The role of actual, ideal, and ought self-congruence in the consumption of hedonic versus utilitarian brands

Abstract

To emotionally attach consumers to a brand and inspire brand loyalty, marketers often target the brand personality towards the consumer's actual or ideal self. The self is not limited to its actual and ideal dimension, however, and motivation to approach a desired self may vary depending on the consumer's personality. Thus, the current research is the first to link self-congruence to self-discrepancy theory by incorporating the ought self into the self-congruence framework and taking into account self-discrepancies as potential moderators of the self-congruence effect. Additionally, hedonic brand nature is discussed as important condition for self-congruence and self-discrepancies exhibiting their fullest effect. The conducted study focuses on how actual, ideal, and ought self-congruence influence emotional brand attachment and consequently brand loyalty. For brands of primary hedonic nature, findings confirm actual and ideal self-congruence as drivers of emotional brand attachment, which in turn increases brand loyalty, while ought self-congruence influences brand loyalty directly. Moreover, self-discrepancies moderate the described relations, albeit their effect is contrary to theory-based expectations. From these findings, the authors derive important implications for business practice and future research.