Expert Curation
Identity Theory and Marketing: Insights and Applications
Identity theory offers marketers a rich source of insights on how consumers relate to brands and products as both expressions of their unique selves and their affiliations with others.
Since its inception in the early 20th Century, much research on consumer behavior has been grounded in psychological theories of individual motivation and decision making. Not coincidentally, with the rise of the Internet and social media, theories that emphasize the role of networks and other social influences have come to the fore. One result has been a move away from what some have called the “monolithic self-concept” to a more nuanced notion that reflects not only enduring individual psychological characteristics but also more social and situational factors that shape expressions of identity.
In the Handbook of Research on Identity Theory in Marketing (Edward Elgar, 2019), Americus Reed II and Mark Forehand assemble contributions from dozens of academics on key aspects of identity that affect consumer behavior in the context of marketing and other activities. The editors define identity as “any category label to which a consumer self-associates either by choice or endowment.” That is, what is important for marketing is that the individual self-associate to a specific identity, whether assumed voluntarily or ascribed by others. As Reed and Forehand note, individuals have a collection of identities, and brands are meaning systems that can serve as markers of these identities (see Forehand, Reed and St. Clair, forthcoming; Reed and Forehand 2019; Reed and Forehand 2016; Reed, Forehand, Puntoni and Warlop 2012). Brands can thus be seen as “self-expressive extensions of consumers” (see Chernev and Gal, 2009).
Fundamental aspects of identity and marketing
Turning to academic research on identity and marketing, Reed and Forehand (2019) identify five unifying principles that organize their 31 chapters.- Salience – Circumstances that make a given identity more salient for an individual spur identity-linked judgement and action (Chapter 1). The resulting salience can influence a variety of behaviors from luxury consumption (Chapter 4) to creative thinking (Chapter 5).
- Association – Products associated with a desired consumer identity frequently receive more positive evaluations and absorb other identity-content (see Chapter 7 and 8) and products associated with an undesired identity are often dismissed (Chapter 11). These associations affect consumer ownership perceptions (Chapter 9; Leung, et al, 2020), pursuit of self-enhancement (Chapter 10) and behavior in specific contexts such as healthcare (Mende, et al, 2017).
- Verification – Consumers actively monitor their identities and strategically use products to validate and fully enact desired identities. This leads to systematic compensatory consumption (Chapter 12), identity threat response (Chapter 13) and the use of mementos to reinforce one’s identity (Chapter 14). More broadly, these processes allow the consumer to associate with desired identity groups and dissociate with undesired identity groups (Malhotra, 2018).
- Conflict – In today’s connected world, individuals reduce conflict across multiple identities by managing their relative salience in different contexts (Chapter 21). The management of this overall identity complexity influences effects ranging from global cultural identity adoption (Chapter 22) to dyadic decision making (e.g. how couples decide who is the “expert” when making joint decisions about finance or other sensitive matters, Olson and Rick, 2018; Nikolova, 2019).
- Relevance – Reed and Forehand identify several ways identity can be relevant for individuals in relation to objects, symbols, goals, actions and evaluations. Such relevance influences behaviors connected to religion (Chapter 24), politics (Chapter 25) and digital self-presentation (Chapter 26). For example, when responding to objects customized by significant others, individuals may “copy” them by making the same object or by taking the same action, or by customizing them in their own fashion (see D’Angelo, et al, 2019).