Brands as Reflections of Human Values

Abstract

In recent years there has been growing interest in understanding the influence of human values of consumers on their consumption behaviors. Meanwhile, interest in the study of brands has also increased reflecting the importance they have taken on in influencing the choice of purchase. Accordingly, it is assumed that consumers prefer brands whose values are aligned with their own values. With this in mind, we conducted this study in order to identify the values of the brands, assuming that they are reflections of the human values of their users, symbolically represented by them. As such ethnography of communication was carried out by participant observation of everyday interaction of people from different social groups. This procedure led us to the identification of different values associated with the brands by consumers as they were mentioned in their discourses assigning these meanings. Finally we analyzed some contributions provided by this study for the understanding of the influence how human values influence consumer choices, specifically in their relation to the brands.