Building nightclub brand personality via guest selection

International Journal of Hospitality Management xxx (xxxx) xxxx

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

International Journal of Hospitality Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhm

Building nightclub brand personality via guest selection Ulf Aagerup Halmstad University, Box 823, 30118 Halmstad, Sweden

A R T I C LE I N FO

A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Nightclubs Brand personality User imagery Symbolic consumption Self-expressive consumption

This paper identifies that guest selection at exclusive nightclubs is a brand building process, and that the guests’ primary value to the clubs therefore is the image they bestow on the brand. The paper contributes to theory by providing empirical support for several mechanisms that have previously been stipulated in literature. It validates that companies build brand personality by controlling typical user imagery, and that for self-expressive product categories, negative user stereotypes are particularly powerful. It supports the theory of symbolic brand avoidance, as well as the notion that social rejection encourages people to elevate their perceptions of their rejecters and strengthens their predilection to affiliate with them. For practitioners, the paper shows managers in the hospitality industry that it is possible to build brands by controlling who is allowed to become a brand-user, and under which conditions this applies.

1. Introduction Exclusive nightclubs operate differently than most other businesses in that they routinely turn away prospective customers with money to spend. Companies generally try to attract as many customers as possible. There are however cases when companies reject customers, most often because they are unprofitable (Mittal et al., 2008), because they represent a financial risk (Achman and Chollet, 2001) or because the company faces temporary shortages, because the company wants to phase out a product, or because the product is chronically overpopular (Kotler and Levy, 1971). The latter reason is valid for exclusive nightclubs; one reason they reject prospective guests is overpopularity; there is not unlimited space in a club, so if it is filled to capacity, not everyone can get in. However, nightclubs also turn away customers when there is room to accommodate them, thus sacrificing income. Controlling which guests are admitted into a nightclub is obviously a concern, and for many different reasons. In the study of Skinner et al. (2005) the composition of male and female guests is one concern for why consumers choose a nightclub over another, but it is just one among many. Other considerations are type of venue, spatial and functional layout, and service offering. Kubacki et al. (2007) do a similar analysis but add a comparison of Poland and the UK. These studies focus on mainstream nightclubs that cater to the general public, which consequently mean that the studied clubs cannot be as selective as more exclusive and/or niche clubs can and must be. Most studies on such exclusive nightclubs (e.g. Rivera, 2010; Östberg, 2007; Grazian, 2008) focus to a greater degree on guest selection as an important way to success. However, they explain the practice mainly as a way to

maximize turnover. Existing studies have however not considered guest selection as a brand-building tool. This constitutes a gap in the research on nightclubs. This omission is surprising, because an important criterion for classifying and selecting guests at exclusive clubs is the reflection that the guests as individuals cast on the club. This goes back to the original definition of a club; a society of persons who subscribe money to provide themselves with a shared activity (Hornby et al., 2010). In traditional clubs, it is a person’s social, political, and professional identity that dictates which one to join. It is then up to the club to decide whether the prospective member makes the grade or not. There is a club for each type of person, unless that person is considered “unclubbable” due to an objectionable character (Collins Dictionary, 2015). Although exclusive nightclubs do not have a formal membership structure, but rather admit guests on a nightly basis, the principle for selecting those guests resembles that of the original social club. The club admits individuals that fit in with the existing guests, and therefore make the club a more attractive place to visit for other people of the same type. The club’s reputation is thus shaped by the character of its guests. The study of nightclub branding has enjoyed limited academic study, perhaps because nightclubs constitute a small and frivolous industry of non-essential luxury. Nevertheless, for companies in this industry increased knowledge of how brands are built is crucial. More importantly, if we relate the nightclub guest selection process to branding theory, we see that exclusive nightclubs constitute an example of how companies actively try to control typical user imagery in order to build brands. Because a recognizable and well-defined brand

E-mail address: [email protected]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2019.102336 Received 14 March 2019; Received in revised form 2 July 2019; Accepted 6 July 2019 0278-4319/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article as: Ulf Aagerup, International Journal of Hospitality Management, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2019.102336

International Journal of Hospitality Management xxx (xxxx) xxxx

U. Aagerup

them (Fournier and Avarez, 2012), and human relations are central to the hospitality industry (Leung and Law, 2010). Brand personality therefore seems to be a suitable lens through which to view a business that builds brands via the personalities it selects as guests. Aaker (1997) presented a trait-based brand personality construct that echoed the existing Big Five personality scale that psychologists (McCrae and Costa, 1989) had previously developed to measure human personality. Other multi-dimensional brand personality measures of this kind (e.g. Geuens et al., 2009) have since been presented, although none has rivaled Aaker’s impact on brand literature. Scholars (e.g. Azoulay and Kapferer, 2003) have leveraged criticism against the brand personality construct because brands are not correctly described by the same dimensions as humans, and because brand personality fails to strictly adhere to the trait based structure established in psychology. Nevertheless, the construct has been widely adopted, and it keeps evolving. The next major development within brand personality literature was a shift from multi-dimensional brand personality conceptualizations towards more a more parsimonious approach, encompassing fewer dimensions (Bosnjak et al., 2007; Okazaki, 2006; Aaker et al., 2004). In recent brand personality literature (e.g. Aaker et al., 2010; Fournier and Avarez, 2012), the most prevalent two-dimensional brand personality conceptualization is that of warm vs. competent brands. Like others before them (e.g. Aaker, 1997; Geuens et al., 2009; Okazaki, 2006) Kervyn et al. (2012) use a tool developed to describe human personality, and apply it to brand personality. The framework for brand perception is called the Brand as Intentional Agents Framework (BIAF), and it explains factors that determine how people perceive brands. The BIAF posits that consumers perceive brands on two dimensions; their warmth, and their competence. Warmth relates to the brand’s intentions towards the customer. According to Kervyn et al. (2012) as well as Bratanova et al. (2015) warm brands have the consumers’ interest at heart, they care about the quality of their offering, and they have the intention to provide their customers with good products. Cooperation is related to warmth (Russell and Fiske, 2008; Fiske et al., 2012). When companies involve their customers, the brand will therefore be perceived as warmer. Warmth is typically characterized as an affective dimension (Bennett and Hill, 2012), which means the customer perceives it emotionally. Competence on the other hand refers to the brand’s ability to carry out its intentions. Competent brands have good product knowledge and expertise in relevant areas (Kervyn et al., 2012; Bratanova et al., 2015). In contrast to the aforementioned link between cooperation and warmth, competence is related to status (Russell and Fiske, 2008; Fiske et al., 2012). Status refers to relative social or professional position; standing (Oxford Dictionaries, 2017), so brands that stand out among their peers as better or more important in some way will therefore be perceived as more competent. Competence is typically characterized as a cognitive dimension (Bennett and Hill, 2012), which means the customer perceives it rationally. Warmth and competence are both positive traits. Consequently, the aim of every brand builder should be to create brands that encompass both warmth and competence, and one way of achieving this is by controlling who is allowed to become a brand-user. User imagery is a stereotyped perception of the generalized user of a particular brand (Parker, 2005, p. 19). Sirgy (1982) formally defines the construct as the set of human characteristics associated with the brand-user. It comes about when personality traits are directly transferred to a brand through the people that are associated with it (McCracken, 1989). This psychological shortcut facilitates the establishment of a brand personality (Aaker, 1996, p. 147). User imagery attributes can be formed directly from a consumer’s own experiences and contact with brand-users or indirectly through the depiction of the target market as communicated in brand advertising or by some other source of information (e.g. word of mouth) (Keller, 1993). The typical user is a person that uses a brand out of choice, for example colleagues, friends, people in the street, real people in media, etc. According to

