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CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR & BRANDS:

An unconscious narcissistic relationship

Working Paper Series

Nicola Caramia

7th October 2015

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A psychoanalytic investigation of the narcissistic relationships between

consumers and brands.

This working paper illustrates a psychoanalytic investigation of the psychological

roots underpinning the development of consumers’ narcissistic personality and their

unconscious identification with fashion luxury brands. The Object Relations and

Attachment theories outline the process through which narcissistic consumers

develop a feeling of omnipotence and grandiosity by internalising archetypal images

of brands as well as arts’ collectors.

Brand Personality

Brand personality is a point of difference within the symbolic meaning of

consumption (Lannon, 1993), projected to the consumer as a mental representation

for self-expression and the expression of an ideal self (Sirgy, 1982; Malhotra, 1988),

and personal meaning (Levy, 1959; Allen & Olson, 1995; J. Aaker, 1995, 1997). A

brand personality influences consumers’ choices and preferences (Biel, 1993) that

creates value for the consumer (D. A. Aaker, 1991, 1996). Consistency between the

traits of brand personality and a consumer’s ideal self-concept (ideal ego) can be

considered as the main factor of brand preference, in particular for those fashion-

luxury brands. Consequently the consumer’s preference for fashion luxury brands

derives from the desire of the consumer to develop a relationship with the brand that

personifies human characteristics of exclusivity, elegance, sensuality, and status that

consumers may perceive about themselves or aspire to (Lannon, 1993). For

example, in choosing a perfume a female consumer is searching for an ideal woman

characteristic that denote sophistication to which she aspires like being sensual,

strong and independent woman who is seeking romance and spiritual love that is

represented by a fashion brand like Chanel. That is a cultural meaning embedded in

the product in terms of age, status, lifestyle. Fashion-luxury brands use personality to

help consumers understand and relate to others and to build a relationship with a

brand that is perceived as a friend, aspirational and trusted. Most fashion-luxury

brands are an extension of “who we want to be” not “who we are”.

Aaker (1996) indicates that a brand personality needs to create value as a

psychological vehicle of self-expression in order to establish and sustaining

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consumer-brand relationships. Fournier (1995a) postulated a relational approach to

brand personality that can be inferred from the observation of the behaviours the

brand develops as a trusted partner in a relationship with the customer. The result is

that a brand personality can be defined in relation to the roles that it plays in a

relationship with the consumer rather than having stable personality traits (J. Aaker

et al., 2004) Brand personality is the result of brand personification In the same way

consumers transfer the characteristics of the people directly to the brand (McCraken,

1989). People and celebrities associated with a brand are either the typical users of

the brand that is “the brand user imagery” (J. Aaker, 1997, p. 348). The personality

traits of the brand include demographical characteristics, such as gender, age and

class (Levy, 1959). A brand’s personality influences people’s personal identities and

persuade consumers to believe and feeling unique but deep down they fear that it

may not be true. This is due to consumers’ fragile self-concept and low self-esteem

as they constantly need reinforcing themselves as valuable and lovable human

beings. It is in this aspect of human self-enhancement and self-actualisation in which

fashion-luxury brands play a pivotal role as they support the brand lover’s ideal self-

concept.

The Brand Experience

Experiencing a brand involves attention, thinking and processing external stimuli

which may stem from a logical thinking process that is reality-thinking, a thinking that

is directed to reality through reasoning. Jung (1956) suggests that through the

analysis of our thoughts we develop an initial idea without thinking backward to the

initial idea each time, thus guided by a sense of direction we develop other ideas

hanging all together. We go through an intensive train of thoughts and suddenly we

notice that we think in words producing a verbal form of thoughts. It is then evident

that logical thinking is directed outwards although Nietzsche postulated:

“Thoughts are shadows of our feelings, always darker, emptier, and simple that

these” (Nietzsche, 1878).

Does that means that consumers’ thinking process is unlikely to have a logical

thinking process when they are exposed to the archetypal images represented by

fashion and luxury brands? How consumers think while they are unconsciously

captured by the advertising messages of fashion luxury brands images may suggest

a line of inquiry into an investigation of the irrational perceptual process of

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consumers’ experience of brands. What happens when we don’t think and we let

ourselves be captured by luxury and fashion brands images?

William James (1890) in his seminal work “Principles of Psychology” indicates that

non-directed thinking or associative thinking belongs to our way of thinking that is

made of trains of images, one by another like a kind of daydreams. James’s

definition leads away from reality into fantasies and the thinking in verbal forms

ceases to exist and images pile up on images. The concept of associative thinking or

daydreams with no logical thinking pervades consumers’ mind when they are

exposed to the archetypal images of beauty, love and envy that fashion luxury

brands project into the outside world through advertising. This consumer’s

unconscious brand experience is a mental phenomenon that cannot be explained

purely in mechanical or behavioural terms but a fantasy-thinking guided by

unconscious motives (Jung 1956). While experiencing the brand the mind of the

consumer moves unconsciously into a world of dream-thinking and regresses to the

raw material of infantile memories. Infantile memories are reactivated unconsciously

into the consumer’s mind that is stimulated by advertising powerful images evoking

elements of seduction, attractiveness, power, love and omnipotence in order to

create a bond between a brand and the consumer. If a brand can communicate

strong emotions and positive feelings then consumers will become eager to

purchase that particular brand as it makes up for the search of a lost time when they

were the only object of love for their parents.

Jung (1956) noted that through fantasy that logical thinking is brought into contact

with the oldest layers of the human mind buried beneath the threshold of

consciousness (waking dreams). Fashion luxury brands sell dreams and desires by

creating conscious fantasies through the use of mythological material such as

archetypal images associated with the brand that mirrors certain tendencies in the

personality make up of consumers, which are not recognised by their conscious

character.

In today’s hyper consumerist society fashion and luxury brands seem to offer to

consumers an unforgettable emotional experience. All the elements associated to a

brand with which the consumers have a contact represent an opportunity for

experiencing a bonding relationship between brands and individuals. Marketing tools

such as advertising, social media and public relations can change overnight a

consumer’s attitude toward a specific brand in order to stimulate a purchase. The

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marketing mix is there to arouse the consumers’ emotional value judgment

experience with fashion-luxury brands that occurs at the time when they interact with

the brands. As a result, emotions intensify wants and desires as they provide the

most important bond that links us to others. Consumers approach the physical world

through their mental representation of it and a brand image is one such

representation. A brand image can evoke an emotional bonding with a consumer as

the most significant aspect of a customers’ experience mostly emotional rather than

satisfaction (Barlow and Maul, 2000). It is the shopping experience that is influenced

by the brand’s personality, a brand’s imagery associations and a brand’s promise,

although the true experience takes place when the consumer enters into a shopping

mood and he or she is attracted firstly by the brand image of the window display and

ultimately gets into the shop where the consumer’s emotional brand experience

takes place.

