The Lived Experience of Brand Flings

The Lived Experience of Brand Flings Presentation at the Consumer Brand Relationship Colloquium April 23, 2010 Claudio Alvarez Boston University Susan Fournier Boston University

Brand Flings are an underexplored Consumer-Brand Relationship Type High involvement Communal(Aggarwal 2004) Dependent(Hirschman 1992) Adversarial(Hill 1994, Hogg 1998, Luedicke et al 2010, Kozinets & Handelman 2004, Sanderson & Siegfried 2003) Committed(Oliver 1999, Garbarino & Johnson 1999, Morgan & Hunt 1994) Fling ? Friendship (Price & Arnould 1999) Short term Long term Exchange(Aggarwal 2004, Garbarino & Johnson 1999) Low involvement

Research Objectives • Provide a phenomenological illumination of brand flings • Define them based on consumers’ experience • Induct a theoretical understanding of these phenomena • Compare and contrast brand flings with other related phenomena • Within the relationship domain: interpersonal flings • In the marketing domain: impulse buying and variety seeking

Method • In-depth interviews based on metaphor elicitation • 2-3 hours duration • Mixed gender, 4-person interviewing team • Two sets of informants: • Brand flings (n=8) • Interpersonal flings (n=6) • Respondent characteristics: • Both men (6) and women (8) • 18-35 years old • Either born in or acculturated to the US • Able and willing to discuss the topic

Understanding Brand Flings Thematic Descriptionof Brand Flings Dialogue with a Related Psychological Construct: Transitional Phenomena Brand Flings and the Transitional Self

Defining Brand Flings: Emotional Involvement A strong emotionality manifests passion toward the brand, excitement for the new, and the inherently enjoyable experience of the consumer-brand encounter “I just feel happy, like having fun. A happy time,” Anna “It is an adventure to try a new brand. Kind of fun,” Paul “It is almost like Christmas, getting a brand new present or getting that thing that's brand new. Finally getting that, that thing you want. You're just really excited, and you're happy, and there's a lot of joy and emotion that you feel,” Chuck “Feeling of WOW! This is great! I found something awesome this time. I did not expect this,” Sarah

Defining Brand Flings: Obsession The brand becomes a focal point in the life of the consumer, who dedicates a lot of time, energy and attention to the brand “You keep buying stuff from a brand, like Victoria Secret, you start buying their lip glosses, moisturizers, pajamas, and whatnot. Every single thing. You just get sucked into everything that’s from that brand,” Anna “Guitar Hero 2 came out on election day in 2006 (…) We were like we reserved it, we want to get it now, we want to play it now. So we chose that over doing our civic duty and voting”, Kyle “I would play with it all the time. I recorded videos all the time. I used all of its features,” Chuck “Talk about it all the time. Obsessed with it. Evangelical. Over engaged,” Sarah

Defining Brand Flings: Suspension of Control Flings also involve a suspension of analytical thinking. Consumers let impulses and desires command their actions and usually discount brand flaws “Being able to see the cons and doing it anyway, even if it is kind of frivolous and not the best choice to wear the Betsy Johnson dress. You could definitely be wrong (…) It’s liberating,” Jennifer “A lack of inhibitions. You sort of revert back to some of your more basic instincts” Herbert “Blinders are on. You do not see faults. When you have a fling, you end up buying things that are not very nice sometimes. Six months later you see that half of it is not really nice. You are more accommodating and forgiving in a fling. You eventually realize okay, it was stupid of me to buy that. What the hell am I doing? You do not step outside and ascertain the situation,” Anna

Defining Brand Flings: Transient Emotionality, obsession and lack of control eventually drop off, as the brand is exhausted. Flings are a transient phenomenon, even when they last for months Involvement “Starts off with passion, but burns out,” Laura “Starts out heavy, very quickly you are like Oh my god I love this,” Sarah “And then, you are not excited about it anymore,” Paul Time “It’s not for the long term. It’s not forever. Whether you admit it or not, you’re kind of aware of it,” Jennifer

Brand Flings as Transitional Phenomena D. W. Winnicott studied the phenomenon of transitional objects, which has a similar set of characteristics and may enable us to gain a deeper understanding of brand flings Young infants become highly attached to their first “not-me” possession, which is typically a piece of cloth (e.g., blanket, sheet), or a teddy bear Child assumes right over the object Object is cuddled, sucked, loved, mutilated Object loses meaning and is relegated Main source: Winnicott 1971, “Playing and Reality”

