EMOTIONAL BRANDING AS TOOL FOR DISSONANCE REDUCTION: A STRATEGY FOR COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

Human beings are innately determined to be very uncomfortable when faced with information that conflicts with what they believe. It's especially dis-comfortable when the beliefs are about themselves and the facts conflict. This discomfort is called cognitive dissonance. The human beings have a general tendency to shift from such psychological state to attain consonance. This consonance can be achieved either by the consumer himself or through other sources. Marketers do portray the shift of such psychological states of customers by using emotional branding as a front line tool and touching the emotional chords of customers which results in establishing a connection between brand and the Purchase decisions by the customers. Present paper is an attempt to study the basis of emotional branding and its concept with the help of a case study which highlights the importance of emotional positioning of brands to reduce dissonance.