Developing a favourable brand image is to position the brand as a way of enhancing

the consumer’s self-image and self-esteem. In promising customers that the branded

product will help them live up to some ideal and boosting a high sense of self-

esteem.

When consumers purchase a pair of sporting shoes for example in a Puma or Nike

and any other fashion brand store what they are really buying is a world of high

fashion and luxury environment with sportive and wellness performances which take

form into a pair of high quality shoes. The consumer’s emotional and purchasing

experience is aroused by the symbolic mental representation of the brand through its

product display but most importantly by the store’s interior design and atmosphere

communicating a fashionable life-style and coolness. Consequently the emotional

consumer’s experience is tied to the consumer’s positive emotional response to the

brand. Roberts (2006), notes that the only way to have loyal customers is making

them fall in love with the brand. In Robert’s view the relationship between the brand

and customers is similar to a long term love relationship in which the brand and the

consumer are committed in the satisfaction of the other’s psychogenic needs. An

emotional brand experience alluring a consumer emotional involvement with their

preferable brands, which consequently may lead to a stable brand loyalty. Roberts

(2006) indicates that mystery, sensuality and intimacy is what keeps the consumer’s

fantasy alive and enhancing the interest in the brand. Apparently respect and love

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are the driving forces for a brand in order to differentiate from other branded

products. The brand’s ultimate objective is to have inspirational consumers who

become the advocate of the brand as they feel so enthusiastic about the brand that

they chose to recommend it to other people due to their beliefs in the brand’s value.

Consumers use material possessions to portray images that display success and

status and the consumption of brands that possess a high social and image

dimension such as fashion clothing and luxury products will influence an individual’s

belief that possessions symbolise one’s identity. Consequently by enhancing the

importance attached to possessions as objects (Richins & Dawson 1992),

materialistic consumers use possessions that are consumed in public places for

portraying and managing impressions. Materialism is used here to refer to

individuals giving possessions a central place in life and believing them to be a sign

of success and satisfaction.

A personality construct that is gaining prominence in the psychology of consumer

behaviour literature affecting materialistic orientation and usage of luxury-fashion

products can be defined as the consumer’s vanity, a narcissistic personality trait.

Vanity describes a person’s definition of one’s self-identity in terms of the perception

of social achievements and physical appearances (Durvasula et al. 2001). Even

though a specific formal definition cannot be found, two aspects of vanity emerge: a

physical appearance aspects and an achievement aspect. That is a concern for a

positive perception of the physical appearance and social achievements (Netemeyer

et al. 1995). The perception components of a consumer’s vanity (the positive view

and perception of physical appearance and social achievements) are considered

integrated parts of a person’s self-concept (Wang & Waller 2006). Vanity basically

contains an appearance aspect, which incorporates a positive and an inflated view of

one's physical appearance (Netemeyer et al. 1995).

This leads to the fact, that a person’s concern for his or her appearance is one of the

major influence dimensions which affects the construct of consumers’ vanity.

Consumers’ vanity also consists of a third component known as appearance

concern, which comprehends a physical appearance of a person in conjunction with

a perception aspect as a multidimensional construct in line with a person’s self-

concept (Bracken 1996). We enter here into the realm of a surreal fantasy world in

which the consumer is engaged in the imaginary-symbolic realm of advertising by

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means of projective-identification. That is a psychic movement between the

consumer’s psychic drives of projection in which the consumer projects his ideal or

aspirational ego into a fashion or luxury brand image. Another key significant aspect

of projective identification is introjections in which the consumer internalises the

brand as part of himself or herself. The same process of projective-identification

occurs to the brand, in which the brand personality is projected through advertising,

into the consumer’s mind and he or she becomes the recipient of that brand’s

projection by internalising the brand personality in order to achieve his or her ideal

ego.

Consequently the consumer’s ideal ego identifies with the symbolic archetypal brand

image and a brand’s narcissism is born in which the brand’s needs, over the

consumers, are seen as the supporters of the brand unique selling point and

grandiosity in being the best choice in a product category. Brand narcissism is an

obsession about product differentiation through a very high price orientation, scarcity

and rarity instead of customer orientation. Consumers purchase fashion-luxury

brands in order to express themselves, since the brand symbolically represents the

ideal self-object they may aspire to. A brand can become the only psychological

meaning to communicate when there is a lack of meaning in the consumers’

personality so they can seeks to fulfill their empty self-concept using an external tool,

the brand.

The brand as self-elevator for the consumer’s low self-esteem with a fragile self-

worth. By purchasing into the symbolic meaning of the brand the consumer will feel

better about himself or herself because the purchasing experience of the brand did

not only satisfied the functional benefit of the branded product but it provides an

emotional narcissistic state in which the consumer feel self-gratified with a self-good-

factor that has been amplified through the various symbolic messages attached to

the brand. Fashion and luxury brands create archetypal images associated with a

product class in order to provide an illusory and unconscious experience of self-

worth making consumers feeling in control of their life when in reality the

unconscious desires and fantasies are the ones that control the consumer’s life.

Fantasies provide substitute gratification for what is lacking in the consumer’s life.

Psychoanalytic theories indicate that fantasies may be expressions of whishes as

they may serve as consolations or compensations for what we lack in life. The most

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compelling function of fantasy is that creates an environment of hope for the future.

Person (1995) notes that fantasy can act as a rehearsal for future action and can

provide a psychological template for life choices, a kind of a theatre in which we

preview the possible scenarios of our life to come and luxury fashion brands provide

this theatrical environment. Fashion and luxury brands create fantasies through

archetypal brand images of beauty, seduction, rarity, status, luxury that will

unconsciously influence consumers’ perception of their ideal self and consequently

stimulating their desires to purchase into a particular brand in order to enhance their

self-esteem.

Those brands exist in order to artificially re-create an illusory high self-esteem for

those poor consumers who probably have suffered a blow in self-esteem in their

early infancy. Self esteem derives in part from growing up in a family environment

with loving parents and from using successfully one’s competencies and abilities to

attain one’s goals. Low self esteem occurs when people are neglected and when

they feel unable to get what they want. Apparently most people tend to focus on

materialistic values because they were often raised in an un-nurturing family

environment in which their needs for security, love and safety have been neglected.

These non-nourishing family environments have an impact on consumers’ self-

esteem and it is not surprising that materialistic values embedded into fashion-luxury

brands tend to be associated to high-self-esteem.

