contributors to the extended self fluctuate over time. Consumers hence neglect
old possessions and seek new ones when the possessions no longer fit the
consumers’ actual or ideal self images. Even though consumers’ needs for
material possessions decrease with age, the need to define and express ourselves
through possessions remains high throughout life.
It seems an inescapable fact of modern life that we learn, define, and remind
ourselves of who we are by our possessions.... Our accumulation of posses-
sions provides a sense of past and tells us who we are, where we have come
from, and perhaps where we are going.
(Belk 1988, p. 160)Apart from using possessions to enhance a sense of self, consumers also use
possessions to express self to others. Consumers use brands to define themselves
to others, demonstrate group affiliation or to tell the story of who they are and
what they stand for. Consumers’ self is structured in terms of two dimensions:
- Attributes.A person can be tall, lucky or can appreciate family values.
- Narratives.The attributes are linked to key events in life structured as stories.
Consumers use brands to play out their personal stories about their lives and iden-
tities, positioning themselves in relation to culture, society and other people.
Objects or brands that people love are particularly important for the creation and
maintenance and expression of self. ‘Loved objects serve as indexical mementos
of key events or relationships in the life narrative, help resolve identity conflicts,
and tend to be tightly embedded in a rich symbolic network of associations’
(Ahuvia 2005, p. 179).
Layers of consumer self
The consumer self construct (figure 7.5) is rather complex because the self refers
to self on different levels. Objects can contribute to the construction of self on
two levels. At the individual level, objects are consumed because they carry a
symbolic significance for the consumer in relation to the creation and mainte-
nance of self. Other consumption objects contribute to the social level of self –
that is, the expression of self to others. Hence, the consumption of objects as a
source of self can stem from consumers’ need to create and maintain self at an
individual level. This symbolic consumption of objects can also serve to express
self to others at a more social group level. In the research literature, these levels
are often referred to as the independent (individual) self and interdependent
(social) self. The independent self consist of two categories of self, the actual and
the desired self. The actual self is the objective representation of self – the way
the self actually is. The desired self is a representation of something that the
consumer would like to become, and finally the ideal self represents the
consumer’s perception of their own ideal self.
124 Seven brand approaches