1

Ideology and Brand Consumption

Romana Khan, Kanishka Misra, Vishal Singh1

July 13, 2012

Abstract:

Do mundane daily choices, such as what brands to buy in a supermarket, reflect aspects of

our values and ideologies? This article presents a large scale field study to test whether traits

associated with a conservative ideology, as measured by voting behavior and religiosity,

manifest in routine, seemingly inconsequential product choices that consumers make. Across

a variety of frequently purchased products, we show that both measures of conservatism are

associated with a systematic preference for established national brands (as opposed to their

generic substitutes), and a lower propensity to try newly launched products. These findings

correspond with the psychological traits associated with a conservative ideology such as

preference for tradition and status quo, ambiguity/uncertainty avoidance, and skepticism

towards new experiences.

1 Romana Khan is Assistant Professor of Marketing at Ozyegin University, Istanbul, Turkey, Kanishka Misra is

Assistant Professor of Marketing at London Business School, Vishal Singh is Associate Professor of Marketing

at the Stern School of Business, New York University. Correspondence can be sent to: vsingh@stern.nyu.edu

(Singh).

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Ideology and Brand Consumption

Commentary in the popular press as well as opinion polls reveal polarization in the US

population on a range of issues such as the role of government and taxes, affirmative action

and aid to the disadvantaged, gun control, the death penalty, stem cell research, abortion, and

the sanctity of marriage. Across a large set of empirical studies, a self-reported left-right or a

conservative-liberal scale has been found to provide a useful and parsimonious

approximation to opinion on these wide ranging issues [1,2]. Recent research in social and

political psychology provides a theoretical framework for the liberal-conservative divide by

linking ideological proclivities to dispositional (or situational) differences in psychological

needs, cognitive styles, and personality traits [3,4,5,6]. For example, individuals who

gravitate towards conservative ideology are found to score low on integrative complexity,

openness to new experiences, and tolerance for uncertainty/ambiguity; and relatively high on

measures of conscientiousness, dogmatism, and need for order, structure, and closure [5,7,8].

In addition to explaining enduring differences in public opinions and attitudes, the

psychological approach to the study of ideology has provided a rich account for differences in

many theoretical domains such as the basis of moral foundations [9] and system justification

[10].

While the role of ideological differences in the socio-political domain is intuitive, can

psychological traits associated with broad ideologies also get reflected in mundane,

seemingly inconsequential daily choices? Consider religious affiliation for instance.

Religiosity has been shown to influence important life decisions such as marriage, school

attendance, participation in crime, and extra-marital affair [11]. Similarly, traits associated

with religiosity, for example risk aversion, manifest not only in individual attitudes towards

risks such as fastening of seat belt, maintaining a financial cushion, and purchase of medical

and auto insurance, but have also been shown to manifest at an organizational level, whereby

firms located in counties with higher levels of religiosity display lower degrees of financial

risk exposure [12]. Will similar phenomenon also get reflected in trivial choices such as

preference for established national brands as opposed to “riskier” generic alternatives? If

conservative values are associated with a preference for the status quo and skepticism

towards new experiences, will this translate to a lower propensity to try new products and

services? Will these traits manifest in even low involvement decisions such as trying a new

flavor of yogurt on the supermarket shelf? This article uses an extensive field data on product

purchases and measures of conservativeness to investigate these questions.

Products and brands can of course serve as a source of self-expression, and firms devote

substantial advertising resources to develop brand images and elicit specific feelings,

attitudes, and thoughts for their products. Consumers often develop deep rooted associations

with products to the point of associating human characteristics with brands [13], and often

choose products as a means of signaling aspects of their personality. For example, a market

research study on buyers of Toyota Prius shows that the top reason for buying the car was

that it “makes a statement about me” (“fuel efficiency” was ranked fifth most important)

[NY Times, July 4 2007]. Systematic differences in lifestyles and attitudes as often reported

in commercial surveys for say hybrid versus hummer drivers, or Mac versus PC users, is not

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particularly surprising given the well defined positioning of such products. However, the

majority of such image products tend to be socially visible and are often more expensive (e.g.

hi-tech gadgets, fashion, and automobiles), so they can serve as a signal of social status or

make a statement about individual personality. The focus in this article instead is on low

involvement, frequently purchased products sold at supermarkets that are primarily for

private consumption. Extensive evidence exists that our judgments and behaviors are often

guided by implicit cognition that is spontaneous, effortless, and unconscious [14,15],

suggesting that even mundane daily choices such as what brand of detergent to buy or

whether to try a new brand of breakfast cereal, can reflect aspects of our deep-rooted

ideologies, values, and personality traits.

