Personality &

Lifestyles

Chapter 6
with Duane Weaver

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

Primitive Drive Reality Beliefs - Morals, Ethics

Freudian Systems
Id:
Immediate
Gratification
Ego: Superego:
Mediator
Pleasure System that
Principle: internalizes
To maximize society’s rules
pleasure and
avoid pain
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 Horney
Described peoples as:
Compliant (towards), detached (away), aggressive (against)
• whereby these three personality types desire different products

• Carl Jung
Analytical 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!