ARTICLE IN PRESS

0969-6989/$ - se

doi:10.1016/j.jre

�CorrespondE-mail addr

ac.uk (G. Davi

Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]]

www.elsevier.com/locate/jretconser

Profiling consumers of own brands and national brands usinghuman personality

Susan Whelana,�, Gary Daviesb

aWaterford Institute of Technology, Waterford, IrelandbManchester Business School, Booth Street West, Manchester, SK12 1XT, UK

Abstract

Traditional methods of market segmentation based on demographic variables have shown mixed results in differentiating between

those who are more likely to buy own brand products and those who prefer national brands. Taking advantage of the emerging

convergence in human personality research on the Big Five dimensions, we focus on the potential of human personality as a method of

identifying different customer segments. Two types of own brands are considered, those labelled with the retailer’s corporate name and

those labelled with a name independent of the retailer. Two product categories are included, cola as an example of a low-involvement

product and cosmetics as an example of a high-involvement product. The personality profiles of buyers of these and the leading national

brands in each category are compared. Stepwise regression is used to identify those aspects of shopper personality that predict purchase

rates of all products. Individuals who are more ‘open to experience’ report higher purchases of corporately named products, while

individuals who are more ‘extrovert’ report higher purchases of national brands. Those reporting higher rates of purchase for own

brands with independent names tend to be more ‘agreeable’ and ‘extrovert’. The positioning of the three types of brands against the 5

dimensions of human personality is illustrated using correspondence analysis. The clear potential to use human personality to segment

and profile markets for own brands and national brands is discussed.

r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Segmentation; Consumer profiles; Own brands; Personality; Correspondence analysis

1. Introduction

Products branded by the retailer now comprise morethan half of the transactions in most leading supermarketsin developed retail markets such as the UK (Ritson, 2003).Such ‘own brand’ products can provide a retailer withhigher gross margins than national brands (Davies andBrito, 2003). Consequently, there has been considerableacademic and managerial interest in retailer’s own brandproducts (Omar, 1996). Our purpose here is to add to ourunderstanding of the purchasing of own brands and inparticular to the literature on the profiling of own brandpurchasers.

There are many types of retailer branded products,ranging from basic, ‘generic’ lines, simply packaged and

e front matter r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

tconser.2006.02.004

ing author. Tel.: +353 51 30 2438; fax: +353 51 30 2456.

esses: swhelan@wit.ie (S. Whelan), gdavies@man.mbs.

es).

presented, to products that are presented as if they werenational brands (Bhasin et al., 1995). What constitutes anown brand is open to debate. One definition limits ownbrands to products sold exclusively through the retailer’sown outlets (Rousell and White, 1970). Here we extendthat definition to include ‘any brand name used exclusively

by a retail business and controlled by that business’. Thisencompasses those products that are labelled by the retailerbut, because their names are not the same as the storename, can be sold more widely.A choice of different brand names is among the most

popular of positioning strategies pursued by some retailers(Blankson, 2004). The choice of the retailer’s name to labela product will seek to benefit from any transfer or spilloverof image from the corporate brand (Kapferer, 2000). Manyretailers employ two approaches, labelling what may beentry level products with the store name and labellingproducts positioned closer to national brands withdifferent names. The use of such ‘independent’ own

ARTICLE IN PRESSS. Whelan, G. Davies / Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]]2

branding is then not a random choice by retailers, but anapparent attempt to position certain own brands indifferent ways. The examples we use in our empirical workare St. Bernard, the name used by Dunnes Stores, a foodand clothing multiple store based in Ireland. The StBernard name is used across all of its own brands. Byway of contrast, Boots, the chemist chain based inEngland, use their corporate name on certain productsbut a range of independent brand names on other ownbrands, such as No. 7, a range of cosmetics. Such namingstrategies are especially apparent among British retailerswhere own brand marketing practices are more advancedthan elsewhere (Ritson, 2003).

The traditional assumption in the literature to date isthat the consumer group that buy own brands are differentfrom the group that do not buy them (and who probablyprefer national brands) i.e. that there are separate segmentsof own brand purchasers and national brand purchasers.While this perspective has been criticised (Gordon, 1994) asplacing consumers into rigid boxes, rather than recognisingthat the same individual may buy own brands on oneshopping occasion, but not on another, market researchevidence suggests that only about half of all shoppersregularly buy own brands. The issue is then to understandwhy some do and others do not purchase so that retailersand suppliers can better segment and understand theirmarkets. This paper goes further than differentiatingbetween national and own brand buyers to examinewhether different segments exist for two different types ofown brand.

While previous studies have focused on profiling ownbrand consumers on the basis of demographic (Granzin,1981), socioeconomic (Frank, 1967) and behaviouraldimensions (Baltas and Doyle, 1998), no work to datehas investigated the influence of personality as a basis toprofile purchasers, despite the recent renewal of interest inpersonality in the consumer research literature (Baumgart-ner, 2002) and the acceptance of the ‘‘Big Five’’ taxonomy.Our purpose in this article therefore is to investigate thepersonality profiles of consumers who regularly purchasedifferent types of own brands and national brands in orderto find what types of personalities such brands appeal toand then to discuss the implications our results may havefor retail marketing practice. A key issue for retailers is tounderstand which types of customer they should focus onin their marketing of their own brands. For example, iftheir naming strategies differ, does this affect the potentialcore customer?

Our paper is structured as follows: the second sectionexamines previous branding studies for own brands whilethe third section examines consumer personality profiling.The fourth section develops this further by examining the‘‘Big Five’’ taxonomy measure of human personality.Results and discussion are reported in the sixth section.The paper concludes with a discussion of the implicationsof the findings for theory and for practice, together withpossible avenues for further research.

