Influence of Congruency between Ideal Self and Brand Image on Sustainable Happiness

Abstract

Building on the Sustainable Happiness Model, this study examines how congruency between ideal self-concepts and brand image influences a sense of happiness. The findings show that when the ideal self-image and the ideal social self-image are congruent with brand image, a sense of happiness can be enhanced through brand identification and positive emotions. An additional two-mediation analysis confirms that there are full mediation effects of brand identification and positive emotions between ideal self/ideal social self-brand congruency and happiness. This study contributes to the literature as it reveals the mechanism of how congruency between ideal self-concepts and brand image positively affects happiness. In addition, this study also provides useful insights for business practitioners as previous studies suggest that enhancing consumer well-being helps increase firms' long-term sustainability in many ways.Revealing how to enhance the well-being of consumers through business practices is significant, as extant literature has identified enhancing customer well-being as helping firms to achieve higher financial performance in the long-term [3][4][5][6]. In this regard, we believe that our findings provide useful insights for business practitioners to increase the sustainability of their business. Theoretical Background and HypothesesThe Sustainable Happiness Model posits that a person's chronic happiness level can be increased and then sustained [1,7]. Specifically, the Sustainable Happiness Model proposes that visualizing the ideal self-concept is one of the effective ways to enhance a sense of happiness. Self-concept refers to the cognitive and affective understanding of who and what we are [8][9][10]. As a person's self-concept is important, it has been studied from a multidimensional point of view in psychology as well as in business research. Sirgy [10] suggests multiple dimensions of self-concept, which are actual self, social self, ideal self, and ideal social self. In the business studies, self-congruency, which refers to a fit between the consumer's self and the brand's image, has drawn much attention because extant studies show that the self-congruency can enhance brand performances in many ways [10][11][12][13]. By applying the Sustainable Happiness Model to the business context, we expect that ideal self-congruency, a fit between the consumer's ideal self-concepts (ideal self and ideal social self) and brand image, is likely to help increase the feeling of happiness.As previous studies suggest, consumers tend to connect their self-concepts with a brand image and thus identify themselves with the brand that is congruent with their self-concepts [11,13]. That is, it is a common way for consumers to express themselves through the brands they use. For example, some wealthy consumers use luxury brands such as Channel to express their social and economic status.We expect that the ideal self/ideal social self-congruency is likely to enhance consumers' identification with the brand. Brand identification is d...

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Parasocial Interaction, Destination Personality Fit and Consumers’ Behavioral Intentions: The Case of TV Shopping

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