Brand Management: Research, theory and practice

symbolic consumption of brands. Consumer research and psychology have for
long acknowledged that brands contribute significantly to consumers’ sense of
who they are or in other words their sense of self. Brands are considered important
for consumers’ construction and expression of self. Belk, who is a pioneer in the
conceptualization of the self-concept, quotes William James (founder of the
modern conceptions of self (1890, pp. 291–2)), in his quest for a conceptualization
of how possessions affect the formation and expression of self:

The sum total of all that he cancall his, not only his body and his psychic

powers, but his clothes and his house, his wife and children, his ancestors and

friends, his reputation and works, his lands and yacht and bank-account.

(Belk 1988, p. 139)

According to the modern conceptions of self, material possessions are thought
to be an extension of our identity – and are defined as an important part of the so-
called ‘extended self’. The extended self is hence the extensions of self that
humans produce through their relations with other people, our family, achieve-
ments and last – but in this context of brand management, certainly not least –
our possessions. The nature and the importance of different possessions as

Quiet, reserved,

shy, silent,

withdrawn

Talkative, active,

energetic, outgoing

Extroversion

Fault-finding, cold,

unfriendly, quarrel-

some, hard hearted

Sympathetic, kind,

appreciative, affec-

tionate, softhearted

Agreeable

Careless, disorderly,

frivolous, irrespon-

sible, slipshod

Organized, thorough,

efficient, responsible

Conscious-

ness

Tense, anxious,

nervous, moody,

worrying

Stable, calm,

contented,

unemotional

Emotional

stability

Commonplace, nar-

row interests, simple,

shallow, unintelligent

Wide interests, ima-

ginative, intelligent,

original, insightful

Openness

*

Cultured

Recessive

personality:

Behaviour and traits

Dominant

personality:

Behaviour and traits

Personality

dimensions

Figure 7.4Brand behaviour; from Smit, Van Den Berge and Franzen, ‘Brands are just like
real people’ (2003), p. 24, © Copenhagen Business School Press 2003

The personality approach 123