Self Brand - Reference Group

Reference Group

As mentioned in the social comparison theory proposed by social psychologist Leon Festinger in 1954, humans have a drive to evaluate themselves by examining their opinions and abilities in comparison to others. Consumers often use the images of other brands’ users as a source of information for evaluating their own beliefs and perceptions about their own and others’ social identities. They also actively construct self-concept using brand associations that arise through reference group.

In many consumer researches, reference group is a key concept for demonstrating the congruency between group membership and brand usage. It refers to the social groups that are important to a consumer and against which he/she compares oneself. With different personal goals, individuals would take different types of reference groups. For example, if someone would like to verify his own current social identities, he tends to compare himself with a ‘member group’, to which it supposes he belongs to. For example, if a person considers himself to be intellectual and his member group of intellectuals tends to drive a Volvos, he may choose to drive Volvo too. Similarly, an ‘aspiration group’ is another type of reference group to which an individual aspires to belong. If a consumer wishes to be more hip, and he sees hip people wearing Versace clothing, he may choose to wear Versace clothing in an attempt to appropriate the hip associations of that brand.