Winnicott’s Transitional Object In Early Childhood In Adult Life “Not Me” • Opens intermediate area of experience between “me” (baby) and “not me” (mother) • Provides conform and sense of security for the child to be alone • Enables child to play with the external world • Continues to operate in the creative acts of adult life: arts, science, religion, imaginative living • What about consumption? Can it also allow us to play in an intermediate space, at the same time “me” and “not me”? Transitional object “Me” Main source: Winnicott 1971, “Playing and Reality”

Brand Flings and the Transitional Self: Playing with “Me” and “Not Me” In adult life, brand flings provide a space to play with consumption as an identity game. Based on this concept, we were able to discern three key patterns in our dataset: “Not me” brand becomes a temporary part of “me” “Wearing hip hop clothes was just part of who I was at the time, but I was not really like that I guess. I didn't really feel like that fit,” Chuck I experiment with a brand and learn my own boundaries “A crossing of borders, a possibility that your world view will be totally reconfigured,” Herbert “You grow out of a phase and never look back,” Kyle Brand consumed in a situation where “I” can safely be “not me” “A vacation is a time when you do things that you don’t normally do,” Laura

Brand Flings and the Transitional Self: Negative Case Analysis We re-analyzed our dataset to find inputs that conflict with our theoretical frame, which resulted in three instances where brands failed as transitional objects Compulsory cultural fads Brand is an enforced “not me” “All your friends are now shopping at Abercrombie & Fitch. You still go to school wearing Old Navy, and everyone is going to make fun of you,” Kyle Consumption motivated by a feared self Brand helps escape from “me” “It is kind of lame that having flings with brands is the only exciting thing going on in your life, but you know, it is all we have got,” Sarah Brand failure closes the space to play “On Thanksgiving, we tried this suchi place. It looked really good but the service was bad,” Paul Object failure

Brands as Transitional Objects: Brand Flings Exemplars A different dataset provided some support to our interpretation and suggested an evolution of transitional phenomena from toys to clothes This dataset was presented previously in this session by Prof. Miller Each of the unlisted categories received less than 10% of total mentions Total number of mentions: 122 (1 per respondent)

Comparing Brand Flings with Related Phenomena In the Relationship Domain: In the Marketing Domain: Brandflings Interpersonalflings Brandflings ImpulseBuying VarietySeeking

Key Differences of Interpersonal Flings relative to Brand Flings Higher emotional risks and need for protection Provide learning that can be used in other relationships “I am mentally prepared that if I am physically involved with this person, 3 days from now I am not going to be affected in a way that is going to ruin my insides, make me feel less of a person. You cannot take down the body armor,” Monica “I learned to process my feelings a little faster and know what I want out of things. It also taught me to be more aware of other people and what they say and what they do,” Bob Stronger role of social other: responsibility and shame “I shouldn’t have settled for that, I should have more self respect,” Natalie “Usually someone is going to be shocked. Not necessarily judgmental, but, ‘oh, wow, surprising’,” Donna

Brand Flings versus Impulse Buying • Excitement and stimulation (Rook 1987) • Intensity and force (Rook 1987) • Novelty and spontaneity (Rook 1987) • Lack of careful consideration of consistency with long term goals and plans (Baumeister 2002) • Sometimes referred to as time-inconsistent preferences (Hoch & Loewenstein 1991) Similarities Differences • Restricted to buying behavior • Excludes experience of using the brand • At times focused on unplanned purchase • Focus on stimuli itself • Impulsiveness as a personal trait (e.g., Baumeister 2002) • Recent studies conceive impulse together with compulsion (e.g., Ridgway et al 2008): • Repetitive buying behavior • Escape from anxiety • Necessarily causing harm to consumer

Brand Flings versus Variety Seeking • Desire for the unfamiliar (McAlister and Pessemier 1982, Hirschman 1980) • May be triggered by boredom • Experience is inherently pleasurable (McAlister and Pessemier 1982) Similarities Differences • Flings can be engaged for many reasons beyond the need for change or stimulation • Variety seeking is a category-bound phenomenon that may involve rotating among known brands (Hirschman 1980) • Variety seeking is more related to sensorial stimulation than to emotional activation (Sharma et al. 2010) • Variety seeking does not involve setting high expectations for the brand • Restricted to buying behavior (Baumgartner & Steenkamp 1996)

Limitations and Further Research • Develop a measurement tool for brand flings • Understand potential role of personality traits, personal concerns and life stage in the propensity to engage in flings • Investigate how brand relationship indicators (e.g., trust, satisfaction) in flings differ from other relationship types • Focus on developmentally foundational brand experiences and how they impact future consumer-brand relationships

The Lived Experience of Brand Flings