earticle

영어

During the research into the product concept, there is more emphasis into the ways of improving consumer’s brand loyalty due to self-congruence as the increase of imitation goods limit the success of differentiating the core benefits of the product. A consumer chooses a product based on the relationship between the product’s image and oneself in order to improve and express themselves. Consumers who find an emotional attachment to a brand show favourable attitudes to the brand and result in brand loyalty. Although there has been numerous researches into how multidimensional self-congruence can improve the prediction of consumer purchasing patterns and how brand attitude and emotional brand attachment results in repurchase, there has yet been a model combining the factors listed. This research aims to identify the effect of self-congruence has to brand loyalty, the mediating effect of brand attitude towards the emotional brand attachment, the functional congruity, as well as the relative importance of the actual self-congruence and ideal self-congruence has to brand attitude and the emotional brand attachment. According to the research model there was a strong positive correlation between the actual and ideal self-congruence to brand attitude. As the brand became more self-congruent, this increased its influence on brand attitude and the emotional brand attachment. Consumers were found to favour a brand that either maintains or improves one’s image through self-congruency. In addition, consumers show positive attitudes and emotional attachment to brands whose image can enhance oneself as well as promoting one’s identity through self-esteemed motives. As a result, consumers were found to be more loyal to brands whose image has high self-congruency with the consumer. Despite there only being a partial mediation between brand attitude and the effect of actual self-congruence or the ideal self-congruence toward brand loyalty, there existed a full mediation towards the emotional brand attachment. This is a very important factor in the difference between the emotional brand attachment of a consumer and brand loyalty, and augments the argument that a strategy is needed of finding a brand identity that increases consumers’ emotional attachment to the brand in order to secure and retain customers. Although the relative importance of self-congruence to brand attitude was greater for the ideal than the actual, this was not supported statistically as its effect to emotional brand attachment was not significant. Emotional attachment was seen to be affected by the strength of the bond between product and consumer. As ideal self-congruence has a stronger effect to brand loyalty than actual self-congruence, it is important to factor in the consumer’s ideal self-congruence through product elements or explicit quality cues during the research into the concept or the positioning statement of a symbolic product. In order to identify whether functional congruence modearte the relationship between self-congruence and brand attitude or brand attachment, a multi-group analysis was carried out whereby the result was not statistically significant enough to support the argument. This research concludes that a brand which has a brand personality which matches the consumer’s actual or ideal self-congruence increases the emotional brand attachment, as well as revealing the existence of a full mediation between the ideal self-congruence and brand loyalty driven by the emotional brand attachment. This research does not consider the differences of symbolic, luxury, practicality and distribution channels between products. In addition, demographic, cultural and psychological differences were also not taken into account. It is the writer’s belief that the differences between consumer’s reaction to ideal and actual self-congruence to products with strong symbolic attachments, practicality and product category will give a meaningful result to the direction of the correlation and its strength. By researching the effects of the self-congruity on brand attitude and emtotional brand attachment integratedly, the result of the research is magnified to point out the direction for research into consumer’s behavioral reponses and brand loyalty.

한국어

본 연구에서는 자아일치성이 브랜드 충성도에 미치는 영향과 브랜드 태도와 정서적 브랜드 애착의 매개작용, 실제적 자아일치성과 이상적 자아일치성이 브랜드 태도와 정서적 브랜드 애착에 미치는 상대적 중요성, 그리고 기능적 일치성의 수준에 따른 차이를 밝혀냈다. 연구결과 실제적 자아일치성이나 이상적 자아일치성이 브랜드 태도와 정서적 브랜드 애착에 미치는 영향은 강한 긍정적 관계로 나타났다. 자아와 일치하는 브랜드일수록 브랜드 태도와 정서적 브랜드 애착에 미치는 영향은 더 크다. 실제적 자아일치성이나 이상적 자아일치성이 브랜드 충성도에 미치는 영향에서 브랜드 태도는 부분매개로 작용하나, 정서적 브랜드 애착은 완전매개로 작용하는 것으로 나타났다. 자아일치성이 브랜드 태도에 미치는 영향의 상대적 크기는 이상적 자아일치성이 실제적 자아일치성보다 더 크게 나타났으나, 정서적 브랜드 애착에 미치는 영향에서는 통계적으로 유의하지 않은 것으로 나타났다. 실제적 자아일치성과 브랜드 태도 관계에서 기능적 일치성의 조절효과를 검증하기 위하여 다중집단 분석을 실시한 결과 집단 간의 차이가 나타나지 않았다. 본 연구 결과는 표적 소비자의 실제적 또는 이상적 자아개념과 일치하는 브랜드 개성이 브랜드 태도와 정서적 브랜드 애착을 강화하고, 이상적 자아일치성과 브랜드 충성도 간의 관계는 정서적 브랜드 애착이 완전매개로 작용한다는 통찰력을 제공한다