2. Own brand research

Today own brands constitute a brand category in theirown right with a wide range of positioning options open toretailers (Johansson and Burt, 2003). However, relativelyfew studies have investigated own brands; most wereconducted in the 1960s and 1970s and examined therelevance of demographic and socio-economic variables topurchase behaviour. According to Baltas and George(1998), four main streams of research can be identified.The first stream focuses on consumer perceptions of own

brands. Traditionally, studies indicated that consumersgenerally perceive private label brands to be of lowerquality than national brands (Strang et al., 1979; Granzin,1981; Bellezi et al., 1981; Cunningham et al., 1982;McEnally and Hawes, 1984; Mogelonsky, 1985). Thisreduced quality would be traded off by shoppers against alower purchase price. However, more recently there isevidence that the popularity of private labels has grownbecause consumers now place trust in the (improved)quality of these products (Richardson et al., 1994; Rajuet al., 1995). A second stream examines the relationshipbetween market factors and own brand success (Sethura-man, 1992; Sethuraman and Mittelstaedt, 1992; Hoch andBanerji, 1993). Correlates of own brand proneness areinvestigated in the third stream. Factors including famil-iarity with own brands, use of extrinsic cues in productevaluations, perceived quality variations (Bellezi et al.,1981), perceived risk and value for money, income levelsand family size (Richardson et al., 1996) are found tocorrelate with own brand proneness. Other factors includedthe level of information to be associated with the ownbrand (Bettman, 1973), the degree of experience with theown brand, differential responses to marketing activities,differences in needs, perceived risk and product importance(Livesey and Lennon, 1978). A common theme in thisresearch stream is perceived risk, an issue that we willreturn to later; own brands can lack the assurance of anational brand, which is likely to be more trusted bybuyers.The last stream focused on developing profiles for

consumers who prefer own brands. This provides theprimary focus for our current study. Studies in this lastmentioned literature stream tend to concentrate ondeveloping profiles of shoppers of own and nationalbrands on the basis of demographic, socio-economic, andattitudinal or behavioural characteristics. Earlier studies ofthe market for own brands focused primarily on demo-graphics (Granzin, 1981), but more recent studies maintainan ongoing interest in profiling the market for own brandcustomers using consumer characteristics (Baltas andPapastathopoulou, 2003). A number of studies in the1960s found the impact of socio-economic variables to beunclear (Coe, 1971; Frank and Boyd, 1965; Murphy, 1978).Consumers who purchased own brands were virtuallyidentical in terms of their socio-economic background(Frank, 1967) and these could influence brand perception

ARTICLE IN PRESSS. Whelan, G. Davies / Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]] 3

and choice (Myers, 1967). Some more recent research hasfound differences between the demographic characteristicsof consumers who purchase own brands and those whopurchase national brands (e.g. Omar, 1992) while othershave found contradictory evidence and that own brandpurchasers are spread across all socio-economic groups(e.g. Burger and Schott, 1972). Attitudinal and behaviouralcharacteristics appear to be better predictors of apropensity to buy own brands than demographics (Baltasand George, 1998).

In summary, prior research has focussed on demo-graphic and socio-economic measures, but found limitedpotential to profile own brand customers. While attitudinaland behavioural profiles of own brand purchasers exist,there is relatively little known about consumer psycho-graphic profiles for own brands. Indeed, to the best of ourknowledge, no research to date has either examinedconsumer self-perceptions of their own personalities togain insights into psychographic profiles for own brandspurchasers, nor profiles of purchasers for different types ofown brands i.e. retailer or independently named ownbrands.

3. Consumer personality profiles

We tend to buy products that are complementary to theperceptions we hold of ourselves. The purchase of ownbrands can therefore be a way for shoppers to express oneor more aspects of their own persona. Early research byGrubb and Grathwohl (1967) found a relationship betweenconsumer self-concept and market behaviour in terms ofthe symbolism associated with different brands. Theinfluence of consumers’ needs for social affiliation onbehavioural intentions and repeat purchase is well docu-mented (Bloemer and Odekerken-Schroder, 2003). In onestudy, consumer self-perception was positively related toattitudes towards private labels and to subsequent pur-chase intentions (Garretson et al., 2002). How consumers’perceive their own personalities and self-image could thenbe an important segmentation basis for strategic brandmarketing, both for retail and national brand marketers.

The study of personality has a long history in consumerresearch and there are two broad streams of research in thefield of consumer personality studies that have importantimplications for our study. Early studies were used toexamine the nature of personality as a segmentation basis,even though this work was never applied to any type ofretail own brands. Wells (1975) commented on howpersonality trait descriptors could be used ‘‘to supplementdemographics in very interesting and useful ways’’. A studyby Goldberg (1976) showed evidence that psychographicpersonality measures might be able to predict actual choicebehaviour. This represented a breakthrough in consumerresearch by demonstrating that it was possible to gobeyond simple correlations of personality and relativepreference to predict more specific patterns of actualbehaviour with regard to particular product choices.

Following from this, personality was used as a segmenta-tion basis to examine socially conscious consumer groups(Webster Jr., 1975) and to develop segment profiles ofsignature goods consumers and avoiders (Jolson et al.,1981).A second stream of consumer personality research, that

is equally important for this paper, examines the impact ofpersonality on a range of consumer behaviour outcomes.Conducted mainly during the 1970s and early 1980s studiesinvestigated the impact of consumer personality onconsumer choice (McGuire, 1976), information processing(Schaninger, 1976; Schaninger and Sciglimpaglia, 1981;Mizerski and Settle, 1979), experiential consumption(Holbrook et al., 1984), and exploratory consumerbehaviour (Joachimsthaler and Lastovicka, 1984). Sincethen, consumer personality research has been in thedoldrums (Baumgartner, 2002). This is somewhat surpris-ing given that the last two decades have been exciting timesfor research in the mainstream of personality andpsychology. A convergence of research using the traitapproach to defining human psychology around the ‘‘BigFive’’ taxonomy has rejuvenated the field. In particular,researchers have begun to study the personality of theindividual in a motivational context, in terms of what theyare trying to accomplish in their daily lives (Cantor, 1990).Consumer researchers have not thus far paid muchattention to this purposive element of consumer behaviourand to what consumers attempt to accomplish throughpurchasing and consuming different products and brands.Baumgartner (2002) suggests that the recent developmentsin personality psychology research might provide a usefulframework for consumer research by relating behaviour toa consumer’s standing on the ‘‘Big Five’’ taxonomy as thisaids the development of work investigating whether thereare types of consumers with characteristic personalityprofiles who purchase different types of product.