personality is the key to a successful brand’s appeal (Brakus et al., 2009) it is worthwhile to study any factor that affects brand personality. Many branding scholars (e.g. Keller, 1993; Aaker, 1996) agree that people’s idea of what the typical user is like shapes brand personality. What is more, there is anecdotal evidence that companies are aware of the issue (Pountain and Robins, 2000, p. 19) and that they try to manage the effect typical user imagery has on their brands (Neate, 2013). However, systematic research on this phenomenon is scarce. This is regrettable, given the increasing prevalence of typical user imagery. In a world where consumers are increasingly connected via social media, they are exposed to images of typical brand-users to a previously unimaginable extent. Research on typical user imagery’s role in brand building is therefore sorely needed. On a practitioner level, the selection and rejection of customers for brand building purposes is a phenomenon that may be relevant to many hospitality endeavors. In addition to actual clubs (e.g. country clubs, social clubs, etc), hotels, restaurants, and events are such endeavors. If people want to go to a venue or an event because they believe that a particular type of person would go there, the allure of its brand will depend on the hospitality manager’s ability to attract desirable individuals, and keep undesirable individuals out. In this paper, using a multi-case study approach, we investigate how three exclusive nightclubs classify, select, and reject customers, thus controlling typical user imagery in order to build nightclub brand personality. 2. Theory 2.1. Exclusive nightclubs Exclusivity refers to the degree to which an offer is available only to the targeted customers, or to other consumers as well (Barone and Roy, 2010). The exclusivity of an offering can be the result of a natural rarity, which means that there simply are not enough products to meet demand. It can also be created via artificial limitations such as limited editions and limitations on distribution and information (Catry, 2003). The category of nightclubs that is studied here meets all of these criteria for exclusivity. Their overpopularity (see Kotler and Levy, 1971) means that they cannot admit everyone who wants to visit the club. This constitutes natural rarity. The nightclubs also create artificial limitations by keeping people out even though there is room inside, by concentrating their locations to certain neighborhoods, and by limiting the information about the clubs and their events to a select group of people. This makes exclusive nightclubs as defined here different from the mainstream clubs studied by e.g. Skinner et al. (2005) that select and reject guests mainly to create a good mix of men and women, and to guarantee a safe environment. 2.2. Brand benefits related to good guests During the last two decades, a consensus has emerged among scholars that consumers choose which brands to engage with based on their perception of the brands’ character. This character can be conceptualized as brand personality (Plummer, 1984). Brand personality is normally defined as the human characteristics associated with a brand (Keller, 2003), and individuals infer a brand’s personality based on all the information that they take in from their direct and indirect contacts with the brand (Johar et al., 2005). Although brand personality originated in product branding it has also been used for services in the hospitality industry. Studies (Boo et al., 2009) show that hotel brand personality interacts with brand quality to create brand value and loyalty, and that hotel brand personality and brand quality are related (Tran et al., 2013). Brand personality can also be used to build destination brands (Pathak and Zhi Jun, 2016; Hosany et al., 2007). However, the use of brand personality in nightclub studies is scarce. This is surprising, because brand personality is commonly used to describe how consumers form relationships to brands by anthropomorphizing 2

International Journal of Hospitality Management xxx (xxxx) xxxx

U. Aagerup

be prescribed when the research problem requires rich, deep information; yet doing so can still produce significant findings (Coviello and Jones, 2004). Because case oriented analysis is good at finding specific and concrete patterns, as well as underlying similarities and systematic associations, it offers explanatory power, at least for the cases covered (Huberman and Miles, 1998). A small number of cases is obviously a limitation; more cases would provide a richer data set. However, if, as the data collection progresses, new data starts to repeat what has already been expressed in previous data, it can be assumed that data saturation has been achieved (Saunders et al., 2018). If this occurs, further data collection is not deemed crucial. We experienced data saturation after investigating the three cases presented below.

