ABSTRACT
Mental accounting is the set of operations that people perform to organize, evaluate, and keep track of their activities, especially those related to finances and expenses (Thaler, 1985, 1999). Prior research has shown the value of applying a mental accounting framework not just when people spend money on everyday products but also in the context of money spent on investments (Shafir and Thaler, 2006), financial products (Ranyard et al., 2006), product disposal (Okada, 2001), immediate versus delayed consumption (Gourville and Soman, 1998), windfall spending (Arkes et al., 1994), cross-cultural differences (Arkes et al., 2010), and tracking time (Soman, 2001; Soster, Monga, and Bearden, 2010). In this chapter, we propose yet another important context in which a mental accounting framework is valuable: consumer–brand relationships, that is, to track, monitor, and assess interactions between consumers and brands. We propose that mental accounting framework applied in a consumer–brand relationship context allows us to gain deeper insights into consumer behavior, and offers specific strategic and tactical tools to marketers to improve the returns from their relationships with consumers.