4. ‘‘Big Five’’ accepted taxonomy

Many traditional problems in marketing have implicitassumptions about human nature and more specificallyabout personality. Personality refers to both a person’ssocial reputation and his or her inner nature (Hogan,1991). The first aspect refers to the way in which a person isperceived by those around him or her, including family,friends and colleagues. The second refers to the structures,processes, propensities and dynamics inside a person thatexplain why he or she behaves in a particular way. This isof clear relevance in explaining why people do or do notpurchase different types of brands.Historically, however, critics have suggested that the

predictive validity of personality in measuring socialbehaviour is quite low (Guion and Gottier, 1965). Thesecriticisms arose from studies conducted many decades agowhen no accepted taxonomy for classifying personalitytraits existed. Therefore, it was not possible to find if therewere consistent, meaningful relationships between the

ARTICLE IN PRESS

Table 1

The products selected for study

Retailers Own brands National brands

Tesco Tesco cola and Tesco cosmetics Coca cola

Dunnes stores St. Bernard cola Pepsi cola

Boots No. 7 cosmetics Maybelline

Max factor

S. Whelan, G. Davies / Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]]4

personality traits and relevant criteria used in differentstudies. The recent advances in both personality andconsumer research, however, have allowed for a measureof personality that is valid, reliable and generalisable. The‘‘Big Five’’ is now a widely accepted taxonomy of humanpersonality, where personality dimensions are commonlylabelled as Agreeableness, Extroversion, Openness toExperience, Conscientiousness and Neuroticism (Gold-berg, 1990; Costa and McCrae, 1992; Barrick and Mount,1991).

Agreeableness reflects trust (Costa and McCrae, 1995)and is also associated with likeability, friendliness andsocial conformity (Barrick and Mount, 1993). Extroversionreflects people that are sociable, outgoing, talkative,assertive and active (Barrick and Mount, 1991). Opennessto experience labels people who are imaginative, curiousand broadminded (Barrick and Mount, 1991) and whohave a need for variety and unconventional values(McCrae and John, 1992). Evidence has been provided instudies by both Digman (1990) and Barrick and Mount(1991) that conscientious people tend to be dependableand, as such, careful, thorough, responsible and organised.Further important traits of conscientiousness are hard-working, achievement oriented and persevering. The finalhuman personality dimension is that of neuroticism whichhas been interpreted as emotional stability or instability.Traits associated with neuroticism include being ‘‘anxious,depressed, angry, embarrassed, worried and insecure’’(Barrick and Mount, 1991).

Based on such thinking, it is reasonable to propose thatpeople with different perceptions of themselves, in terms oftheir own personalities, may purchase different brands,which functionally satisfy the same needs but symbolicallyare quite different. For example, purchasers who viewthemselves as being ‘‘open to experience’’ may be morewilling to try an unfamiliar product or one with a higherlevel of associated risk. People who view themselves asbeing highly agreeable may purchase brands that conformto how they view themselves socially, as wanting to pleaseand in seeing the best in others. Extraverts on the otherhand may wish to enhance the perception that others holdof them by purchasing brands with the highest level ofassociated imagery. Our empirical work is then directed toinvestigate the personality profiles of consumers whoregularly purchase different types of own brands andnational brands.

5. Research methodolgy

To test the effects of different own branding strategieswe selected own brands named with the retailer’s corporatename, own brands labelled with independent names andnational brands in two-product categories, cola, a low-involvement product category and cosmetics, a high-involvement category. For the purposes of the researchdesign, the two categories were chosen as they have alimited number of leading national brands to measure

within each that have very similar price points. We chosethree retailers, Tesco, a food retailer who also sell a widerange of everyday products including cosmetics; Boots aleading retailer of cosmetics, and Dunnes Stores, a retailerof both food and textiles. In cola we chose four brands forstudy, the leading national brands Coca-Cola and Pepsicola, and two own brands, Tesco’s Cola (labelled with theretailer’s name) and St. Bernard cola, an own brand fromDunnes, but labelled with the retailer’s independent name,St. Bernard. In cosmetics we chose Maybelline and Maxfactor as the two leading national brands; Tesco cosmeticsas the corporately labelled example and Boots No. 7 as anexample of an independently labelled own brand, Table 1.Previous studies of personality effects in marketing have

used qualitative approaches including projective techniquesand depth interviewing (Guion and Gottier, 1965). Morerecently there has been a renewal of interest in quantitativemethods (Barrick and Mount, 1991; Digman, 1990),following the acceptance of the ‘‘Big Five’’ personalitytaxonomy. Given the availability of validated measurementscales (McCrae and Costa, 1989; Goldberg, 1990) we felt alarge sample would enhance our understanding of ownbrand consumers using personality profiles and thereforechose a quantitative approach using a structured surveyinstrument. A pilot study of consumers randomly chosenimmediately outside the stores of the three retailers chosenfor the study ðn ¼ 30Þ was administered to test and developthe questionnaire instrument.The main survey was conducted outside the stores of the

three retailers in the South East of Ireland. The inter-viewers were students on a third year undergraduateBusiness Studies degree programme, who were trained inhow to approach respondents and how to administer thequestionnaire in a face-to-face interview context. Thesurvey method adopted was a mall intercept survey usingconvenience sampling. This had the advantage of a highresponse rate (Hair et al., 1995), but means that the datacannot be used to represent the sample population.However, the primary reason for using conveniencesampling here is in the interest of data variance (Cramer,2003). The researchers were not interested in the number ofresponses of customers in a given age category, forexample, but in obtaining different responses to see ifrelationships exist between variables. Interviewers werethus instructed to approach the next person leaving thestore after completing a previous interview to reduce age

ARTICLE IN PRESS

Table 2

Sample profiles

Retailer Survery

Tesco Dunnes Boots Tesco

Brand Tesco cola St. Bernard Cola No. 7 Tesco cosmetics

Male 87 87 16 21

Female 85 79 156 148

15–24 102 82 88 92

25–35 33 25 27 42

36–49 22 33 39 20

50+ 19 27 20 19

S. Whelan, G. Davies / Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]] 5

and gender bias but mainly to include a full range ofrespondents. Exit interviews were specifically chosen sothat respondents were customers of the retailer. Table 2reports the sample profiles of respondents. Respondentswere interviewed about three brands: one national brandand one own brand of each type within one category.A filter question was used to identify familiarity with theproduct category.

