Personality Trait
Personality Trait Theory and Consumer Behaviour
Ruby Roy Dholakia
An empirical study was conducted to test the relevance of personality trait theory in the Indian context. The objective was to define the scope of personality trait theory for research and marketing strategy by overcoming the limitations of past studies. The findings indicated that differences in brand use could be explained by personality theory under certain conditions. Specifically/ the findings showed that brands which occupied different product positions attracted different personality types. These positions might be created by a combination of physical properties and socio-psychological attributes of the product.
Ruby Roy Dholakia is Assistant Professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. Currently she is a visiting faculty at the Indian Institute of Management. Ahmedabad.
The consumer often has to choose a specific product or brand from a set of alternatives available in the market. In the process of evaluation and selection, the consumer may adopt a set of criteria such as economy, quality, durability, and taste, and the product that most closely matches the set of criteria is purchased. When products become standardized, it becomes increasingly difficult to differentiate them on any real, tangible attributes. In such cases, consumers may select alternatives randomly, revealing no consistency in purchase patterns. To create specific preferences for products and brands, marketers incorporate non-physical and intangible product attributes and communicate these to the market. The consumer, therefore, learns to evaluate a product not only in terms of its physical characteristics but also with respect to its non-physical attributes. The market in India promotes this non-functional differentiation of many products. In certain limited product categories such as toilet soaps, textiles, cigarettes, packaged tea, and home remedies, quality has been standardized and a
Ruby Roy Dholakia
An empirical study was conducted to test the relevance of personality trait theory in the Indian context. The objective was to define the scope of personality trait theory for research and marketing strategy by overcoming the limitations of past studies. The findings indicated that differences in brand use could be explained by personality theory under certain conditions. Specifically/ the findings showed that brands which occupied different product positions attracted different personality types. These positions might be created by a combination of physical properties and socio-psychological attributes of the product.
Ruby Roy Dholakia is Assistant Professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. Currently she is a visiting faculty at the Indian Institute of Management. Ahmedabad.
The consumer often has to choose a specific product or brand from a set of alternatives available in the market. In the process of evaluation and selection, the consumer may adopt a set of criteria such as economy, quality, durability, and taste, and the product that most closely matches the set of criteria is purchased. When products become standardized, it becomes increasingly difficult to differentiate them on any real, tangible attributes. In such cases, consumers may select alternatives randomly, revealing no consistency in purchase patterns. To create specific preferences for products and brands, marketers incorporate non-physical and intangible product attributes and communicate these to the market. The consumer, therefore, learns to evaluate a product not only in terms of its physical characteristics but also with respect to its non-physical attributes. The market in India promotes this non-functional differentiation of many products. In certain limited product categories such as toilet soaps, textiles, cigarettes, packaged tea, and home remedies, quality has been standardized and a