Self-Brand Connection among Adolescents - A Qualitative Analysis
Author(s)
Alka Sharma (Professor, The Business School, University of Jammu, Jammu & Kashmir, India) and Deeksha Singh* (Research Scholar, The Business School, University of Jammu, Jammu & Kashmir, India), *Corresponding author's Email
Citation
Sharma, Alka and Singh, Deeksha (2015), “Self-Brand Connection among Adolescents - A Qualitative Analysis”, MERC Global’s International Journal of Management, Vol. 3, Issue 3, pp. 124-133.
Article history
Submitted: April 20, 2015, Revision received: May 19, 2015, Accepted: June 04, 2015
Adolescents have become a growing force in almost all the global markets, thereby encouraging the marketers to unveil the buying behaviour of this segment. Moreover, this segment has emerged as the brands oriented consumers. They connote themselves with different brand attributes such as recognition and status, family traditions, quality of the products, group influence, national heritage, self-identity and values. Therefore, the brands are perceived as a pivotal tool for creating individual identity, a sense of achievement and individuality for consumers. Numerous researchers have demonstrated that individuals facilitate products to create and communicate their self-concept, thereby creating self-brand connection. The self-brand connection refers to an extent to which brand expresses considerable aspects of the consumer’s self-identity, ethics and goals. In this context, the present research paper converges to analyse the self-brand connections among adolescents in a qualitative manner. The present research work is qualitative in nature and a combination of studies consisting of psychological testing and collage technique. This study has been conducted on two categories of adolescents in the age group of 11-14 years and 15-17 years.
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