MSCH-A 442 Strategic Brand Strategy and Management

Individual Assignment #1

Brand Relationship Interview


The attached article below, Consumers and Their Brands, by Susan Fournier will give you insight into how you may do this interview. The three case studies from this article illuminates the concept of brand resonance by looking in-depth at the connections that form between consumers and the brands they use. Thus, it offers a glimpse of the insights that are possible when consumers lives are understood holistically, and brands are considered to be part of those lives. Perspectives from psychology, sociology, and the study of culture can be applied to illuminate the meanings brands contain for the consumers who use them.



Step 1: Interview someone for no less than one- hour regarding a connection they have or had with a brand. If you can, try to select informants that you already know have or had brand preference(s) this should help you maximize the chance of uncovering insight on important brand relationship phenomena. However, during the interview be sure not to mention relationship concepts and try and avoid relationship references you dont want them to know the purpose of the interview besides you simply wanting to gather a first-person description of the informants life world and brand usage history within that life world. Your aim is to elicit stories describing the genesis, evolution, and usage of the brand in the informants repertoire.



Step 2: Please prepare a 1000 word (not less than) double-spaced summary that includes the sections below.



Provide a brief description of the consumer you interviewed. Do not provide their name (or any other identifying information) but provide demographic, psychographic, geographic and behavioral information that would be important to a marketer.
Identify and describe what brand was discussed during the interview. Indicate what type of consumer-brand relationship form (from the list of 15 in far left column of Table 1 on p. 362 of the article) you think best describes the informants relationship with this brand based on their interview responses. Explain why.
Provide a brief summary of the process by which the brand relationship developed over time, the conditions under which relational phenomena were pronounced or minimized, and the major consequences of relationship engagement, especially those concerning other noteworthy brand phenomena (e.g., satisfaction and loyalty). As per the article and lecture, assess dimensionality of the relationship (voluntary vs. imposed, friendly vs. hostile, intense vs. superficial, equal vs. unequal), affective character (strength/intensity and direction of tie), relationship needs (functional vs. psychological/socio-emotional benefits), and stage of relationship development (initiation, growth, maintenance, decline). Within this summary be sure to also provide basic relationship descriptors (e.g., relationship duration, frequency of interaction, category exclusivity, and initiation source) and note if your informant uses interpersonal relationship references to describe the nature of their consumer-brand connection.
Lastly, as a brand manager, explain what you would do with this information.