Keller (1993) associations of a typical brand-user may be based on demographic factors (e.g., sex, age, race, and income), or psychographic factors (e.g., according to attitudes toward career, possessions, the environment, or political institutions) and other factors. Typical users reflect on the brand, and sometimes their influence is positive. Typical brand-users that match the intended nightclub brand personality exert a positive influence, because their image will help other potential customers to understand whether the nightclub is appropriate for them. This leads to the first proposition. Proposition 1. Nightclubs select guests whose image reflect positively on their brands 2.3. Why nightclubs reject guests

3.1. Case selection

When consumers find a brand that matches their self-image, they experience self-image congruity (e.g. Sirgy et al., 1997) or self-brand congruity (Parker, 2009), which leads to different forms of satisfaction and prevents different kinds of dissatisfaction. This in turn results in positive attitudes or persuasion to buy a brand (Sirgy, 1982; Johar and Sirgy, 1991). This is particularly persuasive for offerings that are valueexpressive (Johar and Sirgy, 1991), and high involvement in nature (Malär et al., 2011), like nightclubs. However, the wrong type of typical users can reflect negatively on the brand. Sometimes brands become popular with people whose image clash with the intended brand image, and they suffer as a consequence (Brooke, 2005; Neate, 2013; Pountain and Robins, 2000, p. 19). Interestingly, for self-expressive product categories (like nightclubs), negative user stereotypes are considered particularly powerful (Banister and Hogg, 2004), which means that when such brands become closely associated to specific groups of people of the wrong kind, and the intended customers do not wish to be mistaken for members of those groups, they distance themselves from the brands in question. This type of reaction is called symbolic brand avoidance (Ward and Dahl, 2014). It is reasonable to assume that the risk of symbolic brand avoidance would affect nightclubs’ door policies.

The key factor underpinning the selection of the cases was conceptual relevance rather than representative grounds, so we used purposeful sampling as suggested by Miles and Huberman (1994). Purposeful sampling is widely used to identify and select information-rich cases related to the phenomenon of interest (Palinkas et al., 2015), and the approach has previously been used for studies of nightclubs (Skinner et al., 2005; Kubacki et al., 2007). We selected the cases in line with the following definition of exclusive nightclubs: “nightclubs that have a leading position in their markets, and that enforce a strict door policy.” All three clubs are exclusive in the sense that they very carefully classify and select the guests they admit. They are thus in a position to control who is allowed to become a typical user. 3.2. Data collection and analysis The choice of method reveals our critical realist slant. We believe there is a phenomenon to describe 'out there' but as human beings our own presence as researchers may influence what we are trying to measure. To mitigate this risk the data was collected by a team consisting of the author (male, forties) and three graduate students (one female and two males, early twenties). The use of three cases from two continents constitutes a form of triangulation which according to Creswell and Miller (2000) can help achieve validity. Although Silverman (2005, p. 4) claims that triangulation is not a substitute for validation, he does agree with Flick (1992) that it can add rigor, breadth, and depth to an investigation. Thus, even if it does not prove that data is significant, triangulation can make a case stronger. The scope of each form of data collection was determined by the nature of the data. When the features of new findings from one particular source consistently replicated earlier ones it was assumed that theoretical saturation as prescribed by Denzin and Lincoln (1998, p. 87) had been achieved, and that we could therefore terminate that particular line of inquiry. Following the principles of data collection that Eisenhardt (1989) and Yin (2003) established, more than one source of evidence was used to gather data. The data was collected over a period of three months using interviews that were conducted with key staff in the clubs (two managers and one bartender). These people were chosen because they decide how guests are classified and selected, and what constitutes a good guest in their nightclubs. The informants were interviewed separately. The duration of these interviews were approx. two to four hours each. The interviews were semi-structured and open-ended as recommended by Eriksson and Kovalainen (2008). Although Silverman (2010) points out that interviews are susceptible to self-reporting errors, they offer a possibility for explanation that other forms of inquiry do not. Because this study is mainly focused not just on how decision makers in the nightclub industry behave, but also the reasoning behind the behavior, interviews are appropriate. One of the decision makers decided to remain anonymous. Because the nightclub industry is small, it would be impossible to mention the names of other clubs or key profiles without indirectly revealing their

Proposition 2. Nightclubs reject guests whose image reflect poorly on their brands Apart from optimizing the caliber of guests in the club, and thus building brand personality via typical user imagery, it is also possible that turning people away at the door actually makes them like the brand better. According to Ward and Dahl (2014) social rejection encourages people to elevate their perceptions of their rejecters and strengthens their predilection to affiliate with them. Consumers have more positive attitudes and higher willingness to pay when the rejection comes from an aspirational (vs. non-aspirational) brand, the consumer relates the brand to his/her ideal self-concept, the representative delivering the threat reflects the brand, and the threat occurred recently. These conditions are all met within the context of nightclub guest selection, and previous research (Zandén and Ågerup, 2009) indeed describes how exclusive nightclubs create ‘misery’ for the vast majority of individuals in order to create ‘enjoyment’ for a selected few. This leads to the following proposition. Proposition 3. Nightclubs reject guests conspicuously in order to elevate customers’ perception of their brands Given the potential positive or negative impact typical user imagery can have on a self-expressive brand, it is crucial for exclusive nightclubs to control who is allowed to get in, and who must be turned away. 3. Method In order to gain a deep understanding of how exclusive nightclubs employ typical user imagery to build brands, a multiple case study approach is utilized to investigate how companies choose guests and what they look for when doing so. A small number of case studies can 3

International Journal of Hospitality Management xxx (xxxx) xxxx

U. Aagerup

identities. Therefore, all distinguishing names and locations are fictional. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and for each source of data we analyzed the responses according to the research questions. For the subsequent cross-case analysis we employed a replication strategy as described by Yin (2003) which means the conceptual framework was utilized to oversee the first case study, and that the data from the two other nightclubs were then examined to see how the new findings related to those found earlier. The data analysis process followed the recommendations of Gioia et al. (2012) by which the data undergoes a “stepping-up’’ in abstractness from raw data via 1 st order concepts, 2nd order concepts, to aggregate dimensions. This lays the foundation for balancing the deep embeddedness of the informant’s view in living the phenomenon with the necessary helicopter view that is required to draw forth theoretical insights. Figure 1 (in the appendix) shows some of the coding pulled out of the interviews.

because other people notice that they choose Trinity when they go out. It is their professional identity that helps the brand’s credibility. Saul at Nova does not place a lot of emphasis on demographic factors when evaluating guests. He describes that typical guests are between twenty-five and thirty-five years old, and that they have money, but these things seem incidental to him. Like at Trinity, the profile of the guests is most easily described by their professional credentials. Saul describes the typical guest at Nova like this: I’d say the average guest works with something creative, like… many film makers hang out here, a lot of actors hang out here, a lot of musicians come here. Yes, there are a lot of fashion people her, both from in front and from behind the camera At the more mainstream Club Galaxy, it is more important that the guests are successful than that they work in a particular industry. In addition to their profession, the quality of guests is determined by their knowledge and preferences of how to dress appropriately. A lack of know-how is the most common reason guests are rejected. The manager of Trinity explains:

