Consumer’s Sport Preference as a Predictor for His/Her Response to Brand Personality

Abstract

In a purchase decision process, consumers often tend to choose a branded product that arouses the most positive brand affect. Recent literature identified brand personality as a central driver for brand affect and showed that consumers prefer brands that are aligned with their own personality traits. Hence, harmonization of brand personality with personality traits of the target market segments may lead to affective brand loyalty. However, focusing on consumers’ personality traits for market segmentation is challenging, since personality traits are not directly observable. Linking personality traits to easily observable variables may simplify company’s communication efforts to create brand personality. We therefore explore whether a consumer’s preference for a specific sport may serve as a predictor of the consumer’s response to brand personality and found evidence that different sport clusters differ significantly with respect to certain personality traits.