Our empirical strategy relies on a comprehensive scanner data from a variety of frequently

purchased products sold at supermarkets. We use these data to create county level measures

of “brand consumption” and relate those to conservativeness. To operationalise conservatism,

we create measures of political voting and religiosity, both of which have a high degree of

correspondence with conservative values. For example, both political voting and religiosity

associate positively with values that preserve order and tradition, protect against uncertainty

and threat, and negatively with measures of openness to new experiences and change [5, 16].

Research in cognitive neuroscience suggests that both political orientation and religiosity are

marked with similar reduced reactivity in the anterior cingulated cortex (ACC), a cortical

system that is involved in cognition and emotion [17, 18].

Our analysis exploits two aspects of the consumer packaged (CPG) industry to create

measures of brand consumption. First, most CPG categories in the US comprise of several

established national brands as well as generics2. Industry reports and academic research in

marketing suggests that generics are perceived by consumers as riskier and of lower quality

than national brands [19,20]. Since a major function of branding is to lower uncertainty and

simplify decision making [13], we might expect that, controlling for price and other socio-

economic factors, aspects of conservative values such as preference for tradition and

convention, and lower tolerance for ambiguity and complexity may get reflected in higher

reliance on national brands as opposed to generics. A second characteristic of the CPG

industry is frequent introductions of new products. In our data we observe over 4,000 new

products ranging from new brands to minor modifications of existing products (e.g. a new

flavor). Personality traits such as skepticism to new experiences linked with conservative

ideology might get reflected in lower acceptance and penetration of new products. Thus,

unlike previous research that primarily focuses on explicit and consciously accessible self-

reported measures of attitude and opinions [5], we hypothesize that aspects of ideological

differences may exist not just in a reasoned and explicit form [21], but may be reflected in

our routine daily behavior.

METHOD

2 We use the terms generics, store brands, and private label interchangeably in the paper.

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The cornerstone of our empirical strategy is a comprehensive scanner database provided by

IRI [22]. The data provides weekly store sales for thousands of products organized into 26

product categories. These categories include both edible (e.g., frozen pizza, canned soup) and

non-edible (e.g., paper towels, laundry detergent) products. The data are obtained from 1,860

stores belonging to 135 supermarket chains, spanning a period of 6 years from 2001 to 2006.

There are 416 counties represented in the data, which cover 47% of the total US population.

As noted above, each product category includes several national brands and a store brand

(generic) alternative. In addition, we observe 4,151 new product launches across our 26

categories during the course of the data. Using these data, we create two measures of brand

consumption at the county level: (1) market share of generics in each category, and (2)

market share of new product introductions in the year after launch. Summary statistics on

both measures are reported in Table 1. The average market share of generics, across all

stores, categories and years, is 16%. However, there is considerable variation in market

shares across categories; and across markets within a category. The average new product

share is 1.3%; with a large degree of heterogeneity across counties and categories.

Conservative Ideology

Merriam-Webster defines conservatism as "a disposition in politics to preserve what is

established", or "the tendency to prefer an existing or traditional situation to change". We

operationalise conservatism using measures of political voting and religiosity. To provide

empirical support for using these measures, we analyzed the General Social Survey [GSS;

National Opinion Research Center, 2011] from 1972 to 2010, and the American National

Election Studies (ANES) survey data from 1948 to 2008. Both surveys contain self-reported

measures of ideology (1-extremely liberal to 7-extremely conservative) and political party

affiliation (1-strong Democrat to 7-strong Republican). For religiosity, we use the frequency

with which respondents attend religious services in the GSS data (measured on 9 point scale

1-Never to 9-More than once a week), and a binary indicator (Is religion important to the

respondent?) in the ANES survey. Table 2 provides the raw correlations between these

measures from the two surveys. The correlations suggest that both political affiliation and

religiosity capture aspects of conservative values, independent of each other.

