• by Karl Greenberg , May 9, 2011

At first blush, lifestyle branding might seem like the sort of gambit that has no downside. After all, what could possibly be wrong with finding new ways to connect with people by transcending the limits imposed on a brand by the reality of its products or services? In the choppy seas of consumer sentiment, don't a company's products need as many mooring lines to a consumer as possible?

A new study from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management suggests there are dangers inherent in creating a lifestyle brand. The most serious is that by transcending the strict categories defined by the actual thing a brand is built around such as razors, beer, and motorcycles, the brand also opens itself up to a much wider field of competitors -- other lifestyle brands whose products may be in totally different segments.

Alex Chernev, Kellogg marketing professor and lead author of the study, "Competing for Consumer Identity: Limits to Self-Expression and the Perils of Lifestyle Branding," said that by switching to lifestyle positioning, "brands might be trading the traditional in-category competition for even fiercer cross-category competition."

The study says that lifestyle branding creates more competitors, not less. "The open vistas of lifestyle branding are an illusion," said Chernev. "Focusing on lifestyle puts brands like Gillette, Abercrombie & Fitch, Harley-Davidson, Starbucks, Apple, and Facebook in direct competition with one another."

The study, co-authored by Ryan Hamilton of Emory University's Goizueta Business School and David Gal, assistant professor of marketing at the Kellogg School, examined how lifestyle branding via consumer self-expression (sharing personal preferences, evaluating relevant lifestyle brands and customizing a product) influenced their preferences for lifestyle brands.

Preference was measured in terms of brand relevance, brand differentiation and willingness to pay a premium for lifestyle brands. The problem, the study's authors discovered, is that social media have created a lot of ways for consumers to share their preferences and express themselves on many different platforms. While that opens up a lot of channels attractive to branding, it also crowds out lifestyle brands as a topic.

Facebook might satisfy one's need for self-expression to the extent to which it can weaken a person's preferences for other lifestyle brands, such as Gucci or Swatch.

Chernev argues that when brands transcend their category by becoming lifestyle brands, they engage in a fight for share of voice with all comers, so that a grooming brand might be competing with motorcycles and leather boots. "[A lifestyle brand] is no longer constrained by the boundaries of its own category," he says. "Now brands are competing across categories for a share of a consumer's identity. Fulfilling individuals' need for self-expression is becoming the new frontier of brand competition."