The scale adopted to measure human personality wasGoldberg’s (1990, 1992) human personality scale. Justifica-tion for use of this scale over other earlier work (Allportand Odbert, 1936; Cattell, 1943; McCrae and Costa, 1989;John, 1990) lies with its ability to demonstrate thegenerality of the Big Five representation of personality,within trait terms that were deemed as being far morerepresentative of the total English trait lexicon than werethose included in any previous study. To this end,Goldberg (1992) presented findings to demonstrate factorrobustness of the five factors: extraversion, agreeableness,conscientiousness, neuroticism and open to experience.Respondents are asked to rate themselves on 35 traits.Respondents were requested to ‘‘describe yourself asaccurately as possibleyat the present time, not as youwish to be in the future’’ on a each on a 9-point bipolarscale, for example 1 ¼ very unassertive and 9 ¼ veryassertive. Itemised Likert rating scales were used to assessthe prior purchase on a 1 (very frequently) to 5 (not at all)scale.

Responses with excessive missing values were discardedleaving 690 usable cases for the final analysis. Missingvalues were an issue in the personality scale. A rule wasdeveloped to aid the decision on which cases to delete dueto missing values and which cases to recode with theneutral point of the personality scale. The rule was that ifhuman personality (with a total of 35 items) had missingvalues in excess of 5 within any case, then that case wasdeleted.

Stepwise regression analysis was used to identify whichdimensions of human personality best predicted purchaserate (Hair et al., 2001) to determine whether a relationshipexists between some of the dimensions of customerpersonality for those who purchase different brands, other

than merely identifying an association and the strength ofassociation (Byrne, 2000). Stepwise regression was chosenover ordinary linear regression because it retains onlysignificant variables that predict other variables (Pallant,2001).

6. Empirical results and discussion

Table 3 shows the average scores for each product foreach of the 5 personality dimensions for shoppers whoreported regular purchase of the product.The own brands were purchased regularly by fewer

shoppers and the low-involvement products more fre-quently than the high involvement examples. We thentested the idea that the purchase of corporately labelledown brands, independently labelled own brands andnational brands are made by people with distinctlydifferent human personality profiles. Stepwise regressionwas used to predict the purchase frequency of each productfor all respondents where the independent variables werethe five personality dimensions.Table 4 shows the model fit statistics for the dependant

purchase variables of the four own brands and fournational brands. As can be seen, purchases of differenttypes of brand are predicted significantly by a number ofhuman personality dimensions and the relationship isrelatively stronger for the own brands. Purchase of theretail named own brands of Tesco is predicted best by the‘openness to experience’ dimension. Such people aretypically creative and curious, making them willing to tryofferings other than manufacturer brands. Openness toexperience is frequently associated with people who areimaginative, curious and broadminded (Barrick andMount, 1991) and who have a need for variety andunconventional values (McCrae and John, 1992). They arealso reasonably sophisticated in their judgements, explain-ing why they might choose an own branded product thatthey know will satisfy a functional need and being lessconcerned about the image that this might impart toothers.Somewhat in contrast, the personality dimensions of

agreeableness and extroversion were retained to predict thepurchase of the two other own brands in the study, No. 7cosmetics and St. Bernard cola. As discussed previously,agreeableness reflects trust (Costa and McCrae, 1995) andis also associated with likeability, friendliness and socialconformity (Barrick and Mount, 1993) while extroversionreflects people that are sociable, outgoing, talkative,assertive and active (Barrick and Mount, 1991). Agreeablepeople are best described as trustful, cooperative andagreeable in that they see the best in others. It wouldappear that independently named own brands elicit trust,possibly due to their similar physical appearance andimagery to key national in the categories, combined withthe name of the retailer. Taken together the purchase ofnational brands is best predicted by Extroversion, but the

ARTICLE IN PRESS

Table 3

Mean scores of consumer personality dimensions for brands purchased frequently

Brand Extroversion Agreeable Conscientious Neurotic Open to experience N

Tesco cola 5.57 6.14 5.80 5.47 6.00 31

St. Bernard cola 5.85 6.53 6.76 5.06 6.39 48

No. 7 cosmetics 6.21 7.36 6.67 4.98 6.35 56

Tesco cosmetics 6.53 7.71 7.07 4.14 6.46 36

Coca cola 6.51 7.25 6.63 4.92 4.66 211

Pepsi cola 6.38 7.19 6.68 4.69 4.52 101

Max factor 6.31 7.23 6.63 4.98 5.46 147

Maybelline 6.46 7.23 6.86 4.91 5.44 155

Table 4

Regression model fit and ANOVA test statistics personality dimensions

which drive consumer behaviour of own brands

Brand/model drivers of

purchase

N R2 F Sig.

Tesco cola 176 .21a 40.6 .01

Tesco cosmetics 173 .207b 18.85 .015

No. 7 cosmetics 174 .149c 19.38 .047

St. Bernard cola 167 .253d 56.19 .004

National brands: Max factor,

Maybelline, Coca cola and

Pepsi

690 .091e 57.98 .016

aPredictors: Openness to experience.bPredictors: Openness to Experience.cPredictors: Agreeableness, Extroversion.dPredictors: Extroversion, Agreeableness.ePredictors: Extroversion.