County Level Measures of Religiosity & Political Voting

Religiosity is a complex, multi-dimensional construct. It encompasses the various levels at

which religion impacts people, including their cognitive values and beliefs, affective feelings

of spirituality and commitment, and behaviors such are prayer and church attendance. Since

our product purchase data are available at the aggregate county level, we cannot rely on

survey based self-reported measures of religiosity. Instead we use data provided by the

Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA) on religious activity at the county level.

ARDA collects information on membership, adherence, and number of congregations for

major religions, and then provides further detail by breaking it down to the denomination

level. Our measures of religiosity are constructed from data contained in the 2000 report. The

primary measure of religiosity used in the empirical application is Adherence. The definition

of adherents is quite stringent, counting only full members of religious denominations and

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non-members who attend services regularly. As such, it serves as a relatively accurate

measure of the population that is truly engaged in religious activity, rather than including

those who might identify with a particular denomination but not actively practice or engage

through participation.

To assess the political voting, we use county level votes in presidential elections between

1980 and 2008 [http://uselectionatlas.org]. Rather than rely on any particular election cycle,

our main measure of political conservatism uses the average percentage of Republican votes

in all elections between 1980 and 2008 (8 presidential elections). We also incorporate an

extensive set of demographic variables to control for other factors that might impact brand

consumption. These data are obtained from the US Census. The variables included are (a)

Income - median income, (b) Elderly - percent of the population over 65, (c) Unemployed -

percent unemployed, (d) Education - average number of years of education, (e) HHsize -

average household size, (f) Black - % African American population. Finally, we control for

store size using All Commodity Volume (ACV), which is a standard measure used in the retail

industry. Descriptive statistics for these measures are shown in Table 3.

RESULTS

Given the data above, our empirical approach involves conducting a series of regressions of

brand consumption on measures of conservatism. Results from the regression model are

presented in Table 4. The dependent variables in these regressions are the market shares of

the generics (left panel) and the market share of the new products in the year after launch

(right panel) 3

. The regressions control for the marketing mix variables (price, promotion) and

other socio-economic characteristics. Furthermore, while the quality of national brand (e.g.

Tide or Coca Cola) is constant across markets, the quality of non-branded generics may vary

across product types and retail chains. Hence, all regressions include a set of category and

chain fixed effects that control for any quality differences4.

The first row in Table 4 shows the results estimated by pooling our data from all categories,

and the subsequent rows show the regression estimates for each product category separately.

Looking first at the pooled estimates for the generics (left panel, top row), we find that the

coefficients associated with both religiosity and Republican are negative and statistically

significant, indicating that market shares for generics are significantly lower in conservative

counties. It is important to note that these estimates are identified based on the variation in

market shares between stores that belong to the same retail chain serving different counties.

Thus, they capture the net impact of conservativeness after controlling for a variety of socio-

economic characteristics, marketing mix variables, and a set of fixed effects that absorb any

differences in product quality across retail chains. The subsequent rows in the left panel show

the results from the category level analysis, where the dependent variable is the generic brand

3 We transform the share to log(share/1-share). This is a monotonic transformation that ensures full support on

the real line. 4 We do not report estimates for the control variables to conserve space. Full regression results are reported in an

online appendix available from the authors.

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share in each category. The category level results are quite telling. In 19 out of the 26

categories, the effect of religiosity on generic brand penetration is negative and statistically

significant. For five categories the effect is insignificant, and there is just a single category

where religious counties are associated with higher market shares for generics. With minor

exceptions, the pattern repeats for the republican voting estimates as well5. Overall, 38 of the

52 (73%) of the coefficients are negative and statistically significant; 11 coefficients are

insignificant, and only 3 of the 52 coefficients are positive and significant. These results

provide strong evidence that conservative markets are associated with lower market shares

for generics and a higher reliance on established national brands.