4. Results

There are still lots of people who come to Trinity, especially tourists, from abroad and from the countryside who still have no clue what Trinity is… the problem is that if you are clueless, you can’t tell the difference between people. If you were to get into Trinity and then go on to [a famous posh club] you wouldn’t be able to see the difference…

4.1. The clubs The study comprises data from three nightclubs, two in a European city, Trinity and Nova, and one in an American city, Club Galaxy. The clubs are located in city centers and are, according to employees, among the hottest clubs in their respective markets. Trinity is a wellknown establishment and a household name. It has been in operation since the mid-nineties and is managed by Eric, a man in his early thirties. He has a professional background as a journalist. Nova on the other hand is newer, and more underground. It is well known by people in the city that have an interest for clubbing, but it is more of an inside secret. Saul runs the club. Before he took on the position as club manager he was a filmmaker and event planner. Club Galaxy is somewhat different. It is bigger than the other clubs; its capacity is approx. three times that of Trinity and Nova. It is located in a large sports arena. It was thus created to provide sports fans with a venue to drink and socialize before and after games. It has however developed into the city’s premier nightspot, and it is now so much in vogue that many of its guests come just for the club, not for the games. The informant, Steve, is a bartender. The informants are similar demographically; they are all in their early thirties, single, and live in the central parts of the cities where they work. The three clubs use similar methods to classify guests and select which ones to admit. They keep prospective guests waiting behind a rope in a so-called ‘rainbow’ or ‘bull-pen’ queue. The doormen pick the best guests from the throng of people, and allow them to come in. Because good guests build good clubs, recognizing a good guest is the most important skill for the nightclub staff. This is the reason nightclub owners hire members of the target audience to run their clubs; they know who is who, and they are able to distinguish a good guest from a bad one at a glance. However, a good guest in one club is not necessarily a good guest in another. In the next section, the criteria for selecting guests at the clubs are presented.

He employs a music analogy to clarify: Take me; I think all heavy metal sounds the same, because I don’t know the genre. So I can’t hear the nuances you know According to Saul it is important to know how to look and behave. I guess it’s a pretty in-the-know person…who has traveled the world and who knows what’s what, who has good taste Most of the time, looking good is a function of knowledge. Knowing how to dress and comport yourself is a skill, and it is taken for granted that guests have it. It is only when guests send out the wrong signals via their dress that looks become an issue. For instance, when middle-aged men in cheap suits show up Saul directs them to a less fashionable club where they can “order bottle service and discuss municipal governance” in a more suitable environment. Relevant knowledge also relates to attitudes about culture and consumption. Eric describes how his target guests are different to other people: There are two kinds of people that move around the city; there are squares and there are alternative people. The Brats [an enclave of wealthy young people who party a lot] are rich squares that like champagne and that don't care so much about music, but listen to mainstream pop, and flash their money about. The alternatives are more interested in music and culture and so on. At Trinity it is important to not be a square. When the nightclub staff evaluates guests, they do not just consider whether they fit the club’s profile; they also evaluate how important they are. The attraction and display of high-status guests raises the prestige of the nightclub brand, which in turn allows other guests that get in to feel important. However, guest status is not achieved via the same behaviors everywhere. For Saul, it is good that his guests are people who can afford to indulge in a bit of luxury, but he does not place a lot of importance in money as a status marker. Eric goes even further, and says:

4.2. Guest characteristics resulting in brand competence A person’s career choice says a lot about what type of person s/he is. Eric describes the professional profile of Trinity’s guests in the following way: The most valuable ones from a branding perspective are people from the industries that we target, like journalists, musicians, people in TV, magazines, people that work in media but behind the scenes. Not people in sales though.

At Trinity we try to keep a bit of style, so I sometimes say that if you go to the other nightspots in this area and order ten drinks for your buddies you'd be considered a pretty great guy, but if you do that at Trinity people would just look at you like you're a dork

Journalists are common guests. Their role is to make the nightclub attractive to other people, not by reporting about it in the media, but 4

International Journal of Hospitality Management xxx (xxxx) xxxx

U. Aagerup

gets the chance to do it; my regular gets the chance to do it, the person who is going to be known gets the chance to do it. Not that other person. That other person gets the chance to look like a fool, and then if he ever complains about it, to know the reason why

However, if ostentatious consumption is considered tasteless at Trinity, the same in not true for Club Galaxy; here, the staff favors customers that spend big, or at least look like they do. Prospective guests are considered more beneficial for the club if they are famous. However, their fame must be relevant for the target market. For Club Galaxy this means prioritizing customers that are well known in the city, like successful business executives and top athletes. Notoriety goes both ways. Steve describes that if guests handle themselves well in the bar, it can help them get business meetings later because people will know them. At Trinity, the notion of fame is more specific. Eric explains:

The people who know and like each other form a tight group of insiders. They are friends who socialize beyond the limits of the club. Because they know each other so well, they let down their guards, and this is a prerequisite for social interaction. Social interaction however not only requires that people know each other, but that they have an open mind towards others. Saul says: The optimal customer is generous, cosmopolitan, first and foremost a tolerant person who likes to socialize with different types of people and…a person with a wide world view…no one looks down their nose at anyone else…if someone can’t handle socializing with different types of people but has to surround themselves with a specific kind of people…then I think they can go somewhere else…

Fame can be different things. There are celebrities that the papers write about…some of them we don’t let in. Then there are celebrities that feel right for our audience. Of course, if [alternative pop star] wants to come to us, I’d be a happy guy you know, or [respected rapper]. He came in one night and took over the mic in the bar, and stood in the bar rapping for half an hour. Of course that’s bloody great for us. But on the other hand, someone like…you know [middle aged sports TV reporter]…it’s funny, like “oh, check it out, a celebrity” and you can have a laugh, but then it’s not that exciting any more…Of course, [respected journalist] is a big famous face who hang at our place, and that can be positive, but that [lesser known, up and coming author/journalist] hangs with us, not a name that many people recognizes, it’s like…eh, it’s important for our audience who is in-the-know, but not for other people

Related to open mindedness, customer-to-customer interaction is also facilitated by guests who harbor good intentions towards other people. Eric says: I am pretty careful that we get good people. There are people who are cool as shit, but I don’t want them in my place, because they’re assholes The manager defines “good people” as spontaneous, easy-going, original, and warm guests. It is important that the club’s guests display these traits, because it shows other prospective guests that the club is not uptight and square, which in turn is a prerequisite for fun. Good intentions manifest themselves via a polite and respectful demeanor. Eric explains that if a prospective guest can politely handle not being admitted right away, his or her chances of getting in soon go up. If, on the other hand, guests try to tell him off, talk their way in, or even lie, they are finished.