Table 5

Regression model fit and ANOVA test statisticspersonality dimensions

which drive consumer behaviour of national brands

Brand/model drivers of purchase N R2 F Sig.

Coca cola 343 .185a 12.051 .001

Pepsi cola 343 .108b 4.034 .045

Max factor 347 .109c 8.822 .035

Maybelline 347 .113d 4.436 .036

aPredictors: Extraversion.bPredictors: Agreeableness.cPredictors: Openness to experience.dPredictors: Extraversion.

S. Whelan, G. Davies / Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]]6

significance level is quite low. The results for the fournational brands individually are presented in Table 5.

Extroversion is relatively important to describe thepurchaser of national brands as a group and is importantfor two of the four individually. It comprises two elements(Barrick and Mount, 1991): Ambition (initiative, surgency,ambition and impetuous) and Sociability (sociable, exhibi-tionist and expressive). Consumers who view themselves asextroverted may feel the need to purchase national brands(and the quite similarly positioned independently namedown brands) due to their need for social affiliation with

other similar people. They may also depend heavily on thesymbolism associated with such brands, rather than withthe traditional imagery associated with clearly namedretailer own brands. Extroversion was important inpredicting Coca cola and Maybelline purchases. Agree-ableness was more important in predicting purchases ofPepsi cola, the number two brand of cola in this market.Agreeableness, which reflects a trusting personality mighthave been expected to be more important for allmanufacturer brands as building trust is often associatedwith branding. However, as will be seen later thepersonality dimensions of Agreeableness and Extroversionare closely associated in this context. Max factor purchaseswere explained best by the Open to Experience dimension,which is surprising, as the brand is well known. Onepossible explanation is that the purchase of Max factor in achain store environment rather than in a department storeis an issue for shoppers.While the R2 data indicates that purchase rates are not

dominated by the personality of the shopper and that otherfactors (perceived quality, relative price, preference of theshopper’s family, brand loyalty, the shoppers age andsocial class) are then collectively more important, ourpurpose here is to test whether significant differencesbetween the buyers of the three types of brands exist interms of the personality of the shopper.Fig. 1 uses correspondence analysis to show the relative

positioning of products and the personality dimensions offrequent purchasers from the data in Table 3. (This data isthen only from regular purchasers of the products.)Correspondence analysis is a technique that displays therows and columns of a data matrix such as that in Table 3in ‘low dimensional vector space’ (Greenacre, 1984, p. 54),such that any associations (correspondences) between therows and columns can be displayed together (Stewart 1981,p. 46). Thus the relative positioning of products against thepersonalities that distinguish their purchasers can thereforebe appraised from the pattern from a correspondenceanalysis to illuminate the raw data itself. The percentagevariance represented is high (65.2% on the horizontal and31.9% on the vertical, cumulatively 97.1%).The two axes in Fig. 1 have no intrinsic meaning,

representing the two dimensions of maximum variance in

ARTICLE IN PRESS

3210-1-2-3

2.0

1.5

1.0

0.5

0.0

-0.5

-1.0

-1.5

Maybelline

MaxFactor

Pepsi ColaCoca Cola

TescoCosmetics

No. 7 Cosmetics

St. Bernard Cola

Tesco ColaOpen to Experience

Neuroticism

Conscientiousness

Agreeableness Extraversion

Fig. 1. Correspondence analysis.

S. Whelan, G. Davies / Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]] 7

the data set. However, the horizontal dimension hasNeuroticism at one end and Agreeableness at the othersuggesting a dimension underpinned by anxiety and trust.Neurotic individuals tend to react strongly to all types ofstimuli (Eyesenck and Eyesenck, 1975). The reaction toTesco cola and the Tesco cosmetics is quite different withpurchase of the Cola far more associated with a Neuroticpersonality. Purchasers of Tesco cosmetics appear to beassociated more with trust and with people who are notanxious, in other words confident individuals. Tesco colaon the other hand is associated with an anxious, insecurepersona, someone who is also not trusting. Such a personmay be cynical about leading brands, preferring instead tobuy on price. How important this aspect of personality is inexplaining own brand purchase is unclear. Neuroticism didnot emerge as important in the stepwise regression analysisof purchases made by the full database.

If Neuroticism is important in the purchase of ownbrands of different type, then one possible explanation maylie in the fact that neurotics are essentially worriers.Worrying about ones looks could discourage purchase ofown brand cosmetics and favour more heavily brandednational brands. Conversely worrying about prices maydiscourage the purchase of relatively expensive nationalbrands of cola.

More generally, own brand products tend to be moreassociated in the vertical plane with Openness to Experi-ence, reinforcing the view that the risk averse are less likelyto purchase such lines. High involvement products that arenationally branded tend to be closer to Extroversion andAgreeableness, which cluster together with Conscientious-ness. The vertical dimension then appears to be anchoredby Openness to Experience and Extroversion, with themore self confident (some have argued intelligent) buyingown brands regularly, while the more extrovert personarequires the associations that only heavily brandedproducts can offer. The two own brands that were labelledwith names different from the retailer’s corporate name(No. 7 cosmetics and St. Bernard cola) were generally

nearer to the positioning of the four manufacturer brands,particularly No. 7 cosmetics. This product is sold outsideof the British Isles by other retailers, much as any nationalbrand. For example it is the best selling cosmetic range inFinland. (Boots have their own manufacturing arm andsupply a range of branded products to other retailers.)Correspondence analysis cannot normally display the

full complexity of a data set in two dimensions, but Fig. 1and Tables 3–5 contain a clear message, human personalitycan provide a useful way of distinguishing between thepurchasers of various types of own brands and theircompeting national brands. As Baumgartner (2002) sug-gests these results indicate that examining the personalityof the customer can be a useful way of understanding one’smarket.

