One of the most important things to understand about a brand is that its value is highly individualized. A customer might grow tired of a brand, or more enamored [sic], independent of how other customers are responding to it. (Rust R.T et all, 2004).In this essay, there will be an analysis of how the consumer affects a brand and how the brands try their best in order to get consumers to buy their products and how that defines the consumers themselves. However, firstly what is a brand? It appears that ‘each expert comes up with his or her own definition of brand or nuances of definition’ (Mishra P, 2012). One view is that ‘a brand name is nothing more or less than sum of all the mental connections people have around it’ (Jacoby J et all, 1997) but the general definition is a unique design, sign, symbol, word or a combination of these, employed in creating an image that identifies a product that differentiates it from its competitors (Business Dictionary).
Consumers define brands but brands also define consumers. When people see certain brands, they associate it with specific statuses or lifestyles. A study showed that when shown a video of a person and asked for their first impressions. Their judgements of qualities such as friendliness and assertiveness differed depending on whether the video depicted the person with expensive material possessions or not. People use materials/ brands to express who they are and construct a sense of who they would like to be (Dittmar H, 2004). Brands have become an important part of everyday life and with the current economic status, they are given even higher priority**. The most common reason given for buying an expensive or even branded product is that it is of ‘good quality’. Yet the reality of the situation is that ‘consumers tend to make purchase decisions by brand images that have already been formed in their minds rather