Self-Concept and Purchases

Topics

personality, self-concept, segment profile, psychographics


Review the activity below or download the PDF student worksheet


Student Discussion Activity

Is there a relationship between a consumer’s personality/self-concept and the products that they purchase? Listed below are the contents from three shopping baskets at a local supermarket.

Your task is this activity is to see if you can describe each of the three consumers simply based upon their grocery purchases.

Consumer A

  • One kilo of budget ground beef
  •  Two loaves of white bread
  •  One kilo of ‘generic’ flour
  •  Two cans of peaches
  •  Three kilos of potatoes
  •  One jar of instant coffee

Consumer B

  • One kilo of T-bone steak
  •  A loaf of high-fiber bread
  •  One can of Indian curry
  •  Two cans of smoked oysters
  •  Three avocados
  •  One jar of gourmet coffee

Consumer C

  •  Strawberries
  •  Muesli
  •  Soy milk
  •  Herbal tea
  •  One kilo of bananas
  •  Two packets of ‘cup-of-soup’

Student Discussion Questions

  1. How would do describe the three consumers based upon their shopping baskets?
  2. How similar is your profile, as compared to the descriptions developed by your fellow students?
  3. Do you think that there is a strong correlation between consumer’s self-concept and their purchase decisions?
  4. If so, how can marketers utilize this relationship? Are there certain types of products where this relationship would be more prominent?

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