The right panel in Table 4 provides estimates for the new product penetration. Recall that we

observe over 4,000 new products in our data across the 26 product categories. The first row

shows the pooled (across all categories) estimates, where we find that the market share of

new products is significantly lower in counties with higher levels of religiosity and

Republican vote. Looking at the category level estimates, we again find either negative (63%

of the estimates) or insignificant (37% of the estimates) coefficients for both religiosity and

voting. In none of the categories do we find higher penetration of new products in

conservative counties. In figure 1, we plot the marginal impact of one standard deviation

increase in conservativeness (religiosity and Republican party vote) on market shares of

generics and new products. The vertical line shows the overall impact pooled across all

products, while the bars show the marginal impact on individual product categories. With

minor exceptions, all estimates are negative and reasonably large. Taken together, these

results provide strong evidence that more conservative markets are associated with a higher

reliance on established national brands, and a lower penetration of new products.

Robustness Checks

Although not displayed to conserve space, we conducted a variety of robustness checks using

alternate measures of religiosity and political voting. First, the ARDA data provides measures

of Adherence at the denomination level. We repeated the entire analysis using the number of

adherents in each county who identify as Evangelical Protestant, Mainline Protestant,

Catholic, Jewish and Islamic. Second, we repeat the entire analysis using the 2000 County

Business Patterns published by the U.S. Census Bureau. The Census Bureau collects

information on the number of religious establishments defined as "those establishments

primarily engaged in operating religious organizations, such as churches, religious temples,

and monasteries and/or establishments primarily engaged in administering an organized

religion or promoting religious activities." Finally, for political voting, we also consider just

2004 presidential election as this coincides most closely with our sales data.

In addition to alternative measures of conservativeness, we also tested for differences in store

size, product availability, and breadth of generic brand offerings (# of UPC’s available) and

found no systematic differences based on conservative measures. Finally, we replicated our

5 Estimates for two categories (Toothpaste and Milk) are positive. Note that these are somewhat unusual

categories. Toothpaste has extremely low market share for generics (0.5%) and Milk has very large market share

(over 75%). See Table 1.

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results for both generic brand share and new products using flexible Quantile regressions as

opposed to OLS6.

DISCUSSION

A large body of recent research has examined the social, cognitive, and motivational

underpinnings of political orientation [10], and the consequences of ideological differences

on attitudes and evaluations of socio-political issues, preference for political parties and

candidates, and voting behavior [23]. A relatively smaller literature has linked ideological

differences beyond the realm of politics, such as attitudes and preferences for various

institutions, and activities such as travel, films, and television [24, 25]. We add to this line of

research by examining whether values and tendencies underlying conservative ideology get

manifested in routine purchase decisions. Our empirical results, based on an extensive field

data, provide strong evidence that conservative ideology is associated with higher reliance on

established national brands (as opposed to generics) and a slower uptake of new products.

These results are consistent with traits typically associated with conservatism such as higher

risk aversion, skepticism towards new experiences, and a general preference for tradition,

convention, and status quo.

It is noteworthy that the results reported in the paper manifest in routine, low-involvement

product purchases that rarely exceed a few dollars. The inherent risks of product trial or post-

purchase dissonance are likely to be minimal for these products. Research in other domains

may reveal similar manifestation of psychological differences on purchase or consumption

behavior. For example, a large literature in psychology reports systematic differences in

cognitive processes between subjects from individualistic (Western) and collectivist (Eastern)

cultures [e.g., 26, 27, 28], which translates into differences in choice and decision making

[29, 30]. It would be interesting to examine whether these cultural differences permeate

aspects of daily activities and purchase behaviors. Our work is also related to the growing

body of research examining the impact of transmitted norms, beliefs, and behavior based on

ethnic, social class, or regional differences that may translate into differences in preferences

for products and practices [31,32,33,34].