At Nova, focusing on famous guests is not without its problems. Saul explains: Most of the time the line is full of celebrities and a lot of what other people would consider good guests…but I’ll always let my good friends in first…I want to prioritize those who I and the club feel should be prioritized…and if I start prioritize the people everyone else prioritizes, I will lose my exclusivity While celebrities are good for raising the profile of the clubs, they do not really belong -they are not part of the group of people who actually make up the club, which in turn is an important factor to consider. The role of insiders is delineated next.

4.4. Guest selection dilemma There is a dilemma facing nightclubs that employ user imagery to build brands. Brand competence is built by emphasizing that individuals are different with regards to identity fit and status. Brand warmth on the other hand is the result of selecting guests who have a benevolent attitude towards others, and who cooperate with others to have a good time. Brand competence therefore requires nightclubs to clearly differentiate between individuals, and to create boundaries between them. Brand warmth conversely requires tearing down the boundaries separating them. There is also an issue of exclusivity vs. tolerance and inclusivity. As delineated above, exclusivity is central to a nightclub brand’s appeal. However, while Nova wants its brand to be prestigious because it has the best guests, it also wants it to be inclusive and non-judgmental. The target consumers do not want to be perceived as elitist, and they therefore would not like it if the clubs’ treatment of guests becomes too obviously discriminatory of low-status individuals. Nova’s manager Saul is very critical of the judgmental attitude within the industry. He says:

4.3. Guest characteristics resulting in brand warmth An important criterion for getting in is a prospective guest’s personal relationship to the club’s manager and staff. The manager of Nova says: I have chosen to build this club via my network… for the opening I invited my closest [friends] and then they hopefully thought it’s been so bloody great that they in turn have invited their [friends] who in their turn have invited theirs. That’s where the chain ends sort of… and somehow I feel I don’t want to take that fourth step, because then everyone else will come… If it is a close friend they can come as late as they want…I’ll still help them out, because they helped me build this club…so I’m super loyal to those that are close to me… Conversely, there is no greater transgression a guest can perpetrate than to act like they are personal friends with the staff even though they are not. Steve exemplifies:

The difference between me…or between Trinity and us I would say is…they projected themselves as being like…a place for…a word that I hate and that I will never use…or that I rarely use…people with cred. I could have said that a thousand times about my guests, but I think it’s so damned disgusting because what the hell is a person with cred anyway? I don’t give a damn…what people do for a living is a lot more important at Trinity than it is here…

There is a pillar, and at the base there’s this concrete thing. My friend would get up on it, and do this thing [hand gesture] at me so I would know that he was coming. Then, other people would do it too. And so, I would know not to pay attention to them. You know, there were literally times when I looked up and saw that there was somebody mimicking him, and the first thought in my mind was “that one is not getting a drink ever.” That kind of thing, you know. Because you’re disciplining them, right? Because the other person

The tolerant ethos expressed by Saul is however not congruent with a door policy that is based on the notion that people deserve to be turned away if they are not cool enough. Some cognitive dissonance 5

International Journal of Hospitality Management xxx (xxxx) xxxx

U. Aagerup

discussion of what the paper’s findings mean for typical user imagery theory is presented. For customers to evaluate a brand on the merits of its typical user imagery, the brand’s users must resemble each other, and they have to be different than the users of other brands. Typical user imagery therefore has more impact on brand personality if the brand-users are homogenous and distinct. This ties into Keller’s (1993) stipulation that brand image is a result of the strength and the uniqueness of brand associations. Since user imagery builds on generalizations of what someone that uses a particular brand is like, brand personality should be influenced to a higher degree if the users resemble each other, but are different to non-users. In Trinity and Nova, the guests are very similar with regards to professional identity and the way the look. What is more, they are very different to the guests at neighboring nightclubs. They thus form a homogenous and distinct group of people. The larger, and more mainstream Club Galaxy on the other hand has customers with different professional identities and styles. Therefore, the club chooses guests primarily based on their status. This makes sense, because although a wealthy investor and a top athlete have very different identities, their status is similar. When Club Galaxy attracts more highstatus guests than other clubs, people’s generalizations of what someone who frequents the venue is like will be distinct, only on a different dimension than that of Trinity and Nova (status rather than identity fit). The findings reveal that the actions nightclubs have to engage in to build competent brand personality sometimes contradict the actions they have to engage in to build warm brand personality. The solution is a two-stage approach. At the door, the studied nightclubs conspicuously differentiate the treatment between good guests and the rest. This builds brand competence. Once guests are inside, the focus is on making sure everyone feels part of a group of people who engage in a shared activity. This builds brand warmth. Guest screening thus works like a medieval city wall; it keeps untrustworthy types out, so the insiders can get on with their activities in a relaxed way. The strict door policy guarantees that everyone inside are the right kind of people (identity fit), are important enough to be worth knowing (status), and have your best interests at heart (disposition). When admitted guests fail on any of these criteria, they are disciplined or ejected.

