Abstract

Life-style groups

The Purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between life-style groups and their brand personality preference through the examination of life factor variables and their attitudes toward chosen brands each of which represents a certain specific brand personality demension.

Jeniffer L. Aaker demonstrated that there are 5 brand personality dimensions-Sophistication, Ruggedness, Competence, Sincerity, Excitement- and this study follows her. Also, for later use, demographic data and brand-related consumer behavior data were collected.

The data were collected through the questionnaires from Korean city-dwellers by the convenience sampling method, ages varying 10 to 50. 281 samples were analysed by factor anaysis, cluter analysis, Hotelling's T©÷, Univariate F test, and Cross tabulation.

The major findings of this study are summarized as follows;

First of all, it was found that there are 4 kinds of life-styles, named fashion-oriented, society-oriented, solidity-oriented, openness-oriented. And respondents are divided into 4 groups. The life-style groups are the consevative solidity group, the conservative conviction group, the open characteristic group, and the open sociable group. These groups showed no significant differences relating to brand-buying behaviors.

Second, significant statistical differences were found among the life-style groups in the preferences for the 5 brand personality dimensions. Specifically, the differences are found in the brand personlities of sincerity , ruggedness and sophistication. The conservative solidity group and the open sociable groups were more sensitive in the perception of brand personalty than the other groups.

And the lastly, the variables that discriminate the life-style groups effectively are found to be sex, monthly expenses, age, and monthly income. In conclusion, it was shown that specific brand personality dimension can be more attractive to a certain life-style group than the other brand personality dimensions. This gives some insight for brand identity positioning. And these life-style groups can be identified by their demographics, AIOs.

¢À Key words: brand personality preference, life-style, demographics. market segmentation, brand positioning