Sometime when consumers say good things about a brand and how well it fits with

their lifestyle and about themselves they are actually covering up a rather fragile and

unstable sense of self-worth. Self-esteem is a key concept relevant to the self-

concept with regards to the positive perception of one’s self. Often there is a gap

between the “ideal self” and the “actual self” in all of us and marketers develop

brands and products to fill the gap between consumers’ actual self and the ideal self

(Solomon, 2008). Similarly, consumers with low self-esteem tend to purchase

branded products that make them feel better about themselves. Ind (2003) noted

that brands may well increase our sense of self-worth as they enhance our intrinsic

need for esteem, socialisation and self-actualisation as brands can manipulate

people’s beliefs. Kim, D. Han and S. Park, (2001) postulated that people’s

identification with a brand’s features is the most significant cause to create a strong

brand loyalty because of the irrational implications which drive the consumers when

purchasing branded products. These implications are widely affected by the need of

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identification with the society in which consumers live. When a brand is perceived as

an extension of a consumer’s personality, a strong loyal bond between the brand

and the consumer is created. A brand can represent the ideal self a consumer’s

would like to achieve and a symbolic loving relationship begins to shape between

brands and consumers in which the consumer becomes a brand lover. Individuals

develop different relationships with brands according to how they perceive and relate

to brands in the same way they build social relationship with other people. It is the

cognitive perceptual process involved at the time a brand image. That is the

consumer’s mental representation of the brand that is mediated by the emotions and

feelings conveyed visually by brands and projected into the consumer’s aspirational

self concept.

Fournier’s (1998) seminal work on consumer-brand relationship demonstrated that

brands can become viable relationships when they reinforce an individual self-image.

According to Fournier a strong brand is the one that makes consumers falling in love

with the brand. Those consumers become brand lovers as they identify with the

symbolic hedonic values associated with fashion-luxury brands and use them to

project their aspirational self-image to society. For instance the brand lover of Gucci

or Dolce & Gabbana can be unconsciously motivated to project a fantasy self-image

of sexy, coolness and trendy with a sophisticated personality stemmed from an

infantile unconscious auto-erotic motive of being omnipotent. The brand becomes

the object of love with which the consumer’s ego identifies with. As a result the

emotional deepest attachments are to consumers what a brand’s personality image

reinforces to what consumers need to believe about themselves.

The consumer’s ideal self and his relationships with brands

The relationship between consumers and fashion-luxury brands plays an important

role in our daily life as people project unconsciously their ideal self-image into brands

that convey symbolic archetypal images of beauty, status and omnipotence. A

fashion luxury brand communicates an attractive and arresting image into the mind

of consumers, which creates a narcissistic and libidinal emotional bond similar to the

mother-child relationship that consumers experienced very early in life. Fashion

advertising creates a hyper-reality ambiance in which an unconscious illusory

symbiotic relationship unfolds between consumers and fashion-luxury brands, similar

to the deepest level of the mother fixation of incestuous symbiosis. The

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consequence is that a consumer cannot live without that particular brand and if the

relationship is threatened he or she may feel anxious. For the symbiotically attached

consumer to a fashion-luxury brand is very difficult to sense a psychological distance

between him/or herself and the brand. The fashion-consumer feels to be

symbiotically attached with the brand as a blended part of him/or herself. The

consumer that has been unconsciously exposed to the brand’s archetypal

advertising images of beauty, exclusiveness, attractiveness will begin to mirror him

or herself with the brand’s symbolic meaning and will become symbiotically attached

to the brand. It is the idealisation of a brand’s image that creates a brand’s

dependency in which the consumer cannot separates him or herself from the brand

because he or she madly needs it in order to feel omnipotent, protected but

dependent on the brand. As a result the consumer’s purchasing experience of a

fashion-luxury brand will unconsciously re-create a symbiotic relationship similar to

the loving object experienced by the consumer with a mother figure early in life in

which he or she felt superior, sometime inferior and sometime equal to the mother.

Unconsciously, the consumer enters once again into the womb of the mother but this

time is replaced by the brand’s archetypal image and a new foetus (the consumer’s

self) that is conceived through the brand’s consuming experience. This is a

repressive and consequently regressive form of symbiosis in which the consumer’s

unconscious desire is actually that of returning to the womb (the protecting brand as

a substitute of the mother). To be in the womb and be identified with the brand is to

be separated from life. The symbiotic relationship between a consumer and a

fashion-luxury brand is similar to the symbiotic fixation of the child’s wish of being

loved, losing one’s independence and to be in the mother’s protective womb. Studies

on narcissism suggest that what really appeals to people is about them. Marketers

can help those people in need of love and dependency to purchase a fantasy image

projection of themselves by creating a personality behind a brand that reflects the

ideal ego of the consumer’s self.

In psychological terms the mother–child bond is the primary force in infant

development (Bowlby1992) that is not dissimilar from a fashion-luxury brand loyalty

relationship with consumers, through which brands create a holding and secure

branding environment. A pampering shopping experience similar the safe mother’s

nurturing and protective environment we experience soon after birth. Likewise in

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early infancy the adult consumer unconsciously experiences once again an archaic

attachment relationship with the brand (the mother’s substitute). The brand’s

experience mirrors the strong foundation of a secure attachment bond similar to the

one that enables the child to be self-confident, trusting, hopeful, and comfortable in

the face of interpersonal and intra-psychic conflicts. Most fashion and luxury brands

communicate security, a sense of self-worth and a feeling of omnipotence. We all

know that insecurity can be a significant problem in our lives, and it takes root when

an infant’s attachment bond fails to provide the child with sufficient structure,

recognition, understanding and safety. In adult life these insecurities are replaced by

the purchasing experience of fashion-luxury brands that provide us with a fantasised

emotional sensation of self-worth. For instance If our parents were unavailable and

self-absorbed, we may as children get lost in our own inner world and avoiding any

close emotional connections. As adults, we may become physically and emotionally

distant in relationships. We remain insecure if we had a parent who has been

inconsistent or intrusive and it’s likely we will become anxious and fearful, never

knowing what to expect. We may be available one moment and rejecting the next.

Similarly, consumers who feel insecure are more likely to establish addictive

relationships with fashion-luxury brands that are unconsciously perceived as caring

objects of desires for warmth and love that deprived consumers in their early life.

Consequently the consumer’s self-concept becomes weak and inflated.

Sirgy (1982) defines the self-concept as the totality of individual thoughts and feeling

having references to the self as an object. The self-concept can be described as the

perception of one self, that is, the beliefs a person has about his or her own

attributes. How a person evaluates the self on these qualities divides the self

structure in three parts, namely the “inner self” that an individual is not aware of; “the

private self” the self a person does not want to disclose; “the outer self” the self an

individual shares with others. For marketers is extremely important to understand

which self-concept is motivating consumers to buy into certain brands. However the

concept of the self is definitely not as simple as it could be. The self is also better

understood from a multi-dimension perspective where the “actual self” refers to how

a person views himself; the “ideal self” that is how an individual would like to see

himself and the “social self” how a person presents himself to others. Webb and

Gountas (2006) suggest a fourth dimension of the self, “the ideal social self” which

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describes how an individual would like to be perceived by others. This fourth

dimension of the self may influence the consumers’ choice of products and brands

as people tend to disguise parts of them that they deem not acceptable in a social

context in order to project an ideal self. Consequently, marketing people have the

objective to communicate to consumers how they are able to achieve their ideal self

by purchasing into a specific brand (Evans, 1989). Although some consumers are

more aware of their self-image they communicate to the external world, a concept

known as self-consciousness. The more conscious consumers feel about

themselves the more concerned they will be about the brands they choose to buy.

