude, and interests and association to positive situations. Acquaintance may lead to the next stage or can continue indefinitely.
2. Build up: Beginning to trust and care about each other. Here there is a need for compatibility and filtering agents such as common background, cultural background and related interests. Compatibility will influence whether or not interaction continues.
3. Continuation: Following a mutual commitment to long-term relationships this is generally a long and relatively stable period. Continued growth and development will occur during this time.
4. Deterioration: Relationships deteriorate as a result of boredom, resentment and dissatisfaction. Individuals may communicate less and avoid self-disclosure. Loss and betrayals may take place continuing the downward spiral.
5. Ending: This marks the end of the relationship by complete termination or separation.
There are some obvious parallels here with our own developing relationships with brands. Jooyoung et al (2008) point out that true brand loyalty is derived from brand credibility, attitude, strength and brand commitment, which form the basis of Levinger’s first three stages here.
There are plenty of other studies that could be investigated. For the purpose of this article I have explored one model as an example but it serves to demonstrate the potential of Social Psychology to generate interesting parallels and further develop brand models.
All of this is predicated on the assumption that brands carry human traits and that consumers interact with brands in the same way that we interact with each other. Could it be that our richer understanding of brands and more complex relationships with them justifies a closer look at the field of Social Psychology?
About the Author
Max Spiegelberg has over 15 years expertise in branding as a consultant on brand development and innovation programs. He has worked for brands across the globe spanning a broad range of industries including FMCG, technology, pharma, agriculture and professional services.
Max is the Brand Director at Bloom, which is a brand agency dedicated to building brighter brands. Clients include Diageo, Nestlé, Pepsico, P&G and GlaxoSmithKline.