Are brands trying to become your besties?

Studies suggest that branded apps can help build a loyal customer base

Branding is an essential step in developing customer relations. Via Unsplash

It is commonly known that there is a thorough process brands need to conduct in order to properly find their niche within the bustling market of the modern day. It is also well established that the more these brands resonate with consumers, the more people feel inclined to interact or buy from a brand.

In a 2019 study conducted by Sally Rao Hill and Francois Carrillat at the University of Adelaide’s Business School, researchers examined the patterns of college students and their interactions with brands via mobile apps. The study proposes that individuals are able to build stronger connections with a brand when interacting on a more personal level which in turn allows them to build their own character and become a more consistent consumer of a brand’s products.

Researchers focused on a group of 8 college students and monitored their use of the Red Bull TV app for one month, conducting a survey both after the first week of the experiment and at the end of the fourth week. The surveys asked participants to log their activity centered around the app for the duration of the study and asked for qualitative responses about how frequently the app was used or if the participants found the app fun to use.

The study concludes that branded apps can effectively serve consumers without direct affiliation of a product. As is the case with this study, Red Bull TV provided interactive and satisfactory services without actually giving consumers Red Bull in a physical sense.

The foundation for this study examines the implicit-self theories of consumers through two different lenses, incremental and entity. While the entity self-theory suggests that personal attributes are consistent and difficult to change or shape over time, incremental self-theory views personal traits as influential and malleable. Researchers conducting this experiment opted to focus on the impacts that branded apps have on those who hold incremental self-theory.

As suggested, those who believe in incremental self-theory believe that certain brands and products have the ability to shape who they are and allow them to display their beliefs on a more personal level. Take for example, designer brands such as Gucci, Louis Vittuon and Hermes. In addition to purchasing these products for fashion sake, they believe that the branding and logos can disclose to those around them the type of person they are. Similarly, when a brand has core values that one finds well represents their personality, they are more likely to interact and make purchases from those brands. This practice is known as self-signaling

Although self-signaling has been proven in other studies to work just as effectively with entity self-theorists, the prospect of allowing a brand to shape their identity is not as high a possibility. For this study specifically, researchers found that entity theorists did not interact with the branded apps as frequently or in the same ways as incremental self-theorists.

Ultimately, Hill and Carrillat conclude that a brand’s self image can be impactful to their target audiences and it is important to establish a positive sense of personality in order to build a close and loyal customer base.