When developing brands, marketers develop a brand image that mirror consumers’

ideal self-concept. In Webb and Gountas’s (2006) account the self-concept must

have a self-congruity as the degree of similarity between the consumer self-concept

and a brand image. Brands are used by consumers to express themselves from

brands that do not (Aagerup 2011; Evans 1989). Hence if the consumer’s self-

concept is not aligned with a brand image, this may lead to feelings of

dissatisfaction. Consumers often see brands as humans, and they find it easy to

attribute personality traits to brands. Consumers not only develop relationship with

significant others but also with brands, which help them to provide meaning to their

lives (Fournier 1998). Marketing communications are there to influence consumers’

level of self-esteem by triggering a process of hyper-reality construction between the

audience of advertising and the artificial images represented into the advertising

campaign. Baudrillard (1994) points out that society of today is one of hyper-reality,

where distortions are dissolved between objects (brands) and their representations.

In Baudrillard’s view the world of hyper-reality is the only reality such as TV and

other signifiers. The media images become the reality as any difference between the

real world and the one of the pervasive media becomes eroded. Consequently a

consumer purchasing into fashion luxury brands consumes the symbols of power,

prestige and status symbol. Consumers create their own reality in a world in which

signs symbolise the realm of experience as they are unable to distinguish reality

form illusion. This is a marketing process of persuasion through the marketing mix

and social media that is usually used by presenting the purchasing experience of a

specific fashion or luxury brand as the solution to enhance a consumer ego ideal.

The ego ideal and being in love have an unconscious constellation in the consumer’s

self. Loss of love and failure leave behind a permanent wound to self-regard in the

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form of a narcissistic scar, which contribute to a sense of inferiority. In order to

overcome this sense of inadequacy and healing a narcissistic scar consumers

project a certain self-image through the fashion-luxury brands they have purchased

to buffer their self-esteem. High-self-esteem goes with self-confidence with a more

calm energetic mood and optimism in the buying experience. Although a wish for

high-self esteem is the main motive, it is a powerful one as anything that increases

self-esteem is perceived highly emotional by the consumer. Consumers with low

self-esteem tend to associate themselves with successful others who highly project

their self-images by wearing a cool fashion-luxury brand the more its perceived

emotional value.

A psychoanalytic investigation into consumers’ identification with fashion-

luxury brands

The adoption of a psychoanalytic investigation provides us with a better

understanding of the consumer’s ego ideal identification with fashion-luxury brands.

In Freud’s (1920) seminal work of “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” the giving up of

the oedipal object (a fashion or luxury brand may well fit into the oedipal object here)

appears to be linked to the painful recognition by the child ( or the adult consumer) of

his or her inadequacy. For the child is the tragedy of a shattered illusion as the

oedipal love represents the first model of love. The narcissistic wound inflicted by

oedipal disappointments can result in dissolution of the ego. Freud (1920) sees as

the focal point of being in love as the projection of the ego-ideal onto the object. In

marketing the oedipal relationship between a consumer and fashion luxury brand

can be re-created by substituting the primordial object of love (the mother) with that

of a fashion luxury brand image. The brand archetypal image of a fashion luxury

product is projected into the consumer’s ideal ego in the same way when a child is in

love with the oedipal mother with a considerable amount of narcissistic libido

overflow onto the object. The object of love is now symbolically represented by the

archetypal image of the brand that is narcissistically and unconsciously introjected by

the consumer’s mind. The love-object (the brand image) has been put in the place of

the ego ideal. The state of being in love represents a manifestation of the desire to

rediscover a state of primary narcissism (autoerotic and omnipotence of thoughts)

through the identification of the ego ideal with the object in a regression way (the ego

becomes the fantasised object of love). A similar constellation takes place when

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consumers buy into luxury fashion brands, where the brand is unconsciously

perceived as the ideal object of love to which the consumer projects outside his or

her ideal ego. Symbolically, a fashion-luxury brand represents the oedipal and

primary love for the consumer who cannot afford to be without otherwise he or she

would feel a sense of loss of love.

Freud (1920) argued that being loved increased self-regard which has an intimate

dependence on narcissistic libido. It is the fulfilling of the ideal that reinforces the ego

narcissism. To be loved helps in the fulfilment of the ideal. For instance our peers’

play the role of a mirror to us in which is reflected our ego so do brands. It is as if our

sense of personal worth and our self-esteem depends on the image of ourselves that

our peers reflect back to us. That is through our peers that we have a proof of the

worth or lack of worth of our ego, not dissimilar from the encountering experience

with fashion luxury brands that symbolically mirror the consumer’s ego-ideal.

Freud (1925) also described reality-testing as being based upon the distinction

between “internal” and “external” perception. A presentation is real when we can

rediscover its object in the external world. What is unreal, merely subjective, is only

internal, what is real is also there outside. Therefore we have no way of measuring

reality-testing in relation to our psychic ego, since there is no external object

corresponding to its internal representation. We find ourselves compelled to find

mirrors in which we see reflected our body ego. The way in which we are seen or

perceived by others represents an equivalent to the “projections” into the external

world of our psychic ego submitting itself to reality testing. For instance, consumers

that seek cosmetic surgery they have regressed to a level where the body ego has

become detached from the psychic ego and it has became a focus for projection.

The body ego is identified with the psychic ego taking the role of the representation

of the psychic ego. This evaluation of the psychic ego will take place through the

internalisation of the parents who observe the child and demonstrate their pleasure

or disapproval. If the child feels to be loved by the mother, but not seduced, he or

she would be able to internalise a capacity for self-evaluation. This will make the

child less dependent on those around him for the regulation of the self-esteem. On

the other end the achievement of identification with objects similar to the consumers’

identification of their ideal-ego with luxury-fashion brands will allow the regressive

consumer to acquire a good sense of self-esteem. The consumer’s ego will be

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identified with idealised objects represented by the brand’s archetypal image.

Consequently the consumer’s self-esteem will be increased and this will make him or

her more autonomous in relation to other people’s opinion. In the case of the mother

that does not love her child for what he or she is but only for what he or she does the

evaluation of the ego and reinforcement of self-esteem can be achieved through

deeds (actions). Deeds are fragmented aspects of the ego that allow an evaluation

of the ego as they represent a form of objectification. The attitude of the mother

spoils the “objective” character of the deed, which will not be used as evidence of the

ego’s abilities but as a mean to get confirmation or approval from others. This may

explain the rationale of an increasing consumption in luxury and fashion branded

products by young female consumers who have been experiencing the parental

pressure from a mother who constantly worried about her daughter achievements in

life.

