How can an individual's self-concept affect a marketing strategy? Provide an example of a product that requires marketers to consider self-concept.

Answers will vary for the example. People's self-image, or self-concept, is the image people ideally have of themselves. A person who has a goal to belong may see, or want to see, himself as a fun-loving, gregarious type whom people wish to be around. Marketers often make use of this particular self-concept through communications that show their products being used by groups of laughing people who are having a good time. The connection emerges between the group fun and the product being shown and connotes a lifestyle that many consumers seek. Such tactics need to balance the ideal with the realistic. Advertisements for women's skin care products tend to feature salacious shots of extraordinarily beautiful women. As we know, however, few women reach this ideal, and many of those who do actually think they don't.