by Dr Farrah Arif| Associate Dean | Dr Hasan Murad School of Management
Parents, educators, and social scientists have been concerned with the increasing passion for brands among young consumers. Several social scientists have emphasized that consumption has become an important aspect of young people’s lives. Young consumers have become more independent in their purchasing power. Further, they not only consume brands to describe who they are to others, but they also seek happiness through the acquisition of these brands.
Our research reflects that parental intervention through monitored buying decision-making may educate and guide children to separate their sense of self from brands, resulting into a lower degree of Self-brand Connection (SBC). Further, it is suggested that the absence of parental input (i.e., lack of applying certain rules to young consumers’ behavior) intensifies the influence of peers that motivates young people to connect to brands for peer approval. We argue that the parental buying-communication strategy is key to restraining the usage of brands to seek peer acceptance. This might help young people to focus more on their social skills and values to gain peer approval. Moreover, our results resound with the opinion that in the increasingly commercial world of brands, parents might play a pivotal role in isolating the effects of other active socialization agents, such as peers.
There is evidence that successful brands have strong peer-centric marketing campaigns, and their integrated marketing communication is being developed to penetrate peer groups. Our research suggests that peers lead to stronger Self-brand Connection (SBC), and consequently to higher levels of brand loyalty. However, it has negative social implications. In a recent study, it is suggested that parents and children alike are being brand bullied; young consumers indulge in branded products mainly because of peer pressure at school, and this attitude is more pronounced in the clothing brand category. Further, clothing brands are considered the most relevant category for the self-concept description of young people. We argue that this brand bullying, particularly with regard to the choice of clothes, maybe a negative unintended consequence of the clothing branding industry.
We suggest that there is a need to scrutinize the nature of marketing efforts targeted at young people so that unnecessary peer pressure can be curtailed. We believe our research provides somewhat a bigger picture, to develop a policy framework to deal with rampant consumption-related issues among young consumers. We emphasize that in any such policy framework, a parent-child communication strategy can be made a focal point to restrain an increasing brand orientation in young people.
