Executive Summary
Lifestyle positioning has become an increasingly common approach among managers, especially in commodity categories in which functional differences are hard to maintain. In addition to the traditional lifestyle brands, such as Ralph Lauren, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Martha Stewart, a number of performance-oriented brands including Gillette, Dove, Montblanc, Oakley, and Quicksilver have transitioned their focus to consumer lifestyles. Many managers view this lifestyle positioning as a way to break free of the cutthroat competition within a category by connecting with consumers on a more personal level.
We argue, however, that the open vistas of lifestyle branding are an illusion: functional brands may be trading in-category competition for even fiercer cross-category competition, competing not only with their direct rivals but also with brands from unrelated categories. Moreover, competition for consumer identity is not limited to lifestyle brands; it includes virtually any activity with a self-expressive component, such as ordering one’s favorite coffee, listening to one’s favorite band, and social networking. This argument is based on the idea that because consumers’ need for self-expression is finite and, like most needs, can be satiated when consumers are exposed to multiple self-expressive brands, the scope of the competitive landscape for lifestyle brands extends far beyond specific categories and brands. This implies that by repositioning itself as a lifestyle brand, Gillette is entering into direct competition with other lifestyle brands including Ralph Lauren, Starbucks, and Facebook for a share of a consumer’s identity.
Our theory is supported by data from five empirical studies, which show that consumers’ need for self-expression is finite and can be satiated by a variety of means—including brands from unrelated categories; non-brand means of self-expression including books, TV shows, and sports teams; as well as self-expressive behavioral acts such as product customization. The data from these experiments provide converging evidence that by switching from functional to lifestyle positioning, brands might be setting themselves up for a much broader, and often fiercer, competition for a share of consumer identity.
Biography
Alexander Chernev is Associate Professor of Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. He holds a Ph.D. in Psychology from Sofia University and a Ph.D. in Business Administration from Duke University. He serves on the editorial boards of top research journals, including Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology, International Journal of Research in Marketing, and the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. Dr. Chernev’s research has been published in leading psychology and marketing journals and has been quoted in the business and popular press, including Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Newsweek, Time Magazine, Scientific American, and The New York Times.
Ryan Hamilton is Assistant Professor of Marketing at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. He received a bachelor’s degree in applied physics from Brigham Young University and a Ph.D. in marketing from Northwestern University. His research has been published in many top journals, including the Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of Marketing Research, and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. Dr. Hamilton’s research interests include the role of brand and price image in consumer decision making.
David Gal is Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. He received his Ph.D. in Business Administration from Stanford University. Dr. Gal studies consumer expressive behavior and decision-making and has published his work in a number of journals, including the Journal of Marketing Research, Judgment and Decision Making, Psychological Science, and Social Psychological and Personality Science.
Journal of Marketing, Volume 75, Number 3, May 2011
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