There are of course several caveats to our analysis that merit caution. First, our analysis is

restricted to a specific set of frequently purchased functional product categories. Consumer

behavior for ostentatious or conspicuous products may be quite different [31]. Second, our

analysis is conducted at an aggregate county rather than individual level. An ideal data to

examine the relationship between ideology and brand consumption would be a consumer

panel with accurate measures of political and religious attitudes and purchase behavior over a

variety of products (including durables and fashion). However, such field data are rarely

available. Notwithstanding these limitations, this paper provides, to our best knowledge, the

first evidence of a relationship between ideology and brand consumption using an extensive

field data. The consistency of our results across a large set of product categories suggests that

aspects of ideological differences may indeed be reflected in our daily behavior at an

unconscious level or implicit manner. 6 Results of all robustness checks are reported in an online appendix available from authors.

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Table 1: Summary statistics for generic and new brand shares

Generic Brands Share New Products Share

Category Mean Std Dev # Products Mean Std Dev

Blades 14.72 7.91 83 1.94 7.91

Coffee 12.57 9.31 254 1.02 9.31

Deodorant 0.83 1.12 148 0.94 1.12

Diapers 21.33 11.35 22 4.41 11.35

Frozen Pizza 12.09 8.85 39 3.35 8.85

Frozen Dinner 1.39 1.86 183 1.20 1.86

Household Cleaner 6.79 5.45 117 1.05 5.45

Hot Dog 9.85 8.00 133 1.73 8.00

Laundry Detergent 6.49 5.83 180 2.16 5.83

Margarine/Butter 13.17 8.34 61 2.29 8.34

Mayonnaise 12.95 8.39 56 2.07 8.39

Milk 75.72 19.82 78 1.86 19.82

Mustard/Ketchup 23.29 8.78 192 1.31 8.78

Toothpaste 0.55 1.02 209 0.82 1.02

Peanut Butter 24.95 10.59 29 6.18 10.59

Photographs 20.12 15.79 45 2.08 15.79

Razors 6.00 6.91 30 7.96 6.91

Salty Snacks 9.73 6.89 708 0.28 6.89

Sauces 7.75 5.45 504 0.55 5.45

Soda 11.21 9.57 301 0.53 9.57

Soup 11.46 6.38 244 0.84 6.38

Sugar Substitute 10.96 9.73 45 4.20 9.73

Tissue Paper 24.88 11.91 38 3.14 11.91

Toilet Paper 18.39 11.19 162 1.30 11.19

Toothpaste 17.81 8.54 150 1.01 8.54

Yogurt 22.13 12.50 140 1.31 12.50

All categories 16.48 17.18 4,151 1.29 17.18

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Table 2: Correlation between Ideology, Political Affiliation, and Religiosity. *

represents significant at a 95% confidence level.

Table 3: County level summary statistics

Correlation Liberal-Conservative Political Party

Source: General Social Survey

Political Party Affiliation 0.32*

Religiosity 0.18* 0.03*

Political Party Affiliation 0.39*

Religiosity 0.17* 0.000

Source: American National Election Survey

Variable Mean St. Dev

Religiosity (Adherence) 50% 11%

% Republican Votes 52% 12%

Demographics

Income 55,318 11,452

Elderly 11.63 2.60

% Unemployed 5.30 1.67

Education 13.52 0.86

HH Size 2.66 0.18

African American 12.89 13.04

ACV ($MM) 23.48 13.39

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Table 4: Parameter estimates from the regression of conservative and controls on generics

share and new product share by category. Number in brackets represents the standard error

and the * represents significant at a 95% confidence level.

Generic Brand Share New Product Share

Religion Republican Religion Republican

All categories -0.26 (0.02) * -0.34 (0.02) * -0.43 (0.03) * -0.49 (0.04) *

By category

Blades -0.21 (0.07) * -0.61 (0.07) * -0.36 (0.11) * -0.47 (0.12) *

Coffee 0.00 (0.07) -0.34 (0.07) * -1.04 (0.16) * -0.59 (0.17) *

Deodorant 0.18 (0.11) -0.04 (0.11) -0.40 (0.09) * -0.54 (0.09) *

Diapers -0.65 (0.07) * -0.35 (0.07) * -0.41 (0.20) * -0.71 (0.21) *

Frozen Pizza -0.07 (0.07) -0.15 (0.07) * -0.77 (0.30) * 0.01 (0.31)

