This study presents contribution to marketing literature when trying to understand if people who develop higher levels of self-brand connection has goal's structures differentiated those who have lower levels, thus combining two important theories in the area of consumer behavior: consumer goals and self-brand connection. Consumers have different hierarchies of consumption goals and this can result in different levels of involvement with products and brands, and some use brands as a means of assisting in the construction and/or representation of their self-concept, thus forming self-brand connection. In order to meet the proposed objective, this research was conducted in two steps: first, in-depth interviews were conducted through the laddering technique to raise the main goals considered by practitioners of street racing in the process of choosing a running shoes. Based on information gathered in the first stage, the second part of the study was conducted a quantitative study via the Internet with 352 street racers, using the Association Pattern Technique (APT) to identify the relationships between levels of the hierarchy of goals. To prepare the hierarchical value maps for each group (high and low self-brand connection), the sample was divided into three groups based on overall average of self-brand connection, by using the group with the highest average and the group with the lowest averages. Over all, the sample studied showed a structure characterized by a strong presence of functional aspects of the product for consumption, but significant differences were found in the hierarchies of goals between the groups with high and low self-brand connection, and the group with high marks of self-brand connection demonstrated social and symbolic aspects, as the need for group membership, to be perceived as a runner and the importance given to beauty products as a means of social recognition, while the group with low self-brand connection didn't show these connections, with only more functional connections.
Self-brand connection; Consumer goals; Means-end chain; Association Pattern Technique; Hierarchy of goals
