Materialistic people tend to form strong connections to particular product brandswhen their level of anxiety about death is high, according to a new study in theJournal of Consumer Research.
Authors Aric Rindfleisch (University of Wisconsin-Madison and KoreaUniversity), James E. Burroughs (University of Virginia), and Nancy Wong(University of Wisconsin-Madison) examined levels of materialism and insecurityin consumers and discovered that the combination of "death anxiety" andmaterialism led to strong attachment to brands.
While conventional wisdom holds that materialistic individuals are weaklyconnected to brands and use them as superficial status badges, the new researchproves that brands hold more meaning for materialistic consumers than previouslythought. When those individuals are also worried about death, their brandattachment grows.
"We propose that materialistic individuals form strong connections to their brandswhen death anxiety is high but not when death anxiety is low," write the authors."Materialistic individuals are strongly connected to their brands and employ themas an important source of meaning in their lives."
The authors tested their hypothesis by conducting two different but relatedstudies. The first study asked adults in the United States to rate their degrees ofmaterialism, death anxiety, and brand connection. In the second study, conductedamong college students, the researchers manipulated death anxiety by havingparticipants consider their own deaths in detail. In both studies, participants ratedtheir degree of connection to a variety of products including cars, microwaves,jeans, cell phones, MP3 players, and sunglasses.
"Materialistic consumers with anxiety about their existence are especially in needof the symbolic security that brand connections provide," write the authors."Given the recent rise in materialistic tendencies along with the media'sheightened focus on existential threats, the number of consumers who display thiscombination of values and motives should increase in the near future."