Fashion-luxury brands become the “ideal ego” that consumers identify with and

powered with an unconscious hope of returning to a state of primary fusion like the

wish to return to the mother’s womb as the most fundamental human desire. This is

a narcissistic state, the most primitive phase of development as we are urged

forwards by a sense of longing for a wonderful past for a time when we were our own

ideal. The originality of the ego ideal is that represents a link-concept between

absolute narcissism and object relatedness, between the pleasure principle and the

reality principle (Freud 1923). The projection of infantile narcissism onto the parents

who constitute the ego ideal is a step toward the achievement of a sense of reality

and of object relatedness since primary megalomania is given up in favour of the

object.

The child is guided by the mother who helps him or her to project his or her ego ideal

before him. In today’s world the “ideal self” or “ideal ego” is moulded by elements of

the consumer’s cultural archetypes such as heroes or people depicted in advertising

who serve as a model of achievement or appearance. The self appears particularly

important in the study of consumer behaviour for its relation with objects. Since many

centuries ago, objects were used in different ways depending on the culture as an

extension of the personality as the means through which people could communicate

themselves with the external world. Most of all the purchasing choices are dictated

by the similarity between people’s “ideal ego” and the attributes of a fashion-luxury

16

brand. Brands have an extreme influence during the process of a consumer’s choice

and the variety of selves coexisting in one person who requires different products will

depend on the role one wants to play in a specific moment. Fashion-luxury branded

products are seen as a reflection of the ideal consumer’s self with the purpose of

both bolstering self-esteem.

Object Relation theory and consumers’ attachment to brands

The origins of Object Relation theory’s can be traced in Freud’s conception of the

“superego” as the internalisation of an aspect of the interpersonal relationship with

one’s parent (Albanese 2002). A “super-ego” that all human beings experienced

early in life from which we construct our ideal ego, an inspirational self-image we

dream to become and that all of us pursue in life at the expenses of our authentic

selfhood. In order to have a better understanding what a “superego” stands for,

Freud (1920) used the metaphor of the crystal which represents the “id” as the dark,

inaccessible and unconscious part of our mental apparatus that is always looking for

immediate gratification. The “ego” is the rational part of the human behaviour and the

“superego” the mental unconscious representation of the punitive and moral

conscience of parents. These aspects are seen as the different parts of the mental

topographical map that are always in conflicts in all of us.

The “superego” constructed by the internalisation of the parental prohibitions (such

as brush your teeth, don’t stay out too late at night) represents the moral restriction

for every person. Freud (1923) divides the “superego” into three levels: the punitive,

the prohibitive and protective superego. In adult life, the punitive superego

persecutes the person with anxiety, the prohibitive superego as the function of

conscience of experiencing guilt for violating the parental prohibitions, and the

protective superego as the function of maintaining an “ideal ego” as the capacity for

commitment to a shared value’s systems with another person. Freud underlined the

importance of a value system as the cultural aspect of the protective superego. The

child’s superego is built on the parent’s superego that becomes a vehicle of

transmission of the tradition over the generations. This judgment value passing and

the function of the superego of maintaining the ideal alive means living up to an

internalised value’s systems. The superego plays an influential role in the

consumer’s mind when purchasing branded products. For instance, a consumer that

17

purchases an expensive fashion luxury brand like Gucci or Burberry may feel guilty

as the little voice of a “punitive parental figure” prohibits such hedonic and financially

expensive experience only because during infancy the consumer internalised the

parents’ value system of rigour, austerity and good value for money. By contrast if a

consumer has been brought up with lavishing presents and she or he has been

pampered with pleasurable hedonic life experiences during infancy, he or she will not

feel guilty when purchasing an expensive luxury brand due the internalised

permissive value system that has been internalised from the parents. The result is a

protective super-ego parental authority figure fostering a value system of pleasurable

life experiences in the mind of the adult consumer looking for immediate gratification

of his or her infantile unconscious fantasies and wishes. Similarly, the adult

consumer’s emotional experience of a luxury-fashion brand is mediated by a

projection of unconscious pleasurable fantasies and feelings mirroring the safe and

warm intrauterine environment once experienced in the womb of the mother. The

brand becomes an object of love for the adult consumer that immediately gratifies his

or her infantile primary narcissistic wishes as the brand becomes an extension of the

consumer’s idealised ego. Experiencing pleasure is king in the luxury-fashion

consumption behaviour as the consumer unconsciously desires to return to his or

her primordial love experienced very early in life. The luxury brand provides comfort

but also a psychological reassurance that the consumer feels omnipotent and

powerful. What is happening during the consumer’s buying experience is that of a

psychological projection of unconscious fantasies. A fashion-luxury brand transmits,

through advertising, its vivid archetypal image of sensuality and beauty to the

unconscious mind of the consumer who identifies with the brand without being aware

that what is happening is only a psychological and unconscious reactivation of

instinctual sexual impulses experienced in infancy and that they have been

repressed by the consumer’s super-ego. A repression directed against sexuality and

against the law that governs life. Repression causes regression and at the time

when the consumer is exposed to subliminal sexy advertising campaigns of fashion

brands, he or she unconsciously regresses to childhood behaviour in which

instinctual impulses are unconsciously reactivated and represented by the archetypal

image of fashion-luxury brands symbolising divine beings as part animals and part

human. The ideal-ego idealised in the consumer’s early infancy through the

internalisation process of the super-ego will influence how consumers relate to

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consumer products. All human beings soon after birth experience their external world

as it is made up of objects and parts of objects.

Early in infancy people are experienced as parts of persons like the breast of the

mother is perceived as an object by the infant baby. We internalised our body parts

as separated from our body and we make sense of those parts as integrated parts of

our body. We learn about our surroundings and we create symbols in our mind

through the relationships we experience with our parental figures and external

objects. Very early in life we begin to create our inner reality and fantasies that later

in life will impact the way we relate to people and to branded products. We create

relationships with brands in the same way we develop relationships with people. We

fall in love with brands because they projects through their advertising messages

symbols and fantasies that are in line with our unconscious wishes of belonging and

clinging to others, whether they are persons or objects. We become loyal to brands

because the brand’s promise is in line with our idealised self-concept. We buy into

an hyper-reality that does not exists but that apparently gratifies our striving of

becoming lovable persons in the same way as we strove for love from a mother

figure in our early days of life. We madly need brands and we become addictive to

luxury and consumption values that fed our empty self. Thus a relationship is forged

between people and brands. Gomez (1997) indicates that first interpersonal or object

relationship is typically with the mother and the importance of the experiences of the

child’s dependence on the mother are the basis for the Object Relations theory of

personality development. The relationship established between infant and mother

will affect all the future relationships of the child since the mother represents the

object. The failure to achieve the integration of whole object relations means that the

later infant has not been able to accept that the mother is just a real person with

good and bad sides. Thus splitting is the reaction to protect the person from anxiety

that involves contradictory images of the self and the object that denies the mother is

not perfect. In Kenberg’s view (1985) this primitive idealisation creates an unrealistic

world where the objects are all good and powerful and that negatively affects the

development of the ego ideal and the prohibitive superego.

