So let's jump right in. We'll start with a basic premise that marketers have understood for many years. And that is that the self concept strongly influences our purchase decisions. In other words, the way we feel about ourselves, each of us as an individual at any point in time, really has a big impact on the kinds of products that we want to use to either attract attention to ourselves if we're feeling good about ourselves that day, or perhaps even to deflect attention away from ourselves. So let's ask the question, are you what you buy? Indeed, we choose many products, from cars to Cologne, because we want to highlight or to hide some aspect of the self.

In this module will focus on how consumers feelings about themselves shape their consumption practices. Let's start by talking about the concept of fame. And also how that concept has changed with the advent of the Internet. In the old days, they were relatively few people who were singled out as celebrities that is, their self was kind of elevated above the crowd and many, many people knew who they were or at least thought they knew who they were their public selves if you will. But today, it seems natural to think of ourselves as potential celebrities waiting for our 15 minutes of fame. Just as the pop icon Andy Warhol once predicted.

The Internet supplies micro fame for many people like the blogger, Paris Hilton, and the budget Singer Tila Tequila. Indeed some analysts propose that micro fame has morphed into nano fame. As the glare of the internet spotlight shines brighter and increasingly faster. You may or may not remember the temporarily famous Alex from Target. a cashier turned overnight heartthrob on Twitter, or the so called left shark, who was an awkward backup dancer during Katy Perry's 2015 Super Bowl performance. One easy avenue to nano fame is the vine platform that lets users share six second videos.

It boasts more than 200 people who have more than a million followers each. Although we like to think of the self as a very individual and personal idea. In fact, an emphasis on the unique nature of the self is much greater in Western societies. Many Eastern cultures stress the importance of a collective self, where a person largely derives his or her identity from the social groups to which he or she belongs. The self concept summarizes the beliefs a person holds about his or her own attributes, and how he or she evaluates the self on these qualities. Although your overall self concept may be positive, there certainly are parts of it you evaluate more positively than others.

It turns out that the self concept is a pretty complicated idea. It's a very complex structure. We describe attributes of self concept Along several dimensions, such as content, that is, for example, facial attractiveness versus mental aptitude, positivity, or self esteem, intensity and stability over time, and also accuracy. That is the degree to which one's self assessment corresponds to reality, or at least to the assessments of others. And it turns out that consumers self assessments can be quite distorted. Our own estimates of how much we change over time vary as well.

A recent study that included both young and old people asked over 19,000 respondents about their preferences in the past foods, vacations, hobbies, bands and so on. And also to predict how they're doing Tastes will change in the future. Regardless of age, people acknowledge that their prior choices had changed quite a bit over time. But they still tended to predict that they would not change as they got older. Despite those predictions, we know that even into older age, a person self concept is a work in progress. Some parts are fairly stable, but each of us modify some elements of it as we make our way through life.

And particularly as we discover new ideas, social groups we admire and yes images we receive from the culture around us that endorse certain types of people over others. We talk about the concept of identity, which is any category label with which a consumer self associates that is amenable to a clear picture of what a person in that category looks like thinks feels and does. Each element that contributes to our self concept is an identity. And we each are made up of a number of these identities. Some of these identities are pretty stable, for example mother or African American, while other identities are more temporary and likely to change, for example, libertarian college student Prius driver. The takeaway here is that customers are drawn to products that helped them to cement their linkages with desired identities.

You need to position your brand firmly within an identity that makes sense for your image. Now, these identities are bound up in our self esteem. Self Esteem refers to the positivity of a person self concept. People with low self esteem excessive They will not perform very well. And of course they'll try to avoid embarrassment, failure or rejection. Let's watch a vintage commercial to get a sense of how products influence the self concept.

Everybody halo, halo look at your slices we should all come and look my hair is still his dojo. I know not. I just watched it too with it with that. Don't you know so being those hair, there you go. Halo is not super oily cream so it can be but nothing so fill me with a patented ingredient. Halo need no special rates and quickly removed Believe it or not that commercial aired in 1951.

And the main idea is that of course, you use that product and you glorify your hair and you can, you can almost see her self concept get glorified as well. So as I said earlier, the way we feel about ourselves can have a big impact on the types of products that we are going to look for in the marketplace. Let's look at an example. When Sara Lee developed a new line of snack cakes, researchers found that consumers low in self esteem, preferred portion controlled snack items, because they felt that they lacked the self control to limit their own intake of these foods that were bad for them or were fattening. In contrast, a more recent study found that individuals who are made to feel powerful, spend more money on themselves. Think about the L'Oreal campaign because I'm worth it.

Whereas those who experience a feeling of powerlessness, spend more on others than on themselves.