Boston University School of Management
The Lived Experience of Brand Flings
Presentation at the Consumer Brand Relationship Colloquium
April 23, 2010
Claudio Alvarez
Boston University
Susan Fournier
Boston University
Brand Flings are an underexplored
Consumer-Brand Relationship Type
High involvement
Communal
Dependent
(Aggarwal 2004)
(Hirschman 1992)
Adversarial
Fling ?
Committed
(Hill 1994, Hogg 1998, Luedicke et (Oliver 1999, Garbarino
al 2010, Kozinets & Handelman
& Johnson 1999,
2004, Sanderson & Siegfried 2003) Morgan & Hunt 1994)
Friendship
(Price & Arnould 1999)
Short term
Long term
Exchange
(Aggarwal 2004,
Garbarino & Johnson 1999)
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Low involvement
Research Objectives
• Provide a phenomenological illumination of brand flings
– Define them based on consumers’ experience
– Induct a theoretical understanding of these phenomena
• Compare and contrast brand flings with other related phenomena
– Within the relationship domain: interpersonal flings
– In the marketing domain: impulse buying and variety seeking
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Method
• In-depth interviews based on metaphor elicitation
– 2-3 hours duration
– Mixed gender, 4-person interviewing team
• Two sets of informants:
– Brand flings (n=8)
– Interpersonal flings (n=6)
• Respondent characteristics:
– Both men (6) and women (8)
– 18-35 years old
– Either born in or acculturated to the US
– Able and willing to discuss the topic
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Understanding Brand Flings
Thematic Description
of Brand Flings
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Dialogue with a Related
Psychological Construct:
Transitional Phenomena
Brand Flings and the
Transitional Self
Defining Brand Flings: Emotional Involvement
A strong emotionality manifests passion toward the brand, excitement for the
new, and the inherently enjoyable experience of the consumer-brand encounter
“I just feel happy, like having fun. A happy time,”
Anna
“It is an adventure to try a new brand.
Kind of fun,” Paul
“It is almost like Christmas, getting a brand new present or getting that thing that's brand new.
Finally getting that, that thing you want. You're just really excited, and you're happy, and there's
a lot of joy and emotion that you feel,” Chuck
“Feeling of WOW! This is great! I found something
awesome this time. I did not expect this,” Sarah
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Defining Brand Flings: Obsession
The brand becomes a focal point in the life of the consumer, who dedicates a lot
of time, energy and attention to the brand
“You keep buying stuff from a brand, like Victoria Secret, you start buying
their lip glosses, moisturizers, pajamas, and whatnot. Every single thing.
You just get sucked into everything that’s from that brand,” Anna
“Guitar Hero 2 came out on election day in 2006 (…) We were like we
reserved it, we want to get it now, we want to play it now. So we chose
that over doing our civic duty and voting”, Kyle
“I would play with it all the time. I recorded videos all the time. I
used all of its features,” Chuck
“Talk about it all the time. Obsessed with it. Evangelical. Over
engaged,” Sarah
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Defining Brand Flings: Suspension of Control
Flings also involve a suspension of analytical thinking. Consumers let impulses
and desires command their actions and usually discount brand flaws
“Being able to see the cons and doing
it anyway, even if it is kind of frivolous
and not the best choice to wear the
Betsy Johnson dress. You could
definitely be wrong (…) It’s liberating,”
Jennifer
“A lack of inhibitions.
You sort of revert back
to some of your more
basic instincts” Herbert
“Blinders are on. You do not see faults. When you have a fling, you end up buying things that
are not very nice sometimes. Six months later you see that half of it is not really nice. You are
more accommodating and forgiving in a fling. You eventually realize okay, it was stupid of me to
buy that. What the hell am I doing? You do not step outside and ascertain the situation,” Anna
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Defining Brand Flings: Transient
Emotionality, obsession and lack of control eventually drop off, as the brand is
exhausted. Flings are a transient phenomenon, even when they last for months
Involvement
“Starts off with passion, but burns out,”
Laura
“Starts out heavy, very
quickly you are like Oh my
god I love this,” Sarah
“And then, you are not excited
about it anymore,” Paul
Time
“It’s not for the long term. It’s not forever. Whether you admit it or not,
you’re kind of aware of it,” Jennifer
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Brand Flings as Transitional Phenomena
D. W. Winnicott studied the phenomenon of transitional objects, which has a similar set
of characteristics and may enable us to gain a deeper understanding of brand flings
Young infants become highly
attached to their first “not-me”
possession, which is typically a
piece of cloth (e.g., blanket,
sheet), or a teddy bear
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Child
assumes
right over
the object
Object is
cuddled,
sucked,
loved,
mutilated
Object loses
meaning and
is relegated
Main source: Winnicott 1971, “Playing and Reality”
Winnicott’s Transitional Object
In Early Childhood
“Not Me”
Transitional object
“Me”
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• Opens intermediate
area of experience
between “me” (baby)
and “not me” (mother)
• Provides conform
and sense of security
for the child to be
alone
• Enables child to play
with the external world
In Adult Life
• Continues to operate
in the creative acts of
adult life: arts, science,
religion, imaginative
living
• What about
consumption? Can it
also allow us to play in
an intermediate space,
at the same time “me”
and “not me”?