creeps in as the interview wears on. He says: It's an incredibly dirty business I'm in. Where you have to pick who's right and who's wrong… it's so bloody disgusting really. But at the end of the day that's what it comes down to. The wrong crowd and I lose my job. I have a good salary and I'd like to keep it for a while longer 5. Discussion All the nightclubs choose which guests to admit based on the effect their presence will have on other people’s perception of the nightclub. There are three main criteria for evaluating if a prospective guest is good enough to be allowed to enter the nightclub; 1) how well the individual’s identity fits the club’s profile, 2) how important the individual is, and 3) how pleasant the individual is to be around. Below it is delineated how these criteria are determined, and how they relate to brand warmth and competence. The guest’s identity fit with the club’s profile is determined by his or her professional background and know-how of dress, culture, and consumption. A good identity fit signifies relevant expertise in these matters, and guests that have a good identity fit therefore build brand competence. The link between expertise and brand competence is congruent with the BIAF (Kervyn et al., 2012). Important people have high positions in the social pecking order because they are rich, famous or accomplished. They provide status to the brand, and guests of this kind therefore also build brand competence. The link between status and brand competence is congruent with previous findings (Kervyn et al., 2012; Russell and Fiske, 2008). The effects these criteria have on brand personality are perceived cognitively; other guests look at a person and figure out how s/he ranks with regards to brand fit and status, and they use those cues to infer what it says about the nightclub that such a person is admitted. The competence dimension thus enables people to understand the brand, a finding that is congruent with Bennet and Hill’s (2012) assertion that competence is a cognitive dimension. The warm brand personality dimension is built by admitting people who are pleasant to be around. Such guests have good intentions towards others; they are tolerant of different types of people, and they show respect. That brand warmth is a measure of good intentions is congruent with the BIAF (Kervyn et al., 2012). Warm brand-users cooperate with other guests in the pursuit of having a good time, which in turn gives the nightclub a reputation for being fun. Because they are pleasant to be around, guests that are perceived as warm often become friends with the core group of insiders that comprise staff and regulars. This finding validates previous studies that show that warmth is related to cooperation and being part of a group (Russell and Fiske, 2008; Fiske et al., 2012). Because they are nice, the staff and the other guests like warm guests, and having this type of people as guests consequently makes people like the nightclub brand. The emotional evaluation of brand warmth is congruent with Bennet and Hill’s (2012) description of brand warmth as an affective dimension. The relationship between the criteria for guest selection and the resulting brand personality is delineated in Table 1. When we compare the three nightclubs, we see that they differ in some ways with regards to the criteria that are used to select guests. Below, an explanation for these differences is provided, and a

5.1. Contributions Although previous works on exclusive nightclubs have identified the importance of guest selection, they have mainly considered it a tool to maximize turnover (e.g. Rivera, 2010; Grazian, 2008) or improve the nightclub experience (Kubacki et al., 2007; Skinner et al., 2005). This paper identifies that guest selection at exclusive nightclubs can be a brand building process, and that the guests’ primary value to the clubs therefore is the image they bestow on the brand. By incorporating exclusive nightclubs with different profiles and sizes we see that the practice of building brand personality via guest selection is applicable for different types of hospitality venues. The paper provides empirical support for several mechanisms that have previously been stipulated in branding literature. The findings reveal that all investigated nightclubs build their brands by controlling who is allowed to become a brand-user. This empirically validates Keller’s (1993) claims that typical user imagery shapes brand

Table 1 Relationship between criteria for admission and brand personality dimensions. Brand personality dimensions Brand competence Criteria for guest selection Cues

Identity fit Professional identity, know-how of dress, consumption, culture

Brand warmth Status Money, fame, accomplishment

6

Disposition Good intentions, cooperates to have fun, part of network of friends

International Journal of Hospitality Management xxx (xxxx) xxxx

U. Aagerup

conditions, and that the activities that improve one brand personality dimension may hurt another. Finally, it is also evident that the nightclub business model inherently leads to ethically problematic practices, because exclusivity requires harsh rejection of undesirable customers. There are a few practical issues that companies considering brand building via typical users must consider. Firstly, a prerequisite for this practice is that the brand is consumed in a way so that other people are able to observe the act of consumption. If it is not, the public will not be able to form an opinion of the brand-users, and this in turn means that they cannot judge the brand based on typical user imagery. Related to this, only brands that target people with homogenous and distinct personalities can employ user imagery as a brand-building tool. Brands that sell to everyone cannot benefit from typical user imagery, because it becomes so general as to be meaningless. In addition to the characteristics of the customer base that allow companies to use typical user imagery to build brands as described above, there are other considerations that determine whether typical user imagery optimization is a viable option for a brand; the financial feasibility, and the practical feasibility. To optimize user imagery a company must have more willing customers than it can accommodate so that it can reject the inappropriate ones. If the business model on the other hand hinges on selling to the greatest number of people possible, turning away customers is not financially feasible. Apart from the financial side of things however, there is the question of practical feasibility. If a company has a brand that is sensitive to typical user imagery as well as the financial means to pull it off, the question is; can it actually reject customers? Nightclubs have devised a system by which they can reject potential customers whose poor image would be detrimental to their brand. It is however not obvious that a maker of handbags or cars could do the same, even though just like nightclubs, these products are consumed for symbolic/self-expressive reasons. There are many such product categories that would find it hard from a practical standpoint to say no to customers even though doing so could benefit their brand image. The paper is based on interviews with key people in the nightclub industry. However, there is no data from the customer side; the paper is thus based on a purely managerial perspective. Because the topic regards how companies build brands, the perspective is relevant for the research question. On the other hand, the feasibility behind brand building via customer selection depends on the customers’ reactions to the typical user imagery, and so, the absence of this viewpoint is a limitation. The paper constitutes a first attempt to research a phenomenon that to date has enjoyed limited study, but that is due for increased attention. As more and more industries become fragmented, niche marketing will increase. This will give more companies a specific customer base whose typical user imagery can be used for brand building purposes. As consumers are exposed to more and more images of typical brand-users on social media, the importance of typical user imagery will play an increasingly important role in consumers’ brand evaluations. Future practitioners and scholars would therefore do well to give the phenomenon of brand building via customer selection the attention it deserves.

