| Research in consumer behaviour suggests that consumers are keenly aware of the symbolic properties of brands and products, and that they use the collective meaning of disparate brands to construct or portray a desired lifestyle. These consumption constellations are theorized to reside as associate networks in memory with connections existing between a prototypical lifestyle image and various brands, as well as between various brands or products. This thesis used response latency methodology to examine consumers' response times when evaluating the congruency of various brands and lifestyle descriptions. PRIZM C2 lifestyle segmentation data was used to identify occupied, aspirational, and avoidance lifestyle groups, with avoidance lifestyle information generating the fastest response times. Results were also analyzed to determine if any differences in response time existed across various individual personality difference variables, namely self-monitoring, brand engagement in self-concept, and materialism, with no differences across the variables as hypothesized. |
