Abstract
Nowadays, companies are searching for ways to create strong emotional brand connections with consumers, because is a powerful tool for building brand equity and influencing the purchasing decisions of consumers. One-way to accomplish this is to match the brand’s personality with the consumer’s self. Within the self-concept, which summarizes the attitudes and beliefs one holds about oneself, are the actual self-concept (how one perceives oneself) and the ideal self-concept (how one would like to perceive oneself). The self-concept strongly influences consumer behavior in that people prefer products that are congruent to some aspect of the self. Previous research has supported the effectiveness of both aspects of the self-concept in consumer behavior. However, previous studies have not fully explored which consumer’s self is best to target in which type of brand personality to increase emotional brand attachment. The goal of this research is to gain insight into how the effect of actual versus ideal self-congruence on consumers’ emotional brand attachment varies across five dimensions of brand personality. What should marketers sharp a brand personality related to consumers’ ideal self, and what should they build to fit the actual self of consumers. We used Aaker’s five dimension of brand personality for the moderator effect of this study. The results show that brand with “sincerity, excitement, or competence” personality related to actual self-congruence, and brand with “sophistication or ruggedness” personality related to ideal self-congruence has a stronger effect on emotional brand attachment.