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Although the influence of identity on consumer behavior has been documented in many streams of literature, the absence of a consistent definition of identity and of generally accepted principles regarding the drivers of identity-based behavior complicates comparisons across these literatures. To resolve that problem, we propose a simple but inclusive definition of identity. Identity can be defined as any category label with which a consumer self-associates that is amenable to a clear picture of what a person in that category looks like, thinks, feels and does. Building from this definition, we propose the following five basic principles that can help researchers model the process of identity formation and expression: (1) Identity Salience: identity processing increases when the identity is an active component of the self; (2) Identity Association: the non-conscious association of stimuli with a positive and salient identity improves a person's response to the stimuli; (3) Identity Relevance: the deliberative evaluation of identity-linked stimuli depends on how diagnostic the identity is in the relevant domain; (4) Identity Verification: individuals monitor their own behaviors to manage and reinforce their identities; and (5) Identity Conflict: identity-linked behaviors help consumers manage the relative prominence of multiple identities. To illustrate the potential usefulness of these principles for guiding identity research, we discuss new avenues for identity research and explain how these principles could help guide investigations into these areas.

It is a fundamental human drive to understand who one is, what one believes and what one does. Therefore, pointing out that consumers like products, brands and consumption behaviors that are linked to category labels with which they self-associate is rather uncontroversial. For example, if consumers view themselves as “athletes”, they are likely to behave in ways that are consistent with what it means to “be” an athlete. This general drive produces a wide range of “identity driven effects”, including increased attention to identity-related stimuli (these consumers are more likely to notice and evaluate athletic products), a preference for identity-linked brands (a preference for athlete-focused Gatorade over brands like Vitaminwater that have no obvious link to athletes), more positive reactions to advertisements featuring spokespeople who possess the desired identity (pro athletes are preferred to award-winning actors), the selection of media catering to the identity (ESPN over CNN), the adoption of behaviors linked to an identity (wearing equipment such as a distance-running watch to signal their interest in running) and biased attention toward identity-consistent memories (increased ease of recalling past athletic triumphs). These types of identity-driven behaviors have been observed across numerous identities, and an increasing interest in these effects has emerged in the academic marketing literature over the last two decades (see Fig. 1).

Our sense of who we are has a large influence on our thoughts, feelings and behavior. While a variety of labels can be associated with the self, chronically or in specific situations, a self-label becomes an identity as soon as it becomes sufficiently central to a person's self-concept that he or she starts striving to “be” that type of person. This perspective on identity (“what identity is for”) unites the conceptualizations of identity that can be found in many different streams of research. Whatever the source of the adopted label that constitutes one's identity at any moment or in any context, the downstream consequences of identification can be summarized in five principles that characterize identity-related behavior. Once a category label is adopted or endowed by an individual as an identity, factors that increase the salience of this identity will increase the likelihood that identity-based consumer behavior will be observed (the salience principle). The adoption of a self-label allows for the—even nondeliberative—transfer of meaning and affect to objects and concepts that are experienced in association with the self-label (the association principle). Moreover, once an identity is adopted, the surrounding environment and the people and objects in it are evaluated for their relevance with respect to the identity, and a person will think, feel and behave consistently with the identity whenever it is deemed relevant in that situation (the relevance principle). People are motivated to behave consistently with their identities, which become the subject of goal striving and will drive corrective action or thought whenever the identity is at stake (the verification principle). Finally, because people may hold multiple identities, while each of the identities is not always consistent with all the others in its implications, identities may conflict. This in turn will motivate cognitive activity and behavior that aim to resolve such conflict (the conflict principle) either by active attempts to create a harmonized personal identity or by compartmentalizing identities into separable partitions of one's life experience. We proposed that these five principles can serve as useful points of departure for examining identity-related aspects of important open research questions in marketing and consumer research. To illustrate the potential of this approach, we deliberately selected future research opportunities in two domains, namely the implications of technology development and of globalization, that are transforming consumer behavior at the micro (individual) level as well as the macro (societal) level and for which an identity perspective holds much unrealized potential. Thus, we sought to illuminate how thinking along the lines of any of the five identity principles discussed in this article can inspire new and relevant research questions for anyone who tries to understand how consumers and marketers will react to the developments in these areas. Our selection was meant to be illustrative, rather than limiting. We suggest that this parsimonious view of identity, with its focus on trying to understand how people implicate their identities in their responses to their outside worlds, will allow a better understanding of emerging trends in the marketplace, both from a consumer perspective and from a marketing perspective.