THE ADDED VALUE OF CONTEXTUAL MOTIVATIONS

ON THE CONSUMER-BRAND RELATIONSHIP

Marina Carnevale Ozge Yucel- Aybat

Fordham University Pennsylvania State University- Harrisburg

Lauren Block

Baruch College, CUNY

“Make up Your Way”

Estée Lauder

Heath et al, 2011

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

● Giving gifts to one’s self : “self-gift giving” or “self-gifting”

● Self-communication through special indulgences

● clothing, jewellery, watches, food, entertainment products

● Premeditated: we plan on their acquisitions before buying them (Mick and Demoss, 1990)

● What prompts self-gifts? (Mick and Demoss, 1990, Tice et al, 2001)

● Reward for accomplishing a goal

● Compensation for some bad feeling about the self (therapeutic)

● Extant research has examined potential predictors of self-gift

giving

● Financial condition and age (Mick and Demoss, 1992)

● Materialism (McKeage et al, 1993)

● Deservingness and emotions (Faure and Mick, 1993)

● Current research examines the impact of these two contextual

motivations on consumer-brand relationships

● Would attitudes toward brands benefit from rewarding or

compensatory self-gifts?

● If so, would this added benefit hold equally for all consumers?

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT

● Brands should reflect the associations with the self that

prompted the self-gifting behavior

● A self-rewarding motive should stimulate a positive effect on the

brand that represented such reward

● A self-compensating motive should also stimulate a positive

effect on the brand because of the positive associations to it

(e.g., mood-alleviation)

● Individuals with self-reward or self-compensatory motives

(vs. no motive) should display significantly higher attitudes

toward the brand

● Consumers use brands to represent who they are or who

they want to be (Belk, 1988; Escalas and Bettman, 2009)

● Linkage between consumers’ self-concepts and brands is

called the “self-brand connection” (Escalas and Bettman, 2009)

● SBC tends to be consistent across time and consequently less

susceptible to contextual motives

● Thus, contextual motivations to purchase (self-reward and self-

compensation motives) should significantly affect the consumer-

brand relationship only when the connection between the self

and the brand is relatively low

HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT

STUDY 1

Objective

Part I Part II

Prior SBC

Self-Brand

Connection

(SBC)

Method

Two sessions, 3 weeks apart

Motive

-”To reward myself for

this good grade”

-“To compensate for this

bad grade”

Contextual

motivationBrand Evaluations

SBC

Midterm

gradesAttitude

(Gibson 2008)

MEASURES

Independent Variables

-Self-Brand Connection (e.g., “This brand reflects who I am,”

1= Strongly disagree, 7= strongly agree, α= .94; Escalas and Bettman 2003)

-

-Motive

“To reward myself for this good grade”

“To compensate for this bad grade”

(1= Strongly disagree, 7= strongly agree)

>0 → self-reward condition

<0 → self-compensate condition

=0 → “no motive”

Dependent Variables

Attitude toward the brand (bad-good, unfavorable-favorable, dislike-like, poor

quality-high quality, tastes bad-tastes good; α=.93, adapted from Gibson 2008 )

STUDY 1- RESULTS

-Positive, significant effect of SBC (β = .67, t = 4.63, P < .001)

● Relative to the no motive condition, positive and significant

effect on brand evaluations of:

-reward (β = 1.16, t = 2.82, P < .001) motives

-compensation (β = 1.84, t = 3.74, P < .001) motives

Those consuming the product to reward themselves for

the good grade or to compensate for the bad result had

significantly higher brand evaluations

STUDY 1- RESULTS

Simple interaction/slope tests

(Aiken and West 1991, Spiller et al 2013)

- Significant interaction:

-of reward and SBC (β = -.52, t = 2.27, P = .03)

-of compensation and SBC (β = -.44, t = -1.81, P = .07)

