Or have you ever felt the distress of discovering your favorite lipstick, the perfect shade you found from what seemed like years of searching, is suddenly, inexplicably discontinued?
A new study from USC Marshall School of Business has discovered why we act crazy when it comes to products we love: brand attachment.
The attachment we form with brands can be so strong, we are willing to sacrifice time, money, energy and reputation to maintain our attachment to it. And if we're forced to buy a competitor's product, we can actually suffer from separation anxiety.
For the study, the researchers first developed an attachment scale that examined the "brand-self connection and brand prominence -- factors previous studies on brand attachment did not have.
The researchers then tested the scale by surveying consumers of several prominent brands: Quaker Oats oatmeal, iPod, and a university.
Using the results to fine-tune the scale, the researchers tested their hypotheses through a series of four studies: the impact of brand attachment on consumers' purchase behavior, their likelihood to engage in "difficult-to-enact behavior, brand purchase share (or the real estate the brand has within the consumer's heart and mind compared to competitive brands), and brand need share (the use of the brand compared to brands in other product categories that could be substituted).
Overall, the researchers found the greater the attachment, the greater sacrifices a consumer will make to connect with or remain connected to the brand. Why? Because we see the items as extensions of ourselves.
Which might explain why a consumer would immediately buy the newest generation of iPhone even though their old iPhone still works or why a teenager might have a meltdown when she can't afford the newest style of 7 For All Mankind jeans.
Our fierce brand attachment even explains why some of us get so worked up when a celebrity dies.
Some key findings from the study include:
- The more strongly a consumer's attachment to a brand, the more willing they are to forsake personal resources to maintain an ongoing relationship with the brand. They are willing to engage in difficult behaviors " "those that require investments of time, money and energy, so as to maintain or deepen a brand relationship.
- Highly attached consumers are more motivated to devote their own resources in the process of self expansion, including paying more, defending the brand, derogating alternatives, and devoting more time to the brand through brand communities and brand promotion through social media.
- Attachment represented by both brand-self-connection and prominence is a significantly better predictor than brand attitude strength of actual behaviors.
So what does this mean to the average consumer?
Companies will probably spend more time trying to incite brand loyalty in their customers. They figure, the more they can get you to like them, the more willing you will be to not only buy one product from them, but every product.
This might also explain why a growing number of major companies are so quick to yield to any sort of consumer criticism, no matter how trivial it may seem (see: the Gap and Frito-Lay).
The study, "Brand Attachment and Brand Attitude Strength: Conceptual and Empirical Differentiation of Two Critical Brand Equity Drivers, is published in the November issue of the Journal of Marketing and is co-authored by USC Marshall's C. Whan Park, Joseph A. DeBell Professor of Marketing; Deborah J. MacInnis, Vice Dean of Research and Charles L. and Ramona I. Hilliard Professor of Business Administration; and Joseph Priester, Associate Professor of Marketing; along with Andreas B. Eisingerich, Assistant Professor of Marketing, Imperial College (London) Business School; and Dawn Iacobucci, E. Bronson Ingram Professor in Marketing, Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University.