personality. The strict rejection of people that display traits with which the target consumer does not want to be associated supports Banister and Hogg’s (2004) assertion that for self-expressive product categories, negative user stereotypes are particularly powerful. The results showing the clubs’ rejection of customers also supports two of Ward and Dahl’s (2014) findings. Firstly, it supports their notion of symbolic brand avoidance (that customers distance themselves from brands that become closely associated to specific groups of people of the wrong kind), and that clubs therefore do not let people of the wrong kind in. Secondly, the realization that guests are eager to get in even if they have been rejected before supports Ward and Dahl’s (2014) claim that social rejection encourages people to elevate their perceptions of their rejecters and strengthens their predilection to affiliate with them. A problem with the person-as-brand metaphor in previous work on brand personality where a multi-factor trait based conceptualization of the construct is used (e.g. Aaker, 1997; Parker, 2009) is that the brand personality construct does not mirror the human personality construct in character or scope (Azoulay and Kapferer, 2003). Given the emphasis placed on self-image congruity (the match between the brand personality and the consumer’s personality) in marketing, this is problematic. After all, if brands and humans cannot be described by the same traits, how is it possible to match them? This is solved by adopting the BIAF framework of Kervyn et al. (2012). Because it is comprised by just warmth and competence the BIAF perfectly mirrors the human personality framework on which it is based (Fiske et al., 2007). However, most studies in this research stream concern themselves only with the brand’s personality, utilizing the human characteristics purely as a metaphor. The presented paper on the other hand presents how both humans and brands are evaluated via their warmth and their competence, and how one is linked to the other. The paper thus contributes to the literature on brand personality by empirically validating the BIAF’s conceptual consistency. Normally the study of symbolic brand consumption and customerto-customer interaction constitute two separate research streams. The former research stream concerns itself with the meaning of brands and their consumption, while the latter focuses on how the experience of the brand is shaped by interactions with other customers. However, by relating the nightclub brand personality to customers’ perception of how fun the people are in a club (which is part of its typical user imagery), the experience becomes part of the meaning. This article thus contributes to literature by bringing symbolic consumption and experiential consumption together as the explanation for brand building in nightclubs, thereby integrating research streams on self-expressive brands and customer-to-customer interaction. 6. Conclusions By focusing on a small, and in many ways extreme industry like nightclubs, this paper provides insights into the practice of building brands by controlling typical user imagery. It is evident that it is possible to leverage typical user imagery to shape customers’ perception of brand personality. It is equally evident that doing so requires specific

7

International Journal of Hospitality Management xxx (xxxx) xxxx

U. Aagerup

Appendix A. Figure 1: Summary tables of coding from interviews

Flick, U., 1992. Triangulation revisited: strategy of validation or alternative. J. Theory Soc. Behav. 22, 175–198. Fournier, s., Avarez, C., 2012. Brands as relationship partners: warmth, competence, and in-between. J. Consum. Psychol. 22, 177–185. Geuens, M., Weijters, B., De Wulf, K., 2009. A new measure of brand personality. Int. J. Res. Mark. 26, 97–107. Gioia, D.A., Corley, K.G., Hamilton, A.L., 2012. Seeking qualitative rigor in inductive research: notes on the Gioia methodology. Organ. Res. Methods 16, 15–31. Grazian, D., 2008. On the Make: The Hustle of Urban Nightlife. University of Chicago Press. Hornby, A., Turnbull, J., Lea, D., Parkinson, D., Phillips, P., 2010. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Hosany, S., Ekinci, Y., Uysal, M., 2007. Destination image and destination personality. Int. J. Cult. Tour. Hosp. Res. 1, 62–81. Huberman, M., Miles, M.B., 1998. Data management and analysis methods. In: Denzin, N.K., Lincoln, Y.S. (Eds.), Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, California. Johar, G.V., Sengupta, J., Aaker, J.L., 2005. Two roads to updating brand personality impressions: trait versus evaluative inferencing. J. Mark. Res. (JMR) 42, 458–469. Johar, J.S., Sirgy, M.J., 1991. Value-expressive versus utilitarian advertising appeals: when and why to use which appeal. J. Advert. 20, 23–33. Keller, K.L., 1993. Conceptualizing, measuring, managing customer-based brand equity. J. Mark. 57, 1–22. Keller, K.L., 2003. Strategic Brand Management -Building, Measuring, and Managing Brand Equity. Prentice Hall, Pearson Education Ltd., Upper Saddle River, NJ. Kervyn, N., Fiske, S.T., Malone, C., 2012. Brands as intentional agents framework: how perceived intentions and ability can map brand perception. J. Consum. Psychol. 22, 166–176. Kotler, P., Levy, S.J., 1971. Demarketing, yes, demarketing. Harv. Bus. Rev. 49, 74–80. Kubacki, K., Skinner, H., Parfitt, S., Moss, G., 2007. Comparing nightclub customers’ preferences in existing and emerging markets. Int. J. Hosp. Manag. 26, 957–973. Leung, R., Law, R., 2010. A Review of Personality Research in the Tourism and Hospitality Context. Malär, L., Krohmer, H., Hoyer, W.D., Nyffenegger, B., 2011. Emotional brand attachment and brand personality: the relative importance of the actual and the ideal self. J. Mark. 75, 35–52. Mccracken, G., 1989. Who is the celebrity endorser? Cultural foundations of the endorsement process. J. Consum. Res. 16, 310–321. Mccrae, R.R., Costa, P.T., 1989. The structure of interpersonal traits: wiggins’s circumplex and the five-factor model. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 56, 586–595. Miles, M.B., Huberman, M., 1994. Qualitative Data Analysis: An Expanded Sourcebook. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, California. Mittal, V., Sarkees, M., Murshed, F., 2008. The Right Way to Manage Unprofitable Customers. Neate, R., 2013. How an American Woman Rescued Burberry, a Classic British Label. [Online]. Available:. The Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/