-For both the reward and compensation cases, contextual

motivations had a significant effect on brand evaluations only

for those with low levels of SBC

-Compared to a no motive condition, those who had lower levels

of SBC evaluated the brand more positively in the reward

condition (Mreward = 5.24, MNM= 4.07, β = 1.17, t = 2.82, P < .01) and the

compensation condition (Mcompensation = 5.82, MNM = 3.98, β = 1.84, t =

3.73, P < .01)

STUDY 2: OBJECTIVES

Prior SBC

● Enhance internal validity Manipulated Independent Variables

● Reinforce external validity Non-student sample

● Increase robustness High-involvement product category

● Strengthen managerial

relevance

Measures of satisfaction and

purchase intentions

STUDY 2: METHOD

● 143 participants (large online panel)

● 3 (Motivation: Self-reward vs. Self-compensation vs. Control) X 2 (Self-

Brand Connection: High vs. Low) between subject experiment

● Self-Brand Connection manipulation [High (vs. low)]

Design

Prior SBC

1

“Indicate the brand you feel the most (vs. least)

connected to…[ ] With which you can identify the most

(vs. least)”

STUDY 2 METHOD – CONT’D

● Motivation Manipulation

- Self-reward“It is the end of winter. You just learned that you got the job promotion

you were hoping to have. This is truly exciting because you worked

really hard all year. To reward yourself for this promotion you decide to

go out and buy yourself a nice [brand] watch. Even though you don’t

need it, you decide to buy it anyway to reward yourself for getting the

promotion.”-Self-compensation

“It is the end of winter. You just learned that you did not get the job

promotion you were hoping to have. This is truly devastating because

you worked really hard all year. To compensate for this loss of

promotion you decide to go out and buy yourself a nice [brand] watch.

Even though you don’t need it, you decide to buy it anyway to make up

for not getting the promotion.

2

STUDY 2 METHOD.. CONT’D

● Dependent Variables

● Attitude toward the brand (good, favorable, like, positive; α=

.96)

● “I am satisfied with my decision to buy a watch”

● “I would purchase it”

● Manipulation checks

● SBC → same measure used in study 1;

→ Brand considered was their favorite (1= least

favorite, 7= most favorite)

● Motive → “To reward myself”, “To comfort myself” (1=

strongly disagree, 7=strongly agree)

STUDY 2 RESULTS

Attitude toward

the brand

Satisfaction

Self-reward

Control

Self-reward

(F (1, 139) = 4.05; P

=.02).

(F (1, 139) = 6.11; P

=.003)

CONCLUSION

● More positive brand evaluations when motives are

present (self-rewarding and self-compensating)

● Only for low SBC consumers

● Results are robust across:

● Both low and high involvement product categories

● Student and non-student samples

● Manipulated and measured independent variables

● Self-compensatory motives might be more beneficial

than self-rewarding motives

MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS

● Contextual motives

might help target low

SBC

● Mood alleviating ads,

which are the least used

by marketers (Heath et al

2011), might be the most

effective strategy to target

consumers with weaker

brand relationships

THANK YOU!

APPENDIX

STUDY1-2 MEASURES

SBC (Escalas and Bettman, 2003)

● This brand reflects who I am

● I can identify with this brand

● I feel a personal connection to this brand

● I use this brand to communicate who I am to other people

● I think this brand may help me become the type of person I

want to be

● I consider this brand to be “me” (it reflects who I consider

myself to be or the way that I want to present myself to others)

● This brand suits me well

STUDY 1 RESULTS- INTERACTION DETAILS

Low SBC (-1SD) High SBC (+1SD)

Reward vs. No motive (Mreward = 5.24, MNM= 4.07,

β = 1.17, t = 2.82, P < .01)

(Mreward = 5.63, MNM= 5.83;

P > .1)

Compensation vs. no motive (Mcompensation = 5.82, MNM =

3.98, β = 1.84, t = 3.73, P

< .01),

(Mcompensation = 6.41, MNM =

5.73; P > .1)