Frozen Dinner 0.14 (0.08) 0.15 (0.08) -0.50 (0.09) * -0.53 (0.10) *

Household Cleaner -0.15 (0.07) * -0.48 (0.07) * -0.52 (0.14) * -0.88 (0.14) *

Hot Dog -0.62 (0.07) * -0.49 (0.07) * -0.46 (0.18) * -0.18 (0.18)

Laundry Detergent -0.23 (0.07) * -0.46 (0.07) * -1.25 (0.26) * -0.45 (0.27)

Margarine/Butter -0.45 (0.07) * -0.29 (0.07) * -0.31 (0.24) -0.66 (0.24) *

Mayonnaise -0.59 (0.07) * -0.71 (0.07) * 0.10 (0.24) -0.17 (0.24)

Milk -0.26 (0.07) * 0.35 (0.07) * -0.56 (0.25) * -0.38 (0.25)

Mustard/Ketchup -0.56 (0.07) * -0.35 (0.07) * -0.02 (0.19) -0.86 (0.20) *

Toothpaste -0.25 (0.11) * 0.47 (0.10) * -0.54 (0.15) * -0.40 (0.15) *

Peanut Butter -0.25 (0.07) * -0.31 (0.07) * -0.21 (0.48) -0.06 (0.46)

Photographs -0.53 (0.07) * -0.27 (0.08) * -0.11 (0.22) -0.61 (0.23) *

Razors -0.49 (0.10) * -0.17 (0.10) -0.15 (0.13) -0.62 (0.14) *

Salty Snacks 0.08 (0.07) 0.00 (0.07) -0.06 (0.07) -0.64 (0.08) *

Sauces 0.14 (0.07) * -0.39 (0.07) * -0.78 (0.08) * -0.59 (0.08) *

Soda -0.37 (0.07) * -1.03 (0.07) * -0.31 (0.09) * -0.52 (0.10) *

Soup -0.30 (0.07) * -0.15 (0.07) * 0.02 (0.13) -0.12 (0.13)

Sugar Substitute -0.23 (0.07) * -0.43 (0.07) * -0.54 (0.32) -0.03 (0.32)

Tissue Paper -0.21 (0.07) * -0.66 (0.07) * -0.31 (0.29) -0.19 (0.28)

Toilet Paper -0.16 (0.07) * -0.59 (0.07) * -0.57 (0.09) * -0.33 (0.10) *

Toothbrush -0.33 (0.07) * -0.50 (0.07) * -0.73 (0.08) * -0.23 (0.09) *

Yogurt -0.12 (0.07) -0.11 (0.07) -0.24 (0.11) * -0.53 (0.12) *

Control variables

Fixed effectsCategory * Chain * State * Year Brand * State * Year

Demographics and

marketing mix

Promotion, Feature, Display, Income, Elderly, Unemployment, Education, HH

Size, African American, Metro, ACV (Store size)

Total observations 176,357 150,068

13

Figure 1: Marginal impact is the percentage change in market share with one standard

deviation increase in Conservativeness (Religiosity and Republican Party vote).

-10% -5% 0% 5%

Blades

Coffee

Deodorant

Diapers

Frozen Pizza

Frozen Dinner

Household Cleaner

Hot Dog

Laundry Detergent

Margarine/Butter

Mayonnaise

Milk

Mustard/Ketchup

Toothpaste

Peanut Butter

Photographs

Razors

Salty Snacks

Sauces

Soda

Soup

Sugar Substitute

Tissue Paper

Toilet Paper

Toothbrush

Yogurt

Marginal impact on Generic Brand Share

-12% -7% -2% 3%

Blades

Coffee

Deodorant

Diapers

Frozen Pizza

Frozen Dinner

Household Cleaner

Hot Dog

Laundry Detergent

Margarine/Butter

Mayonnaise

Milk

Mustard/Ketchup

Toothpaste

Peanut Butter

Photographs

Razors

Salty Snacks

Sauces

Soda

Soup

Sugar Substitute

Tissue Paper

Toilet Paper

Toothbrush

Yogurt

Marginal impact on New Product Share