The Object Relation theory seems to address metaphorically a similarity to the loving

relationship consumers develop with fashion-luxury brands. Actually, what really

happens unconsciously in the mind of a consumer is a love affair “a deux” with a

brand. The brand is emotionally perceived and fantasised as an archetypal loving

19

image and unconsciously internalised as a good loving object toward which the

consumer projects his or ideal-ego. The brand becomes the object of love toward

which the consumer strives to be loved in order to feel important. A pure narcissistic

relationship unfolds through a process of internalisation and identification with the

brand in which the consumer invests all his or her libidinal energy into the brand. A

narcissistic cathexis takes place with the consumer’s investment of energy into the

self with the brand acting as an extension of the consumer’s self. We can say a

primary narcissism using Freud’s (1914) concept, which eventually give away to a

secondary narcissism in which the consumer, by investing all his libidinal forces into

the self, leads to a megalomania of the self. The process of a secondary narcissism

takes place at the time when a consumer begins to like a brand with its products,

image, quality and coolness admiring what the brand represents into his mind. A

need for admiration is then transmitted from the brand to the consumer who

unconsciously identifies with the brand and consequently he or she feels admired by

the external reality. Pampering the consumer self-concept is what luxury and fashion

brands do in order to sell millions of products. In reality what happens is the

experience of an illusory fantasised world in which the consumer entangles himself

or herself in a vicious psychological circle of low self-esteem and inadequacy that will

never be reverted through the purchasing experience of brands. It only lasts a

moment the admiration from the others and unless we love ourselves for who we are

we’ll never be happy as happiness is about self-acceptance, becoming who we are

and not what others expect us to be. Consumers purchasing fashion and luxury

brands seek status and visibility as status and social visibility become sources of

power with an illusionary feeling of being in control of the world. Status symbols will

consequently enhance the consumer’s self-esteem supported by a positive

emotional state of mind. Fashion satisfies the desire for status as people crave for

social acceptance; fashion helps consumers to hide self-deficiencies and indulge the

emotional fantasy of being famous. Wolf (1950) indicates the German philosopher

Georg Simmel who pointed out that fashion enters in all aspects of the human life

from clothes to cars as a combination of novelty of aesthetics charm. The external

world is used, in this context, as an extension of the self for the unconscious

consumer. The consumer lives into a branded world similar to a fantasised

intrauterine life in which he or she feels protected. The brand seems to provide an

unconscious “orgasm” to the consumer megalomania. For the consumer it is like

20

experiencing a feeling of grandiosity with an illusory perfection to become the object

of love so she or he can be loved but only if the brand transmits a symbolic value of

worthiness to the consumer’s mind.

The narcissistic personality of consumers

Narcissism is one of the most complex topics in the psychology of human behaviour,

which can only be explored and examined more closely in psychoanalysis. Derived

from the Greek myth of Narcissus, the concepts of “self” and “narcissism” have their

origins in Freud’s seminal work on narcissism (Fine 1988). In Greek mythology

(Apollodonus 2008) the beautiful Narcissus perceived his own reflection in the water

and felt in love with it. Narcissus was born to the blue water nymph, Liriope, after she

had been raped by the river god Cephisus. When he was born, Liriope asked the

blind prophet Tiresias whether her son would live long enough and the prophet reply

was “if he never knows himself” (Ovid 1985). Narcissus did not know his father and

the absence of it would call for a search for identity which refers not only to the

individual self but also to the identification with ancestors, family members and fellow

citizens (Spaas 2000). One should not forget that the Narcissus myth is a Western

myth after all. Lavelle (2003) notes that Narcissus never attained an authentic

knowledge of himself. Consequently if identity signifies recognizing oneself it would

seem that Narcissus failure to recognise him denotes a lack of identity and self-

awareness. Also the myth reveals the combined power of water and mirrors to erase

the borders between reality and illusion. Narcissism can be considered as a state of

being the centre of a loving world in which a person could act spontaneously out of

desire. Since we experienced this state in early infancy, then as adults we project

our unconscious desires of returning to narcissism by means of the “ego ideal”. That

seems to be our model of the person we must became as the external reality can

love us as it did when we were infants, although in the real world is unlikely we will

attain the ego ideal. Central to the theory of narcissism is the idea that humans have

a need to maintain a positive perception of selfhood with a need to engage in self-

defense behaviour to maintain their self-esteem. The main feature of the narcissistic

personality is the grandiose sense of self-importance although underneath this

grandiosity the narcissistic person suffers from a fragile low self esteem. It is the

sense of inferiority which is the real problem of the narcissistic individual as the

21

grandiose self is only one side adopted to cover a feeling of inadequacy. Since the

narcissist is unable of asserting his or her own sense of adequacy, he or she seeks

admiration from the world. The narcissist by seeking admiration from others and

keeping them at distance is able to maintain the illusion of grandiosity. Smirgel

(1985) states that in the regulation of self-esteem the ego-ideal plays an important

role as the libido evolves from a state of primary narcissism to investment of objects

with the tendency of later withdrawal of object-invested libido onto the ego in the

form of secondary narcissism. Freud (1914) considered primary narcissism as the

way in which the new born baby infant does not distinguish himself from the mother

as a separate object (object in psychoanalysis refers to either a person or the

representation of a person in the mind); people are born without a sense of

themselves with a complete fusion with the mother as a unitary object. In primary

narcissism (autoerotic) there is not yet any relation to the outside world whereas in

the course of normal development the infant begins to increase his libidinal

relationship to the external world. In most cases the child withdraws his libidinal

attachment from objects and directs it back to his ego (secondary narcissism).

Narcissism as the desire and energy that drives one’s instinct to survive. With

secondary narcissism, megalomania and a feeling of omnipotence with a power of

thoughts and desire is designed. A pathological condition occurring when the libido

withdraws from objects outside the self and directed toward the self. Freud further

claimed that it is an extreme form of the narcissism that is part of all people.

(Sandler, 2007).

“We can say that one man has set up an ideal in himself by which he measures his

actual ego. This ideal ego is now the target of the self-love which was enjoyed in

childhood by the actual ego. The subject’s narcissism makes its appearance

displaced onto this new ideal ego, which, like the infantile ego, finds itself possessed

of every perfection that is of value. What he projects before him as his ideal is the

substitute for the lost narcissism of his childhood in which he was his own ideal”.

(Freud 1914)

Kohut (1977) explored further the implications of Freud's perception of narcissism as

he maintained that a child will tend to fantasise about having a “grandiose self” and

Deep down, all people retain a belief in their own perfection and the perfection of

anything of which they are a part. As a person matures, grandiosity gives way to self-

22

esteem, and the idealisation of the parent becomes the framework for core values.

