Boston University School of Management

The Lived Experience of Brand Flings

Presentation at the Consumer Brand Relationship Colloquium April 23, 2010

Claudio Alvarez Boston University

Susan Fournier Boston University

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Brand Flings are an underexplored Consumer-Brand Relationship Type

Long termShort term

High involvement

Low involvement

Exchange (Aggarwal 2004,

Garbarino & Johnson 1999)

Committed(Oliver 1999, Garbarino

& Johnson 1999, Morgan & Hunt 1994)

Communal (Aggarwal 2004)Dependent

(Hirschman 1992)

Adversarial(Hill 1994, Hogg 1998, Luedicke et

al 2010, Kozinets & Handelman 2004, Sanderson & Siegfried

2003)Friendship

(Price & Arnould 1999)

Fling ?

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• 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

Research Objectives

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• 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

Method

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Understanding Brand Flings

Thematic Descriptionof Brand Flings

Dialogue with a Related Psychological Construct: Transitional Phenomena

Brand Flings and the Transitional Self

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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

“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

“It is an adventure to try a new brand. Kind of fun,” Paul

“I just feel happy, like having fun. A happy time,” Anna

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Defining Brand Flings: Obsession

“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

“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

The brand becomes a focal point in the life of the consumer, who dedicates a lot of time, energy and attention to the brand

“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

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Defining Brand Flings: Suspension of Control

“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

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

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Defining Brand Flings: Transient

Time

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

“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

“Starts off with passion, but burns out,” Laura

“And then, you are not excited about it anymore,” Paul

Involvement

“Starts out heavy, very quickly you are like Oh my god I love this,” Sarah

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Brand Flings as Transitional Phenomena

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

Main source: Winnicott 1971, “Playing and Reality”

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

Child assumes right over the object

Object is cuddled, sucked, loved,

mutilated

Object loses meaning and is relegated

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Winnicott’s Transitional Object

Main source: Winnicott 1971, “Playing and Reality”

“Me”

“Not Me”

Transitional object

In Early Childhood In Adult Life

• 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”?

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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:

Brand Flings and the Transitional Self: Playing with “Me” and “Not Me”

“Not me” brand becomes a temporary part of “me”

Brand consumed in a situation where “I” can

safely be “not 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

“A vacation is a time when you do things that you don’t normally do,” Laura

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

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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

Brand Flings and the Transitional Self: Negative Case Analysis

Brand is an enforced “not me”

Compulsory cultural fads

Brand failure closes the space to play Object failure

“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

“On Thanksgiving, we tried this suchi place. It looked really good but the service was bad,” Paul

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

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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

Product Category

Number of Mentions

Percentage of Total Mentions Brand Examples (# of mentions)

Toys 38 31%Beanie Babies (7), American Girl (5), Barbie (4), Nintendo (4), POGS (3),

Pokemon Cards (3)

Clothes 38 31%Abercrombie & Fitch (7), Nike (6), Old Navy (3), American Eagle (3),

Limited Too (3)

This dataset was presented previously in this session by Prof. MillerEach of the unlisted categories received less than 10% of total mentions

Total number of mentions: 122 (1 per respondent)

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Comparing Brand Flings with Related Phenomena

In the Relationship Domain: In the Marketing Domain:

Interpersonal

flings

Brandflings

ImpulseBuying

VarietySeeking

Brandflings

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Key Differences of Interpersonal Flings relative to Brand Flings

Provide learning that can be used in other relationships

Higher emotional risks and need for protection

Stronger role of social other: responsibility and shame

“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

“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

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Brand Flings versus Impulse Buying

Similarities Differences

• 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)

• 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

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Brand Flings versus Variety Seeking

Similarities Differences

• Desire for the unfamiliar (McAlister and Pessemier 1982, Hirschman 1980)

– May be triggered by boredom

• Experience is inherently pleasurable (McAlister and Pessemier 1982)

• 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)

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• 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

Limitations and Further Research