CULTURED MINDS

LOYALTY

 

People with a more interdependent self-construal might have less personal connections with brands because nurturing and expressing individual personality is not as important to them as it is to someone with an independent self-construal. Accordingly, (Riemer, Shavitt, Koo & Markus, 2014) theorised that consumers’ ratings of hotel service quality (personal taste/experience) is less predictive of their loyalty compared to others’ views of the hotel or even compared to the identity of other guests staying there. In short, social factors and cues would likely trump personal taste and sentiment in determining the loyalty of interdependent consumers.

 

But this does not mean that interdependent consumers are less loyal than independent ones; in fact, (Littrell & Miller, 2001) state that “Loyalty is a key concept in collectivist cultures, which spreads from people to product, in as much as products are extensions of the self.” Interdependent consumers can be fiercely loyal to companies and brands, but they have a different motivation/reasoning behind their loyalty.  

 

 

 

Level of brand loyalty impacts persuasiveness of appeals 

Under uncertainty (often a low-information setting) people are more likely to take note of, and be influenced by,  environmental cues - possibly because these provide more information. (Agrawal & Maheswaran, 2005)’s results illustrate this idea in a consumer setting, using the relationship between brand loyalty and self-construal. When people are already very loyal to a certain brand (certain about their choice), appeals consistent with their underlying self construal were most effective. But in situations where consumers were not very loyal to one brand (more uncertain about their choices), appeals consistent with a temporarily primed self-construal (information from the environment) worked best.