Narcissism as part of a stage in normal development, in which caregivers provide a

strong and protective presence with which the child can identify and that reinforces

the child's growing sense of self by mirroring his good qualities. If the caregivers fail

to provide caring and love for their child, the child grows up with a flawed sense of

self (Jacoby, 1990). Fromm (1964) wisely noted that is the goal of man to overcome

one’s narcissism as the teaching of the Buddha indicates that a man can save

himself from suffering only if he awakens from his illusions and becomes aware of

his reality such as the reality of sickness, old age, death and of the impossible task

of achieving the aims of his greed. It is only when a man gives up to the illusion of

his inflated ego and his greed, only then he can be open to the world and be fully

related to it. In Kenberg’s (1995) theoretical conception of narcissism the basic

character constellations are emptiness, restlessness and boredom. According to

Kenberg the diagnostic criterion for narcissistic personality disorders is a pervasive

pattern of grandiosity with a need of admiration and lack of empathy.

In consumer behaviour a consumer that is affected by this pathology is always

obsessed with fantasies of unlimited success, power and ideal love, requiring

excessive admiration and perceiving him or herself as a unique and special, only

understood and associated with high status people. Luxury and fashion brands seem

to do a good work here by elevating prestige, status, megalomania and self-love in

consumers. The dark side of a luxury brand is the mirroring process of a low-

confident consumer who had experienced a narcissistic trauma early in life such as

lack of parental love or inadequate caring during his or her personality development.

The consumer may believe that the purchase of a prestigious brand would enhance

self-confidence in his or her relationships with others, when instead his or her greed

to be loved will vanish when the brand will fail to provide the expected outcome. The

narcissistic consumer is often envious of others; he or she thinks that others are

envious of him or herself. The narcissistic consumer lacks for empathy, taking

advantage of other people to achieve his or her own goals. Excessive self-reference

is the central feature of the narcissistic personality organisation presenting over-

dependence on external admiration, not dissimilar from those consumers purchasing

luxury and fashion brands. Along with a feeling of boredom and emptiness the

narcissistic consumer chases gratification, striving for brilliance, wealth, beauty and

power.

23

A contradictory aspect of the narcissistic personality is the social interaction that

appears very smooth from the outside. This typology of consumers are very

charming and successful in interpersonal relationships but looking further they

actually use the others and they purchase fashion-luxury brands as a reflexion for

self-grandiosity, without feeling a real affection or interest for whom they are

surrounded by. Narcissists adapt themselves to the social demand because they are

afraid of any possible attack. They can’t experience guilt of exploiting the others

because of the lack of a prohibitive superego. They do not have capacity for concern

as relationships represent opportunities for immediate gratification of impulses

providing a temporary sense of meaningfulness. Success and admiration often come

easily to a consumer with a narcissistic personality organisation. A central

component of the narcissistic personality organisation is the grandiose self as

defined by Kenberg (1995) in which the condensation of a real self, ideal self and

ideal object of infancy incorporates components that would become integrated into

the superego. This condensation is the result of excessive frustration and severe oral

aggression and envy that is experienced with interpersonal relations. In Kenberg’s

account the real self refers to the specialness of the child, the ideal self is the

outcome of fantasies and self image of power and omniscience, the ideal object is

the fantasy of ever-giving and ever-loving parent. A narcissist is incapable to

depend on another person but sees the other as an extension of his personality in

the same way consumers perceive fashion-luxurious brands as an extension of their

personalities.

The perception of a brand as an extension of the self is the reflexion of the grandiose

self. A narcissistic consumer divides the world into two sharply parts: the world of

famous, rich and great and the world of worthless and mediocrity. The fear of

belonging to the “lower” world drives the narcissist consumer to become similar as

much as possible to the members of the “higher” group in order to guarantee a

plausible image where the grandiose self is satisfied and not dissimilar from those

consumers buying into luxury fashion brands.

Narcissism as a pleasure oriented conception of life in which the satisfaction of

desires stimulated by advertising messages tends to provoke an oral-narcissistic

craving, envy and greed in people (Carveth 2011). Oral narcissism, greed and envy

belong to what Melanie Klein (1946) called the paranoid schizoid position in which

the other (the mother figure in early infancy) is not perceived as a real one by the

24

narcissist infant because relation only occurs through identification in which the other

represents the self that he or she would like to be. A striving to maximise personal

pleasure not dissimilar from a narcissistic consumer striving for self-gratification and

the relative high pleasurable experience derived from the purchasing experience and

identification with a prestigious and expensive brand reinforcing a sense of

superiority and self-worth. Dunning (2007) and Sedikides, Gregg, Cisek, and Hart

(2007) argue that narcissistic consumers tend to purchase luxury brands to elevate

their positive self-perception. As a result, narcissistic consumers may show affinity

for prestigious fashion brands with high symbolic value, they seek to modulate their

self-esteem by increasing their status and to obtain admiration and envy from others

(Sedikides et al., 2007). Yun Lee and Seidle (2012) points out that narcissistic

consumers are motivated to validate their positive self-view when purchasing a

scarce product because they perceive scarcity as conferring a unique value as they

perceive a scarcity-related purchase experience an opportunity to validate their

positive self-concept. Dowling (1995) notes that addiction is a key element in the

behaviour experienced by a person with a narcissist personality organisation and

strongly connected with the sense of pervasive and constant emptiness. Balint

(1992) describes this addictive behaviour as a pattern of reactivated infantile

behaviour manifested in an adult who feel secure as long as he satisfies his or her

wishes. As a result a consumer with a narcissistic personality can be described as

the eternal little boy or girl because characterised by a chronologically childlike

behaviour that indicate an arrest of personality development at a primitive level.

Narcissistic consumers may tend to have an inflated self-worth as their primary

motivation is to safeguard their self-image derived from their ideal ego. Those

consumers suffer from an inadequate sense of the self, and in order to protect their

inflated self they see themselves as special, superior and entitled to be loved from

the world. Narcissistic consumers will validate their positive self-concept and striving

to purchase the high prestige and expensive products to achieve a sense of

recognition and status. In doing so they will regulate their self-esteem by increasing

their status in order to gain admiration and envy from others. They possess self-

beliefs as they see themselves lovable, competent and deserving appreciation and

love from others. These self-beliefs act as social motivational factors as they tend to

influence social perceptions as well as decisions and consumer choices. As self-

25

beliefs are difficult to change, individuals will change their social perception and

consumer choice to accommodate them with their self-beliefs.

