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The consumer behavior literature has increasingly shown that brand attitude or evaluation is not only determined by functional facets of the brand but also by symbolic criteria. The motivation to express their own self is often driven consumers to purchase goods and services. Self congruence refers to the match between consumers? self concept and the user image of a given product, brand, store, etc. Cigarette is chosen here as there are many teenagers who become smokers in Indonesia (13,2% from total teenagers in between 15-19 years old are smokers). A Mild is a brand which targeted teenagers to become their consumers. Sampoerna produced A Mild for teenagers who smoke for their first time because A Mild has Low Tar and Low Nicotine (LTLN). Much of the research in self image congruence has predicted product preference, brand preference, brand choice, consumer satisfaction, and store loyalty. But no studies were found related to consumer goods. This research focused on A Mild cigarette. The purpose of this research is to find out the congruence between self concept and product concept from A Mild cigarette. Research has been done to 160 smokers in range 18-24 years old at Jakarta on February 2008 within indicators stated by Malhotra in Journal of marketing research, November 1981. Malhotra has developed a scale comprised of 15 bipolar adjective with seven response point to determined respondent self concept, person concept, and product concept. The research was supported by the data. This result shows high congruence between self concept and product concept from A Mild cigarette which supported by 10 validated and reliable indicators from 15 indicators stated by Malhotra. They are rugged-delicate, careless-thrifty, indulgent-wasteful, unpleasant-pleasant, uncontemporary-contemporary, unorganized-organized, emotional-rational, youthful-mature, formal-informal, and complex-simple. |
