Brand Affects Consumers' Choices: What It Means to Adolescents - Essay Sample

Introduction

Does branding affect consumers' choices? Yes, it does. Then we can ask ourselves what does the brand means to consumers and especially to the adolescent consumers. The brand is a unique design, words, symbol, or combination of all, used in developing an image that will identify a product and makes it different from products of its competitors. With time, the brand image gets connected with the level of quality, satisfaction, and credibility in the consumer's preference. Hence, the brand plays a more significant role in helping marketers compete for hurried consumers in complex and crowded marketplaces by upending specific values and benefits.

The legal name given to a brand becomes a trademark and a brand name when it represents and identifies a firm. The brand is a factor in consumer taste preferences. Adolescence, on the other hand, refers to the growing age between childhood and manhood. Their age can extend from fourteen to twenty-five years and twelve to twenty-one for males and females, respectively. My main objective in this analysis is precisely the impact of brand on adolescent consumers.

Foremost, how does the brand help adolescent consumer? I can say that brands help in forming the perception of some specific products. It creates a point of value and meaning for different individuals. Thus, teens tend to satisfy their self-concept. All the consumers should be able to appreciate and understand their diverse perspectives and with multiple selves (Albrecht et al. 822). Besides, accepting oneself is the most crucial notion of consumer behavior. The conceptualization of self-brand attributed to who you are and who others are concerning what they consume. Adolescent customers are known to have a specific brand association through user characteristics and personality traits.

Youth accept brands differently based on their subjective perception. Some teenagers consider some brands cool, outstanding, or reliable. It connects brands with experience, advertising or social media, adverts, and sales statistics. Generally, everyone's preference is associated with exposure, either from personal experience or peer groups. I want to find out if teenagers are affected positively or negatively by different brands related to their taste. How do associated membership, dissociative, or aspirational reference groups relevant and convey a teenager's decision?

Some of the factors, including hobbies, friends, social media, parents, interviews, musicians, situational factors, and advertising, plays a crucial role. We are about to know what youth feel about and what they wear why they wear. Also, I will discuss the implications of this behavior in business companies and how we can utilize the information in the coming generations of adolescent consumers. Youths take the most significant share in the demography of most nations. Nevertheless, teenagers are likely to buy wear and electronic products more often than any other age group (Albrecht et al., 2017). Different factors attribute the influence of brand effect on adolescent consumers.

Discovering “Cool” Brands

Putting on prestigious brand names of clothing and electronic accessories seems to bother a lot of adolescent consumers. I have studied this context of consumption in this phenomenon concerning socialization agents. Socialization agents are made up of the environmental aspects one intends to satisfy. Most of us put on beautiful clothing to look attractive and feel a sense of confidence, respect, value, and dignity to ourselves. Socio-economic variables caused by this environment have been analyzed in multiple regression to give a clear finding. The results show that there is a positive relationship between brand choice and prestige (Gentina et al., 2016). The teenage year is a reflective stage of this consumer socialization. It means that the knowledge pricing and brands are developing complexity along with the desire to fit and feel identity. Teenagers will identify their social void and create a sense of belonging. In that case, they will get brands of their desires. They will relate themselves to membership groups, other people's characteristics, and self-concept. Teens will care most on looks for them to fit in specific groups, and personal accessories and clothing will involve this.

Brands are used symbolically by youth to show traits and personality. Clothing well known brands give them an impression which they feel satisfied. If you were to ask a teenager why they prefer certain brands, the answer you will get is that it is "cool." Then, what do you think makes a brand of clothing cool? Horton, Little, Guo, Fitton, and Read, maybe, are the proposed hierarchy of cool clothing. I am very sure that teens can only explain themselves by what is cool. For instance, "having cool stuff," "doing cool things," and "being cool." It explains that teenagers will look at someone who is doing cool things, putting on a brand name, and that is what makes wear cool for them. For example, an excellent musician putting on a particular brand of a t-shirt will make them go for it because they feel that it is the most refreshing brand (Gentina et al. 5790).

Situational Factor

Situational factors affect brand choice. There are several situations, including who they are shopping or when are the clothing going to be won. Adolescent consumers are likely to have a choice of brand when they are caught up in such a situation. Youth will always be challenged by the brand when they are to settle in a particular case. For instance, teenagers going to shop in groups tend to experience disruptive behaviors. Though they are a positive impact on such situational factors, business companies will relatively make more profits when this factor influences their customers. When a teenager walks into a retail shop with friends, they are tempted to spend money than they would have done when they would be alone. A brand becomes a significant factor in this spending as one would wish to have the best brand. From the studies of the retail environment, it shows that excitement plays a crucial role in gaining female youth repeat customers (Taylor & Cosenza 397).

