Kathryn A. Braun-LaTour, Michael S. LaTour, & George M. Zinkhan
Executive Summary
This article introduces managers to a new qualitative research methodology that targets consumers’ earliest and defining memories to gain insight into brand meaning. The importance of childhood in establishing relationships and “imprinting” preferences has been recognized by most theorists, ranging from Freud to Jung to Piaget to Erikson, but it has received little attention in the academic marketing literature. Within the consulting world, however, the importance of probing childhood memories has been well marketed by G. Clotaire Rapaille, the French-born anthropologist who studied under childhood-development specialist Jean Piaget. The current research is based on the burgeoning literature in social and clinical psychology, focusing on the importance of both earliest and defining memories in providing insights into consumer identity and personality.
The authors propose that consumers’ autobiographies can provide marketers with memory stories that can be used as a projective tool for understanding consumers’ thoughts and feelings about a product or brand. The logic for this method is based on the following ideas: First, autobiographical memory is the center of identity and contains memories of experiences that are the foundation for the self-concept. Second, although autobiographical memory is self-centered, it also indirectly contains information about brands/products and the meanings they have added to consumers’ lives. Third, following a lifetime of experiences, only a fraction are retained, so those that are remembered hold meaning. Fourth, the more distant (i.e., the earliest) and more repeated (i.e., the defining) experiences are more likely to become myths and reveal important symbolic meanings about the product/brand.
The premise is that these elicited childhood memories operate as a projective technique based on the errors inherent in the memory and retrieval process. To keep their memory stories coherent, consumers fill in the missing parts of the stories that their memories cannot finish. They project themselves—their personality and lifestyle preferences—into their childhood recollections. Therefore, there is a mythic element to the childhood recollections that allows them to be interpreted not only at a literal level but also at a symbolic level.
The authors discuss the development of their methodology for eliciting earliest and defining memories and demonstrate in a study of three generations of U.S. consumers how such memories can add insight into brand/product meaning for automobiles. The findings indicate that earliest and defining experiences have an important influence on current and future preferences in predictable ways across the consumer lifecycle. These memory experiences are symbolic to the consumer and represent a new lens for viewing brand meaning that complements the toolbox of extant research methods. The elicited memories can be interpreted on both literal and symbolic levels and can help marketers develop their own brand myths. Marketers recognizing that brand meanings are coproduced by consumers will find this method useful for their brand positioning and communication strategies.
Biography
Kathryn A. Braun-LaTour is Assistant Professor of Hospitality Marketing at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She received her PhD in Marketing from the University of Iowa in 1997. From 1998–2001, she served as a visiting scholar in the Mind of the Market Lab at the Harvard Business School, where she worked with Gerald Zaltman and Stephen Kosslyn on applications of cognitive neuroscience to marketing. She began developing the childhood memory elicitation technique during her years in that position and has continued to refine the method. She is especially interested in exploring childhood memories within the hospitality and tourism areas. Her research focus has been on the complexity of human memory, and she has published numerous articles on this subject (for more information, visit http://www.unlv.edu/faculty/latour/ or email: Kathryn.latour@unlv.edu)
Michael S. LaTour is Professor of Marketing and Chair of the Department of Marketing in the College of Business at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. LaTour received his PhD in Business Administration with a major in Marketing from the University of Mississippi in 1986. His research focuses on consumer memory, psychophysiological response to advertising stimuli, and gender issues in advertising. His previous work has appeared in outlets such as Journal of Advertising, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Business Research, and Journal of Advertising Research (for more, visit http://www.unlv.edu/faculty/mlatour/).
George M. Zinkhan is Coca-Cola Company Professor of Marketing at the University of Georgia. He is the past editor of both the Journal of Advertising and Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. His current research interests are in communication, advertising, branding, and e-commerce.
Journal of Marketing, Vol. 71, No. 2, April 2007
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