7. Managerial implications

Our empirical results highlight a number of importantissues for brand management that have apparent long-termimplications for both retail and manufacturing marketingpolicy. From previous work, own brand purchasers do notcomprise a single segment that can be easily representedusing demographic or attitudinal bases. The addition ofhuman personality as a distinguishing variable offers afurther measure that may help to resolve this problem.Independently named own brands offer a different threat

to the national brand compared with that from corporatelynamed own brands. Adjustments in marketing pro-grammes to further distance national brands from theformer will require greater effort as they appeal more toextroverts, those who will be seeking high image productsand who constitute the main market for supplier brands.Clear, crisp brand positions conveying articulate brandvalues will need to be communicated to maintain marketshare (De Chernatony, 2002). However, the positioning ofcorporately named own brands against those who are moreopen to experience, that is risk takers, should come as nosurprise. The issue of increased perceived risk associatedwith own brands is well documented in prior research.However it is debatable whether such products will remainforever the preserve of those who are not risk averse. Theinexorable rise of own brands’ market share in manycategories may be explained by the risk averse seeing thepurchases made by any in their social group who are opento experience and perceiving this as an endorsement of suchpurchases, even as a reason for seeing less risk in makingtheir own purchases. Retailers have more to do to reducethe perceived risk associated with their corporately namedproducts.From a retailer perspective, it is also important not to

alienate existing own brand purchase segments through theintroduction of independently named own brands. Theresult of competing with national brands can also lead toincreased price points, which may not be suitable for thetraditional own brand purchaser. Retailers should thenconsider providing customers with more information about

ARTICLE IN PRESSS. Whelan, G. Davies / Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]]8

their brands. The more information a consumer has abouta brand, the more informed they are and the moreconscious the purchase decision they make as a result(Davies and Brito, 2003). Retailers might consider tools attheir disposal such as informative advertising, directcommunication leveraging the benefits of loyalty pro-grammes, trial packs and free samples.

One test for a potential method of market segmentationis whether the approach is actionable, specifically whetherthe segment can be differentially accessed so that market-ing expenditure can be targeted on the segment. While themedia provide data on their audiences using demographicand, increasingly psychographic bases, none use person-ality. How do you target the extrovert or even the neurotic?One answer could be via visual display in store orpackaging. Fashion retailers have long relied upon picturesof models representing their target customer or aspirationalgroup. Something similar for retailers of everyday productscould be part of the solution here, with, for example,known risk takers (mountaineers, skydivers) associatedwith corporately named own brands or stereotypicalextroverts (actors, models) associated with manufacturerbrands.

Finally, the findings of the study present an importantimplication relating to consumer knowledge of brandownership. In categories such as wines and cosmetics forexample, it may well be better for the retailer to minimiseits’ association with the own brand/corporate name andsome retailers do indeed do this. The implication for thenational brand manufacturer appears to be a greateremphasis on communication regarding retailer ownershipof certain brands.

8. Directions for further research

One limitation of the present study is that we assess onlytwo product categories; another is the small sample size inthe analysis of regular purchasers of own brands. We choseproducts with different levels of involvement (although nostartling differences associated with involvement in thedata were identified). It would be interesting both toexamine a greater number of categories and also categorieswhere purchases are less frequent than soft drinks andcosmetics, even though cosmetics are a relatively impor-tant, high involvement category. In this respect, a fruitfulavenue for future research is to examine personalityprofiles of consumers across different contexts of ownbrand names with different market shares in research thatfocuses only on own brand purchasers.

One intriguing result was the attraction of more neuroticpeople to own brand cola, but away from own brandcosmetics. The more neurotic appeared to be attracted toown brands in cola but not cosmetics. No compellingexplanation can be offered and further research, probablyqualitative, would be needed to explore whether this is afunction of involvement as suggested earlier. The verticaldimension in Fig. 1 is easier to justify, with those more

Open to Experience being more associated with own brandpurchase and extroverts with leading brands. This could bea dimension of relevance to all markets where national andown brands compete.Another important issue arising from this study is the

level of consumer knowledge regarding retail ownership ofnon-retailer, independently named own brands. Is there arelationship between ownership knowledge and purchaserself-perceptions? For example, what are the awarenesslevels of consumers regarding the ownership of No. 7cosmetics, given that it is not named after Boots? In otherwords, do purchasers of this brand realise that it is an ownbrand they are purchasing? If they did, would theycontinue to purchase the brand?

9. Concluding comments

This empirical study investigated the effects of consumerself-perceptions of their own personalities on own brandpurchase behaviour, in an attempt to distinguish psycho-graphic segmentation profiles for different types of ownbrands based on personality. In this regard, the research isthe first to measure psychographic profiles for own brandsby using the ‘‘Big Five’’ measure of human personality.Given the strong emergence of own brands in today’s retailmarket, the findings presented here have practical implica-tions for retail and manufacturer brand marketers alike.Segmentation studies can usefully include measures ofcustomer personality, particularly the dimensions ofExtroversion and Openness to Experience. There is alsoconsiderable scope for further research, on the relevance orotherwise of Neuroticism but more generally on the relativeimportance of personality to predict purchasing behaviourin all consumer markets.

References

Allport, G.W., Odbert, H.S., 1936. Trait names: a psycho-lexical study.

Psychological Monographs 47,1, 21–32.

Baltas, G., Doyle, P., 1998. An empirical analysis of private brand

demand recognising hetrogeneous preferences and choice dynamics.

The Journal of the Operational Research Society 49 (8), 790–799.

Baltas, G., 1998. An integrated model of category demand and brand

choice. Journal of the Market Research Society 40 (4), 295–307.

Baltas, G., Papastathopoulou, P., 2003. Shopper characteristics, product

and store choice: a survey in the greek grocery sector. International

Journal of Retail and Distribution Management 31 (10), 498.

Barrick, M.R., Mount, M.K., 1991. The big five personality dimensions

and job performance: a meta analysis. Personnel Psychology 44, 1–26.