Brands that offer teen products must consider factors including smell, music, variety, design, and lighting environment. It is common in electronics to have teenagers choosing a specific brand. Another situation can be considered in terms of the weekdays of clothing. Young age finds this situation as one that each day of the week has specific clothing. Most of the youth will choose different wear for Sundays as compared to the other days of the week because it is time for church. Despite the situational factor, the brand is not left aside. Teenagers would want to look nice with specific brands (Thaichon 39). It is not easy to dodge the challenge of the brand because, many times, teens can identify the type of brand a colleague is putting on from a distance.

Brand Influence in Social Media

Social media is a significant mode of communication nowadays. It is a platform dominated mostly by youth. In the urban setting and even remote areas but can access the network, teenagers have little time to meet or call up their friends. Social media have filled this gab. Most teenagers search their friends online, chat, share photos, and videos through social media. Visiting websites has increased online marketing. The competitive world is fighting for these websites to promote their brands. This increasing use of social media has enhanced marketing in different business companies. Though there are other traditional ways of advertising, such as print media, television, and outdoor media still contribute majorly, it does not hit the youth target efficiently (Hota & Bartsch 14). Social media use blogs and machine learning to reach their audience, which is an effective way of reaching youth. Social media sites include Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Orkut, Tiktok, and Orkut. These websites attract about 5 million users each day.

When one accesses these websites, they are more likely to meet various brands. As one goes through their activities, they build interest with time to some of the prominent brands popping up on the websites. Many youths will tend to know more about the brand and end up having a taste. Nevertheless, images and videos shared have a brand of products coming along with them. Teenagers will build interest whenever they come across attractive and more reliable products (Hota & Bartsch 17). At the end of the section, the best brand takes it all. After all, prominent brands are likely to appear mostly. Such will end up convincing youth to choose their brand of interest.

Friends

The brand has a significant influence on teen consumers due to peer pressure. Brand sensitivity for both boys and girls is promoted by peer pressure. Brands will sway adolescent consumers because of what their peers are preferring. Friends likely know one another's taste in terms of brands, and they would probably get advice from one another. If not the case, then they would want to look like those friends having different or better brands (Thaichon 40).

Parents

Nowadays, parents and children are more like friends in their interaction due to the focus on the family. Due to this fact, many reports from the research have shown that parents have power in influencing the role of brands on products (Goodrich & Mangleburg 1332). It is funny to realize that most of the teen have limited control of brand preference. Teenagers will avoid punishment from their parents by choosing certain brands. I do not mean that some brands are not good; the fact is that different parents will prefer specific looks for their children. So, the preference for parents' brands sometimes goes down to the teen's choice. However, it is not always true, and some parents do not bother to choose a brand to their teens. On the other side, teen grows up looking up to what their parents are using. Some will admire the brand taste of their parents. From this, it is evident that the brand impacts teen consumers (Kim et al. 355).

Price

Better brands cost high! In most markets, the brand's pricing varies, and those that are relative to high quality and well known are expensive. I would be interested in asking mt youth colleagues what they would do if they get more money. Would they change their brands? If yes, which is likely the answers, then the brand has influenced their consumption. The teenage age struggle so much to meet their preference because they are expensive. A few will not change their brand when they get more money (Albrecht et al. 816). Due to this factor, most of the teens will go for second-hand stores having similar brands.

Modesty

Modesty can be a factor attributed to religion, parental principles, and place of residence and work. As compared to parents and older people, the brand does not cause much impact on them. Teenagers from a religious background will tend to put on appropriate wear according to their rules and regulation. Some specific brands will be considered. Some are banned at the local Christian teenage schools, and they are taught to be inappropriate. It is even surprising that brands such as Abercrombie and Fitch are prohibited, yet this is common brands for youth. However, it is done mostly in private schools. This case instance shows that appropriateness clothing dresses. Brands can be useful as people can judge someone on the brands they prefer. Eventually, brands will create a different preference to teenage consumers (Thaichon 43).

Fond of Sports

Teenagers are conscious about their health and look. For them to remain fit, they have to involve themselves in several activities, including football, athletics, and gym. They are in love with such events and follow up closely. Scientifically, exe...