Main source: Winnicott 1971, “Playing and Reality”
Brand Flings and the Transitional Self:
Playing with “Me” and “Not Me”
In adult life, brand flings provide a space to play with consumption as an identity game.
Based on this concept, we were able to discern three key patterns in our dataset:
“Not me” brand
becomes a temporary
part of “me”
I experiment with a
brand and learn my
own boundaries
Brand consumed in a
situation where “I” can
safely be “not me”
“Wearing hip hop clothes was just part of who I
was at the time, but I was not really like that I
guess. I didn't really feel like that fit,” Chuck
“A crossing of borders, a possibility that your world
view will be totally reconfigured,” Herbert
“You grow out of a phase and never look back,” Kyle
“A vacation is a time when you do things that
you don’t normally do,” Laura
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Brand Flings and the Transitional Self:
Negative Case Analysis
We re-analyzed our dataset to find inputs that conflict with our theoretical frame, which
resulted in three instances where brands failed as transitional objects
Brand is an
enforced
“not me”
Compulsory cultural
fads
“All your friends are now shopping at Abercrombie
& Fitch. You still go to school wearing Old Navy,
and everyone is going to make fun of you,” Kyle
Brand helps
escape from
“me”
Consumption
motivated by a
feared self
“It is kind of lame that having flings with brands is
the only exciting thing going on in your life, but
you know, it is all we have got,” Sarah
Object failure
Brand failure closes
the space to play
“On Thanksgiving, we tried this suchi place. It
looked really good but the service was bad,” Paul
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Brands as Transitional Objects:
Brand Flings Exemplars
A different dataset provided some support to our interpretation and suggested an
evolution of transitional phenomena from toys to clothes
Product
Category
Toys
Clothes
Number of
Mentions
38
38
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Percentage of
Total Mentions
Brand Examples (# of mentions)
31%
Beanie Babies (7), American Girl (5),
Barbie (4), Nintendo (4), POGS (3),
Pokemon Cards (3)
31%
Abercrombie & Fitch (7), Nike (6),
Old Navy (3), American Eagle (3),
Limited Too (3)
This dataset was presented previously in this session by Prof. Miller
Each of the unlisted categories received less than 10% of total mentions
Total number of mentions: 122 (1 per respondent)
Comparing Brand Flings with Related
Phenomena
In the Relationship Domain:
Brand
flings
Inter
personal
flings
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In the Marketing Domain:
Brand
flings
Impulse
Buying
Variety
Seeking
Key Differences of Interpersonal Flings
relative to Brand Flings
Higher emotional risks
and need for protection
“I am mentally prepared that if
I am physically involved with
this person, 3 days from now I
am not going to be affected in
a way that is going to ruin my
insides, make me feel less of a
person. You cannot take down
the body armor,” Monica
Provide learning that can be
used in other relationships
“I learned to process my
feelings a little faster and know
what I want out of things. It
also taught me to be more
aware of other people and
what they say and what they
do,” Bob
Stronger role of social other: responsibility and shame
“I shouldn’t have settled for that, I should have more
self respect,” Natalie
“Usually someone is going to be shocked. Not necessarily
but, ‘oh, wow, surprising’,” Donna
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Management
Brand Flings versus Impulse Buying
Similarities
• Excitement and stimulation (Rook 1987)
• Intensity and force (Rook 1987)
• Novelty and spontaneity (Rook 1987)
• Lack of careful consideration of
consistency with long term goals and
plans (Baumeister 2002)
– Sometimes referred to as timeinconsistent preferences (Hoch &
Loewenstein 1991)
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Differences
• Restricted to buying behavior
– Excludes experience of using the brand
– At times focused on unplanned purchase
– Focus on stimuli itself
• Impulsiveness as a personal trait (e.g.,
Baumeister 2002)
• Recent studies conceive impulse together
with compulsion (e.g., Ridgway et al 2008):
– Repetitive buying behavior
– Escape from anxiety
– Necessarily causing harm to consumer
Brand Flings versus Variety Seeking
Similarities
• Desire for the unfamiliar (McAlister and
Pessemier 1982, Hirschman 1980)
– May be triggered by boredom
• Experience is inherently pleasurable
(McAlister and Pessemier 1982)
Differences
• Flings can be engaged for many reasons
beyond the need for change or stimulation
• Variety seeking is a category-bound
phenomenon that may involve rotating
among known brands (Hirschman 1980)
• Variety seeking is more related to sensorial
stimulation than to emotional activation
(Sharma et al. 2010)
• Variety seeking does not involve setting
high expectations for the brand
• Restricted to buying behavior
(Baumgartner & Steenkamp 1996)
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Limitations and Further Research
• Develop a measurement tool for brand flings
• Understand potential role of personality traits, personal
concerns and life stage in the propensity to engage in flings
• Investigate how brand relationship indicators (e.g., trust,
satisfaction) in flings differ from other relationship types
• Focus on developmentally foundational brand experiences
and how they impact future consumer-brand relationships
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