Barrick, M.R., Mount, M.K., 1993. Autonomy as a moderator of the

relationships between the big five personality dimensions and job

performance. Journal of Applied Psychology 78 (1), 111–118.

Baumgartner, H., 2002. Toward a personology of the consumer. Journal

of Consumer Research 29 (2), 286.

Bellezi, L., Krueckeberg, H., Hamilton, Martin, J., 1981. Consumer

perceptions of national, private and generic brands. Journal of

Retailing 57 (4), 56–71.

Bettman, J.R., 1973. Perceived risk and its components: a model and

empirical test. Journal of Marketing Research 10 (May), 184–189.

Bhasin, A., Dickinson, R., Nandan, A., 1995. Retailer brands: a channel

perspective. Journal of Marketing Channels 4 (4), 17–36.

ARTICLE IN PRESSS. Whelan, G. Davies / Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]] 9

Bloemer, J., Odekerken-Schroder, G., 2003. Antecedents and conse-

quences of affective commitment. Australasian Marketing Journal 11

(3), 33.

Burger, P., Schott, B., 1972. Can Private brand buyers be identified?

Journal of Marketing Research 9 (May), 219.

Cantor, N., 1990. From thought to behaviour: ‘‘Having’’ and ‘‘Doing’’ in

the study of personality and cognition. American Psychologist 45

(June), 735.

Cattell, R.B., 1943. The description of personality: basic traits resolved

into clusters. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 38,

476–506.

Coe, B.D., 1971. Private versus national preference among lower- and

middle-income consumers. Journal of Retailing 47, 61–72.

Costa, P.T., McCrae, R.R., 1992. Revised NEO Personality (NEO-PI-R)

and NEO Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) Professional Manual.

Psychological Assessment Resources, Odessa, FL.

Costa, P.T., McCrae, R.R., 1995. Domains and facets: hierarchical

personality assessment using the revised neo personality inventory.

Journal of Personality Assessment 64 (1), 21–50.

Cramer, D., 2003. Advanced Quantitative Data Analysis. Open University

Press, Maidenhead.

Cunningham, I., Hardy, A., Imperia, G., 1982. Generic brands versus

national brands and store brands. Journal of Advertising Research 22

(November), 25–32.

Davies, G., Brito, E., 2003. Price and quality competition between brands

and own brands: a value systems perspective. European Journal of

Marketing 38 (1/2), 30.

De Chernatony, L., 2002. From Brand Vision to Brand Evaluation.

Butteworth-Heinmann, Oxford.

Digman, J.M., 1990. Personality structure: emergence of the five factor

model. Annual Review of Psychology 57, 195–214.

Eyesenck, H.J., Eyesenck, S.E.G., 1975. Manual Eyesenck Personality

Inventory. Educational and Industrial Testing Service, San Die.

Frank, R.E., 1967. Correlates of buying behaviour for grocery products.

Journal of Marketing 31 (October), 48.

Frank, R.E., Boyd, H.W., 1965. Are private brand prone grocery

customers really different? Journal of Advertising Research 5

(December), 27.

Garretson, J.A., Fisher, D., Burton, S., 2002. Antecedents of private label

attitude and national brand promotion attitude: similarities and

differences. Journal of Retailing 78 (3), 91–99.

Goldberg, L.R., 1990. An Alternative description of personality: the big

five factor structure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 59

(4), 1216–1229.

Goldberg, L.R., 1992. The development of markers for the big five factor

structure. Psychological Assessment 4, 26–42.

Goldberg, M., 1976. Identifying relevant psychographic segments—how

specifying product functions can help. Journal of Consumer Research

3 (3), 163.

Granzin, K., 1981. An Investigation of the market for generic products.

Journal of Retailing 57 (4), 39–55.

Greenacre, M.J., 1984. Theory and Applications of Correspondence

Analysis. Academic Press, London.

Grubb, E., Grathwohl, H., 1967. Consumer self-concept, symbolism and

market behaviour: a theoretical approach. Journal of Marketing 31

(October), 22–27.

Guion, R.M., Gottier, R.F., 1965. Validity of personality measures in

personnel selection. Personnel Psychology 18, 135–164.

Hair, J.F., Anderson, R.E., Tatham, R.L., Black, W.C., 1995. Multi-

variate Data Analysis. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.

Hoch, S.J., Banerji, S., 1993. When do private labels succeed? Sloan

Management Review Summer 57–67.

Hogan, R.T., 1991. Personality and Personality Measurement. In:

Dunnette, M.D., Hough, L.M. (Eds.), Handbook of Industrial and

Organizational Psychology. Consulting Psychologists Press, Palo Alto,

CA, pp. 873–919.

Holbrook, M.B., Chestnut, R.W., Oliva, T.A., Greenleaf, E.A., 1984. Play

as consumption experience: the roles of emotions, performance, and

personality in the enjoyment of games. Journal of Consumer Research

11 (2), 728.

Joachimsthaler, E., Lastovicka, J., 1984. Optimal stimulation level—

exploratory behaviour models. Journal of Consumer Research 11 (3),

830.

John, O., 1990. The ‘Big Five’ factor taxonomy: dimensions of personality

in the natural language and in questionnaires. In: Pervin, L.A. (Ed.),

Handbook of Personality: Theory and Research. Harper, San

Francisco, pp. 66–100.

Jolson, M., Anderson, R., Leber, N., 1981. Profiles of signature goods

consumers and avioders. Journal of Retailing 57 (4), 19.

McCrae, R.R., Costa, P.T., 1989. Reinterpreting Myers–Briggs type

indicator from the perspective of the five factor model of personality.

Journal of Personality 57, 775–782.

McCrae, R.R., John, O.P., 1992. An introduction to the five-factor model

and its applications. Journal of Personality 60 (2), 175–215.

Livesey, F., Lennon, P., 1978. Factors affecting consumers’ choice

between manufacturer brands and retailer own labels. European

Journal of Marketing 12 (2), 158–170.

