Brand and Social Identity

Consider conspicuous consumerism: people not only have expectations of a brand, but they associate specific qualities to a person who consumes a given brand.   We assume that a person who consumes luxury brands is successful and wealthy.  We assume that a person who consumes budget brands is smart and thrifty.   Or at least the person who consumes this brand in a conspicuous way expects and hopes that others will think of them.   This is fairly obvious.

What is less obvious is the degree to which these qualities are internalized: when it is advertised that “choosy moms choose” a given brand of peanut butter, mothers are meant to feel that if they choose a different brand, that they are bad mothers to their children.  It is not that anyone outside of the household is aware of what brand she uses – but the way she feels about herself is highly influenced by her choice of brands.   If she wants to feel like an attentive and concerned mother, she must choose this specific brand.

The consumption of a given brand also leads to a sense of belonging to a social group of people who use the same brand, or distinction from those people who use other brands.   This can be seen even among young children that there is a desire to use specific brands to “fit in” with a desirable group and distinguish oneself from the members of an undesirable group.   It’s not good enough to have a warm coat for the winter, but they must have the right brand of coat, or others may shun or deride them.

In the present day, consumers have many more choices and far less time than ever before.  Even those inclined to consider purchases carefully cannot do so for every purchase, because the mind is constantly bombarded by commercial messaging and exposed to thousands of brands a day, such that people are overwhelmed and are no longer able to carefully consider all the information they receive.  

And since we know that advertising is biased and even critics have their own agendas, we increasingly turn to other consumers as a guide – not their words, which are unreliable, but their actions:  we are attentive to what they do, what they buy, what we use, as their best and most genuine endorsement. We often make decisions and honestly believe we have acted on our own judgment, not recognizing the degree to which we have been influenced by other sources. 

And of course there is rationalization: we act on impulse, emotions, and blind faith - then rationalize an irrational choice after the fact to assure ourselves we are in control.   A consumer is loath to admit that they have purchased a brand to bolster their self-image or to have a sense of social belonging, but instead insists that it was a choice made by rational and objective criteria – generally those given to them by advertising rather than anything they have reasoned out for themselves.