Some men are Baptists, others Catholics; my father was an Oldsmobile man - Jean Shepherd, "A Christmas Story"

Do you have brand loyalty?   Some of it may be historical ideas of quality, to be sure - if you bought a Mercedes-Benz this decade it was likely because it used to be that you paid more for better quality - but some of it is just materialism - if you bought a Mercedes-Benz this decade you also discovered that marketing people figure that if you were dumb enough to pay double for basically Hyundai quality you will be dumb enough to pay $1000 for the CD player they didn't include - but you may have bought it anyway.

It turns out it may also be 'death anxiety', according to a new study published in the Journal of Consumer Research.

Authors Aric Rindfleisch (University of Wisconsin-Madison and Korea University), James E. Burroughs (University of Virginia), and Nancy Wong (University of Wisconsin-Madison) examined levels of materialism and insecurity in consumers and discovered that the combination of "death anxiety" and materialism led to strong attachment to brands.

While conventional wisdom holds that materialistic individuals are weakly connected to brands and use them as superficial status badges, the new research proves that brands hold more meaning for materialistic consumers than previously thought. When those individuals are also worried about death, their brand attachment grows.

"We propose that materialistic individuals form strong connections to their brands when death anxiety is high but not when death anxiety is low," write the authors. "Materialistic individuals are strongly connected to their brands and employ them as an important source of meaning in their lives."

The authors tested their hypothesis by conducting two different but related studies. The first study asked adults in the United States to rate their degrees of materialism, death anxiety, and brand connection. In the second study, conducted among college students, the researchers manipulated death anxiety by having participants consider their own deaths in detail. In both studies, participants rated their degree of connection to a variety of products including cars, microwaves, jeans, cell phones, MP3 players, and sunglasses.

"Materialistic consumers with anxiety about their existence are especially in need of the symbolic security that brand connections provide," write the authors. "Given the recent rise in materialistic tendencies along with the media's heightened focus on existential threats, the number of consumers who display this combination of values and motives should increase in the near future."

Article: Aric Rindfleisch, James E. Burroughs, and Nancy Wong. "The Safety of Objects: Materialism, Existential Insecurity, and Brand Connection." Journal of Consumer Research: June 2009.