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A giddy tween wearing a Justin Bieber t-shirt at a Justin Bieber concert — not too surprising. But what about your hard rock friend showing up to a death metal party wearing a Justin Bieber t-shirt?<\/p>\n
New research by Caleb Warren, assistant professor of marketing in the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona, indicates that consuming brands ironically is a way to secretly signal our identity or beliefs to people who know us<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Warren and his co-author, Gina Mohr, associate professor of marketing at Colorado State University, define ironic consumption<\/strong> as using a brand or adopting a behavior in an attempt to signal an identity, trait or belief that is the opposite from the perceived conventional meaning of the product<\/strong>. Through four experiments and an exploratory survey, Warren and Mohr found that consumers sometimes use products ironically to signal one thing to an “in-group” while signaling something different to an “out group.”<\/strong><\/p>\n “Throughout history, consumers have re-appropriated products to make a statement,” Warren says. “For example, trucker hats were at one time low-status products and originally came into fashion through rural workers. They’ve since been revalued by young urban consumers.”<\/p>\n Of course, in order to recognize the product is ironic, those around the consumer need to be aware of his\/her tastes, beliefs and identity. We are more likely to perceive ironic consumption when the use of the product is incongruent with the known identity or beliefs of the consumer.<\/p>\n Ironic consumption can also be a way of signaling status<\/strong>, for example, superstar Bruno Mars dancing outside and then eating at a Waffle House. Warren says this exemplifies high-status consumers adopting a low-status product as a way to distinguish themselves from middle-status consumers<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Warren and Mohr also found that ironically using a product can actually be a turn-off, but only with some audiences<\/strong>. Back to that Justin Bieber t-shirt: Justin Bieber fans might be miffed at the hard rocker wearing it, but non-Beliebers will likely think your hard rock friend is cool. In other words, using a product ironically can alter — for better or worse — the impression that a consumer makes on others.<\/p>\n “Consuming something ironically is also a security measure,” Warren says. “No one wants to be mocked for watching, say, Jersey Shore. But if you so do with a behavior that suggests you’re watching ironically, you won’t suffer any stigma related to the product.”<\/p>\n The good news for pass\u00e9 brands is that ironic consumption can often lead to a new, desirable brand identity<\/strong>. Pabst Blue Ribbon is an example of a product with an uncool legacy that, through ironic adoption, has experienced a cultural rebirth.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the University of Arizona press release: A giddy tween wearing a Justin Bieber t-shirt at a Justin Bieber concert — not too surprising. But what about your hard rock… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[526],"tags":[20,97,57,364,12,98],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27394"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27394"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27399,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27394\/revisions\/27399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}