| Abstract |
| As the development of technology standardizes a wide variety of products and markets, leading them to employ virtually homogeneous technologies, while the customer preferences become diversified and sophisticated ever more in the wake of the proliferation of the Western individualism, our market is undergoing a big transition toward a customer-centric paradigm. Consumers are seeking to improve their self-esteem by trying to distinguishing themselves in the way the act and projecting their personality in their product choices as they equate their possessions with extended self. In the wake of such a change in customer needs, corporations are striving to make a breakthrough by leveraging brand personality. Such a social phenomenon has inspired many researchers to study brand personality and consumer`s emotional preference, etc. from theoretical perspective. However, there have been few researches into brand uniqueness yet. Therefore, in this study, I referred to the customers` desire to express their personalities or uniqueness in defiance of mediocrity as brand uniqueness and, by analyzing the customer needs for uniqueness and their specific components such as self-esteem and emotional preference, identified 6 elements of brand uniqueness that included sophistication, fashion, personality, reliance, affection and distinction. Then I moved on to verify their reliability and validity in relation to the development of brand uniqueness index by reviewing their concurrent validity and discriminant validity. |
|
|
| Key Words |
| Brand Uniqueness, Brand Personality, Consumer Identity, Customer Value |
|
|
 |
|
Full Text