Building nightclub brand personality via guest selection

• This paper identifies that guest selection at exclusive nightclubs is a brand building process, and that the guests’ primary value to the clubs therefore is the image they bestow on the brand. The paper contributes to theory by providing empirical support for several mechanisms that have previously been stipulated in literature. It validates that companies build brand personality by controlling typical user imagery, and that for self-expressive product categories, negative user stereotypes are particularly powerful. It supports the theory of symbolic brand avoidance, as well as the notion that social rejection encourages people to elevate their perceptions of their rejecters and strengthens their predilection to affiliate with them. For practitioners, the paper shows managers in the hospitality industry that it is possible to build brands by controlling who is allowed to become a brand-user, and under which conditions this applies.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Företagsekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Business Administration (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Brand personality

Nightclubs

Self-expressive consumption

Symbolic consumption

User imagery

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)