Getting some of that personality: There is an app for that!

Abstract

When brands communicate with consumers via interactive medium such as smartphone apps, how do they influence consumers' self-concepts? This study investigates the effect of branded smartphone app usage on consumer self-perceptions of personality traits. Our approach relies on a longitudinal experimental design in which self-perceptions of personality traits are measured at the beginning and at the end of a 4-week period. During the study period, in the treatment condition consumers use a branded app while in the control condition they used an unbranded app. Brand engagement in the self-concept and lay theory beliefs (incremental vs. entity) are the measured mediator and moderator, respectively. Branded smartphone app usage alone is enough to lead consumers to update their personality self-perceptions in line with the personality of the brand. The brand's highly salient and desirable personality trait rubs-off entity theorists' self-perceptions by strengthening personality signaling to the self. However, the brand's low saliency and undesirable personality trait fades away from incremental theorists' self-perceptions without serving as a personality signal to the self. The findings have direct implications for marketers attempting to use branded smartphone apps to influence self-brand relationships. This paper extends knowledge of how branded apps influence consumers' self-perceptions of personality. It differentiates the mechanisms through which these effects occur for consumers who have different lay beliefs (i.e., incremental vs. entity) as well as for brands' personality traits with varying levels of saliency and desirability.