Personality & Lifestyles

Chapter 6with Duane Weaver

Is this my reality or my perception thereof?Is this my reality or my perception thereof?

Outline

• Personality defined

• Freudian Theory

• Neo-Freudian Theory

• Trait Theory

• Brand Personality

• Lifestyles & Psychographics

Personality

“A person’s unique psychological makeup and how it consistently influences the way a person responds to his or her environment.”

Personality and Freudian Theory

Id:Immediate

Gratification

Pleasure Principle:

To maximize pleasure and avoid pain

Ego: Mediator

Superego:

System that internalizes

society’s rules

Freudian SystemsPrimitive Drive Reality Beliefs - Morals, Ethics

Freudian Theory

• ID– Inner psychic energy focused entirely toward immediate

gratification(operates according to the pleasure principle)

Primitive Drive• SUPEREGO

– Internalization of societal rules (moral and ethical thoughts) that tends to be the psychological counterweight to the Id.

Beliefs• EGO

– System that mediates between the Id and the Superego.(Seeks balance according to the reality principle)

Reality

Freudian Theory

• Market Researchers use Freud’s theories to understand unconscious motives underlying purchases.

– Product symbolism and motivation where the ego relies on symbolism to compromise desires with ethics.

– Sexuality of products• (cars as sheet metal crossed with desire)• (tunnels as symbols of womanhood)• Use of phallic symbols that appeal to women (cigars, trees, swords as

symbols of manhood)

– Motivational Research(in-depth interviews into person’s purchase motivations)

Neo-Freudian Theory

• Karen HorneyDescribed peoples as:

Compliant (towards), detached (away), aggressive (against)• whereby these three personality types desire different products

• Carl JungAnalytical Psychology – “Collective Unconscious” as

storehouse of memories from ancestral past resulting in “archetypes” (universally shared ideas and behaviour patterns).

• Ads often invoke such archetypes to link products to underlying meanings.

Trait Theory

• Quantitative measurement of traits:– Extroversion/introversion– Innovativeness– Materialism– Self-consciousness– Need for cognition– Need for uniqueness (conformity)– Idiocentric (individualist ) vs. Allocentric (group)

• Used to create “brand personalities”

• Marketers have been unsuccessful to predict consumer behaviour on traits alone.

BRAND PERSONALITY

• Brand Equity: the extent to which a consumer holds in memory strong, favourable, and unique associations with a brand.

• Animism: Giving animate qualities to inanimate objects to bring them to life.

• Communication of a brand personality is one of the primary ways marketers can make a product stand out from competitors and inspire brand loyalty.

Lifestyles & Psychographics

• Lifestyle:– A pattern of consumption reflecting a person’s choices of how

he or she spends time and money.

• Lifestyle marketing perspective– People sort themselves into groups on the basis of the things

they like to do, how they like to spend leisure time, and how

they spend disposable income.• Group identities gel around forms of expressive symbolism.• Lifestyle Marketing positions products into existing patterns of

consumption (consumption styles).

Lifestyles & Psychographics

• Psychographics– Uses psychological, sociological, and

anthropological factors to segment a market into groups based on their reasons to make a particular decision.

– AIOS: activities, interests, and opinions.– 80/20 rule: 80% of volume comes from only 20%

of the market.

Lifestyles & Psychographics

• Psychographic Uses:– Position product– Communicate product attributes– Develop overall strategy– Market social and political issues

• VALS– Values and Lifestyles segmentations system– Divides people into 8 groups based on

psychological traits and resources

VALS

Try it out for yourself:

http://www.sric-bi.com/VALS/presurvey.shtml

Lifestyles & Psychographics

• VALS segments– Innovators (successful with many resources)

– Thinkers - satisfied, reflective, comfortable

– Achievers - career-oriented prefering predictability over risk or self-discovery

– Experiencers – impulsive, young and enjoy offbeat or risky experiences.

– Believers – strong principles and favour proven brands.

– Strivers – achievers with fewer resources.

– Makers – action-oriented focused on self-sufficiency

– Strugglers – primary concern is meeting the needs of the moment.

Lifestyles & Psychographics

• Geodemography: Uses consumer expenditures and other socio-

economic factors with geographic information to identify common consumption patterns in areas where people live.

THANKS!

• Expect a quiz next class…