References Aaker, D.A., 1996. Building Strong Brands. The Free Press, New York. Aaker, J., Fournier, S., Brasel, S.A., 2004. When good brands do bad. J. Consum. Res. 31, 1–16. Aaker, J., Vohs, K.D., Mogilner, C., 2010. Nonprofits are seen as warm and for-profits as competent: firm stereotypes matter. J. Consum. Res. 37, 224–237. Aaker, J.L., 1997. Dimensions of brand personality. J. Mark. Res. (JMR) 34, 347–356. Achman, L., Chollet, D., 2001. Insuring the Uninsurable: An Overview of State High-Risk Health Insurance Pools. The Commonwealth Fund, Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. Azoulay, A., Kapferer, J.-N., 2003. Do brand personality scales really measure brand personality? J. Brand. Manag. 11, 143–155. Banister, E.N., Hogg, M.K., 2004. Negative symbolic consumption and consumers’ drive for self-esteem. Eur. J. Mark. 38, 850–868. Barone, M.J., Roy, T., 2010. Does exclusivity always pay off? Exclusive price promotions and consumer response. J. Mark. 74, 121–132. Bennett, A.M., Hill, R.P., 2012. The universality of warmth and competence: a response to brands as intentional agents. J. Consum. Psychol. 22, 199–204. Boo, S., Busser, J., Baloglu, S., 2009. A model of consumer-based brand equity and its applicationto multiple destinations. Tour. Manag. 30, 219–231. Bosnjak, M., Bochmann, V., Hufschmidt, T., 2007. Dimensions of brand personality attributions: a person-centric approach in the german cultural context. Soc. Behav. Personal. Int. J. 35, 303–316. Brakus, J.J., Schmitt, B.H., Zarantonello, L., 2009. Brand Experience: What Is It? How Is It Measured? Does It Affect Loyalty? J. Mark. 73, 52–68. Bratanova, B., Kervyn, N., Klein, O., 2015. Tasteful brands: products of brands perceived to be warm and competent taste subjectively better. Psychol. Belg. 55, 55–70. Brooke, S., 2005. Spoiled goods. Marketing (UK) 32–34. Catry, B., 2003. The great pretenders: the magic of luxury goods. Bus. Strategy Rev. 14, 10–17. Collins Dictionary, 2015. Collins Dictionary. Harper Collins Publishers, London. Coviello, N.E., Jones, M.V., 2004. Methodological issues in international entrepreneurship research. J. Bus. Ventur. 19, 485–508. Creswell, J.W., Miller, D.L., 2000. Determining validity in qualitative inquiry. Theory Pract. 39, 124–130. Denzin, N.K., Lincoln, Y.S., 1998. Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials. London SAGE. Eisenhardt, K.M., 1989. Building theories from case study research. Acad. Manag. Rev. 14, 532–550. Eriksson, P., Kovalainen, A., 2008. Qualitative Methods in Business Research. Sage Publications, London. Fiske, S.T., Cuddy, A.J.C., Glick, P., 2007. Universal dimensions of social cognition: warmth and competence. Trends Cogn. Sci. (Regul. Ed.) 11, 77–83. Fiske, S.T., Malone, C., Kervyn, N., 2012. Brands as intentional agents: our response to commentaries. J. Consum. Psychol. 22, 205–207.

8

International Journal of Hospitality Management xxx (xxxx) xxxx

U. Aagerup

Part [Online]. youtube.com. Available: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v= AVnIO4vzXg8 (Accessed 15 June 2012). . Sirgy, M.J.oseph, 1982. Self concept in consumer behavior: a critical review. J. Consum. Res. 9, 287–300. Sirgy, M.J., Grewal, D., Mangleburg, T.F., Park, J.-O., Chon, K.-S., Claiborne, C.B., Johar, J.S., Berkman, H., 1997. Assessing the predictive validity of two methods of measuring self-image congruence. J. Acad. Mark. Sci. 25, 229. Skinner, H., Moss, G., Parfitt, S., 2005. Nightclubs and bars: what do customers really want? Int. J. Contemp. Hosp. Manag. 17, 114–124. Tran, X., Dauchez, C., Szemik, A.-M., 2013. Hotel brand personality and brand quality. J. Vacat. Mark. 19, 329–341. Ward, M.K., Dahl, D.W., 2014. Should the devil sell prada? Retail rejection increases aspiring consumers’ desire for the brand. J. Consum. Res. 41, 590–609. Yin, R.K., 2003. Case Study Research: Design and Methods. SAGE Publications. Zandén, N., Ågerup, U., 2009. Misery as corporate mission: user imagery at the nightclub the spy bar. J. Curr. Issues Finance, Bus. Econ. 2, 55–68. Östberg, J., 2007. The linking value of subcultural capital: constructing the Stockholm Brat Enclave. In: Cova, B., Kozinets, R., Shankar, A. (Eds.), Consumer Tribes: Theory, Practice, and Prospects. Elsevier/Butterworth-Heinemann.

jun/16/angela-ahrendts-burberry-chav-image. Okazaki, S., 2006. Excitement or sophistication? A preliminary exploration of online brand personality. Int. Mark. Rev. 23, 279–303. Oxford Dictionaries, 2017. Status. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. Palinkas, L.A., Horwitz, S.M., Green, C.A., Wisdom, J.P., Duan, N., Hoagwood, K., 2015. Purposeful sampling for qualitative data collection and analysis in mixed method implementation research. Adm. Policy Ment. Health 42, 533–544. Parker, B.T., 2005. This Brand’s for Me: Brand Personality and User Imagery Based SelfCongruity. University of Florida. Parker, B.T., 2009. A comparison of brand personality and brand user-imagery congruence. J. Consum. Mark. 26, 175–184. Pathak, G., Zhi Jun, Y., 2016. Brand personality of tourism destination: the case of Nepal. Int. J. Novel Res. Mark. Manag. Econ. 3, 137–141. Plummer, J.T., 1984. How personality makes a difference. J. Advert. Res. 24, 27–31. Pountain, D., Robins, D., 2000. Cool Rules: Anatomy of an Attitude. Reaktion Books Ltd., London. Rivera, L., 2010. Status distinctions in interaction: social selection and exclusion at an elite nightclub. Qual. Sociol. 33, 229–255. Russell, A.M.T., Fiske, S.T., 2008. It’s all relative: competition and status drive interpersonal perception. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 38, 1193–1201. Saunders, B., Sim, J., Kingstone, T., Baker, S., Waterfield, J., Bartlam, B., Burroughs, H., Jinks, C., 2018. Saturation in qualitative research: exploring its conceptualization and operationalization. Qual. Quant. 52, 1893–1907. Silverman, D., 2005. Interpreting Qualitative Data. Sage Publications Ltd., London. Silverman, D., 2010. David Silverman on Qualitative Research Methods & Natural Data

Ulf Aagerup focuses on brand strategies and consumer behavior at the Department of Business Studies at Halmstad University. His main area of interest is symbolic/self-expressive brand consumption. He has an extensive background as a professional marketer in multinational companies.

9