McEnally, M., Hawes, J., 1984. The market for generic brand grocery

products: a review and extension. Journal of Marketing 48 (Winter),

75–83.

McGuire, W., 1976. Some internal psychological factors influencing

consumer choice. Journal of Consumer Research 2 (4), 302.

Mizerski, R., Settle, R., 1979. The influence of social character on

preference for social versus objective information in advertising.

Journal of Marketing Research 16 (4), 552.

Murphy, P.E., 1978. The effect of social class on brand and price

consciousness for supermarket products. Journal of Retailing 54 (2),

33–45.

Myers, J.G., 1967. Determinants of private label brand attitude. Journal

of Marketing Research 4 (Feb), 73–81.

Omar, O.E., 1992. Grocery Shopping Behaviour and Retailers Own Label

Food Brands. Ph.D. Thesis, Manchester Metropolitan University.

Omar, O.E., 1996. Grocery purchase behaviour for national and own label

brands. The Service Industries Journal 16 (1), 58.

Raju, J., Sethuraman, R., Dhar, S., 1995. The introduction and

performance of store brands. Management Science 41 (6),

957–978.

Richardson, P., Jain, A., Dick, A., 1994. Extrinsic and intrinsic cue effects

on perceptions of store brand quality. Journal of Marketing 58

(October), 36–38.

Richardson, P., Jain, A.K., Dick, A., 1996. The influence of store

aesthetics on private label brands. Journal of Product and Brand

Management 5 (1), 19.

Ritson, M., 2003. Wise marketers know when to throw in the towel to own

label. Marketing 18.

Rousell, D., White, D., 1970. Private label reviewed, J Walter Thompson,

London. In: McGoldrick, P., Retail Marketing. 2nd ed., McGraw Hill,

London.

Schaninger, C., 1976. Perceived risk and personality. Journal of Consumer

Research 3 (2), 95.

Schaninger, C., Sciglimpaglia, D., 1981. The influence of cognitive

personality traits and demographics on consumer information

acquisition. Journal of Consumer Research 8 (2), 208.

Sethuraman, R., 1992. The effects of marketplace factors on private label

penetration in grocery products. Working Paper, No. 92-128, Cam-

bridge Marketing Science Institute.

Sethuraman, R., Mittelstaedt, J., 1992. Coupons and private labels: a cross

category analysis of grocery products. Psychology and Marketing 9

(6), 487–501.

Stewart, T.J., 1981. A descriptive approach to multiple-criteria decision

making. Journal of the Operational Research Society 32 (1),

45–53.

Strang, R. A., Harris, B. F., Hernandez, A. L., 1979. Consumer trial of

generic products in supermarkets: an exploratory study in marketing

educators’ Conference Proceedings, 1979. American Marketing

Association, Chicago, pp. 386–388.

ARTICLE IN PRESSS. Whelan, G. Davies / Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]]10

Webster Jr., F.E., 1975. Determining the characteristics of the socially

conscious consumer. Journal of Consumer Research 2 (3), 188.

Wells, W.D., 1975. Psychographics: a critical review. Journal of Market-

ing Research 12 (2), 196.

Further reading

Balachander, S., Ghose, S., 2003. Reciprocal spillover effects: a strategic

benefit of brand extensions. Journal of Marketing 67, 4–14.

Baltas, G., 1997. Determinants of store brand choice: a behavioural

analysis. Journal of Product and Brand Management 6 (5), 315–324.

Blackstone, M., 1993. Beyond brand personality: building brand relation-

ships. In: Aaker, D., Biel, A.L. (Eds.), Brand Equity and Advertising:

Advertising’s Role in Building. Strong Brands, Lawrence, Erlbaum

Associates, Hillsdale, NJ, pp. 113–124.

Byrne, B.M., 1989. A Premier of LISREL: Basic Applications and

Programming for Confirmatory Factor Analytic Models. Springer,

New York.

Collins-Dodd, C., Lindley, T., 2003. Store brands and retail differentia-

tion: the influence of store image and store brand attitude on store

own-brand perceptions. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services

10 (3), 345–352.

Costa, P.T., 1996. Work and personality: use of the NEO-PI-R in

industrial/organisational psychology. Applied Psychology: An Inter-

national Review 45 (3), 225–241.

Dick, A., Arun, J., Richardson, P., 1995. Correlates of store brand

proneness: some empirical observations. Journal of Product and Brand

Management 4 (4), 15–22.

Duarte, M., 2000. Marketing Channel Behaviour and Performance.

Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, Manchester Business School.

Graziano, W.G., Jensen-Campbell, L.A., Hair, E.C., 1996. Perceiving

interpersonal conflict and reacting to it: the case of agreeableness.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 70 (4), 820–835.

Hogan, R.T., 1986. Manual for the Hogan Personality Inventory.

National Computer Systems, Minneapolis.

Johansson, U., Burt, S., 2004. The buying of private brands and

manufacturer brands in grocery retailing: a comparative study of

buying processes in the UK, Sweden and Italy. Journal of Marketing

Management 20 (7–8), 779.

Kapferer, J.N., 2004. Strategic Brand Management: Creating and

Sustaining Brand Equity Long Term. Kogan Page Publishers, London.

Keller, K.L., 2001. Strategic Brand Management: Building, Measuring

and Managing Brand Equity, Second Ed. Prentice-Hall, Englewood

Cliffs, NJ.

Kotler, P., Armstrong, G., 2001. Principles of Marketing. Prentice-Hall,

Englewood Cliffs, NJ.

Mogelonsky, M., 1995. When stores become brands. American Demo-

graphics 2 (Feb), 32.

Sethuraman, R., 1995. National brand and store brand competition: who

hurts whom? Working Paper, No. 95-105, Cambridge Marketing

Science Institute.

Uncles, M.D., Ellis, K., 1989. The buying of own labels. European Journal

of Marketing 23 (3), 55–70.