This has a strong impact on people’s self-esteem in monitoring the influence of self-

image motives on consumer behaviour. Narcissistic consumers seek attention and

talk a lot about themselves in order to sustain their status-seeking glory-seeking and

identify themselves with celebrities. Dunning (2007) suggests that those consumers

with a narcissistic personality are likely to join exclusive clubs, purchase expensive

cars, rare pieces of art, designer clothes, and expensive jewellery. Fashion and

luxury brands act as narcissism catalysts by using archetypal images to project a

symbolic emotional value into the mind of consumers that unconsciously identify with

those archetypal images and elevate their sense of self-worth. The tale of the

Medusa, a Greek siren luring sailors to destruction was used by the Versace brand

in order to project the myth of a siren onto its female consumers that unconsciously

connect and identify themselves with the archetype of a dangerous siren capable of

luring men into destruction (Megehee, Spake 2012). Jacoby (1991) notes that C.G.

Jung although hardly used the term narcissist, his psychological ideas about the

dynamics involved in the choice of a partner is part of the same phenomenology of

narcissism, not dissimilar from a consumer narcissistic choice of a luxury fashion

brand. We can infer that the choice of a love partner or a luxury brand with a

person’s related infatuation with it are based on the unconscious projection a person

has toward the “loved” person or desired object (the brand). This projection regards

a piece of one person reflected in the other person or an objectified brand whose

presence serves to crystallise the one’s conscious development. A luxury fashion

brand reflects its archetypal symbolic image of beauty that is projected onto the ideal

ego of a female consumer that consequently identifies part of her with a brand image

to gain self-worth. Archetypes play a fundamental role in developing personalities

behind fashion-luxury brands.

Archetypes

C.G. Jung (1956) refers to the concept of archetype, the universal psychic

dispositions that form the substrate from which the basic themes of human life

emerge. Being universal and innate archetypal influences can be detected in the

form of myths, symbols, brand images, rituals, and images of parents, children,

siblings, birth and death, and instincts of human beings. Archetypes are the

26

components of the collective unconscious shared by all human beings and races that

serve to organise, direct and inform human thought and behaviour. Innate

archetypes influence the human life cycle as archetypal images serve the individual

to unconsciously mirror his own ideal ego onto those images representing religious

representations (Jung 1968).

Consumers are captured by archetypal images of fashion-luxury brands projected

onto themselves by the advertising industry. They unconsciously project all their

personal values onto those archetypal brand images of beauty, security and heroes

that the consumerism society uses to manipulate the masses. The consequences

are that consumers perceive themselves without any intrinsic values as all their

unconscious desires are projected onto branded products representing illusory and

fantasised archetypal images. Branded products become objects of love and desire

in the same way as, early in infancy, we experienced the archaic archetypal images

of a caring and loving mother or father authority. Consumers project unconsciously

their ideal self onto brands to make sense of their existence and of their personal

values with an illusion of self-gratification and high-self esteem. Flugel (1950)

described the narcissistic personality as the sublimated type as the most satisfactory

from the point of view of clothes psychology. The sublimated type is achieved

through a sublimation of narcissism from body to clothes as the narcissistic self-

feelings fuses clothes and body with an excessive interest in clothes display.

The Internalisation process of brands

A crucial aspect of human development is the process whereby the outer world is

perceived and integrated, creating the inner reality of the individual. Internalisation

refers to manner in which the individual transfers a relationship with an external

object into his internal world. The permanent internal mental representations of

objects and events are created by the processes of incorporation, introjection and

identification. Loewald (1980) notes that internalisation involves the transformation of

object cathexis corresponding to the investment of libidinal energy in the object, into

narcissistic cathexis as the investment of energy in the self. When the internalisation

is complete the subject’s identity with the object is renounced, therefore it’s

emancipated from the object (K. Wallis, J. Poulton 2001). With incorporation is

meant the introduction of the external object into the body becoming part of the inner

27

world while introjection is the search for external objects with which the individual

can identify himself. This function serves to protect the ego from anxiety by

introjecting into the self good objects and by enabling the ego to possess and control

introjected bad objects and eventually projecting them outside the self onto other

people (Klein, 1946). This process would unconsciously enabling a person to retain

the good part of the object like in the new born baby the caring mother is perceived

as an object of love thus retained into the child’s unconscious fantasy as a good

object; whereas the uncaring mother as the bad object is projected outside the self

onto other people. This unconscious internalisation process is not dissimilar when

consumers purchase a fashion-luxury brand where the good perceived brand image

serves to the internalisation of a good external object that is introjected into the inner

world of the consumer’s mind eliciting a sense of self-esteem and status. The

consumer falls in love with the brand and if the brand does not support its promise

“to be the object of love or beauty”, then the consumer will perceive the brand as a

bad object and unconsciously projecting the bad object (the brand) outside himself

through a negative word of mouth.

At the same time, the process of projective identification involves a strong state of

empathy with the feelings or experiences of the other as the individual identifies

himself with the other. In the context of luxury-fashion brands the consumer identifies

with the archetypal image of the brand that was initially projected into the consumer’s

mind. In a broader picture identification occurs when an individual extends his or her

identity into someone else, borrows his identity from someone else or focuses and

confuses his identity with someone else. Freud (1900) in his seminal work on the

interpretation of dreams called “hysterical identification” the phenomenon by which

the identification of the individual with persons with whom he has had real or fantasy

sexual relations or with those who have had sexual relations with the same person

as him. For instance individuals have high expectations for their personal

gratification as they feel they are entitled to have all their expectations met. Delayed

gratification is a difficult reality for entitled consumers to accept. Narcissistic

consumers have a grandiose sense of entitlement as they only care about

appearance and they lack empathy. Everything is just an object available for their

immediate gratification. They are convinced about their omnipotence and unlimited

power. They purchase luxury fashion goods to create a personal identity and for

28

instant gratification to avoid their fear of feeling ignored by others. Narcissists have

great expectations of themselves and their lives. They seek fame and status and

their achievement lead to materialism in terms of purchasing life-style brands.

For instance, art collectors desire to possess, control and to dominate the artwork.

Collectors desire to have a unique personality by possessing special pieces of

artwork, this uniqueness is what he or she desires and is internalised in his or her

mindset. The benefit sought by most collectors is the chance to stand out as being

unique by virtue of possessing a rare and valued possession. Collectors desire

uniqueness as an enlargement of the collector’s sense of the self (Belk, 2001).

Collectors have a feeling of strong self-identification, desire and possession. A sense

of identification is a way for an individual to become psychologically connected and

identified with the qualities of an external object; identification is a narcissistic

process as it supports the “self ideal image” and in its fundamental tendency to

maintain oneself. Collectors’ desire for possession is aroused by a projection of the

“me” in the painting. This narcissism psychological process allows collectors to

identify themselves with the painting. The collector sees the painting as part of the

self. You Chen (2008) argued that the painting reflects the collector’s desired life,

thus becoming the ideal self. The painting is not only the physical object but it is also

internalised as a psychological object and a reflection of the ideal self image.

Possession helps the collector to be connected to the painting that confirms that

collecting enlarges the collector sense of the self-worth (Belk 1988). Overall, the

problem is that consumers obey to their unconscious fantasies as servants obey to

their masters and because they cannot control their desires they can never find

contentment.

29

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