Wharton prof explores dual identities

According to Wharton Professor Americus Reed, people can have multiple identities.

Reed, an “identity theorist,” explores the idea of duality in self. His latest research focuses on the way multicultural consumers perceive racial cues in advertisements. He has found that consumers who identify with different ethnic groups perceive ads — and life — differently.

His research involves experimenting with advertisements that appeal to “bicultural” customers, like an Asian American who has internalized both Asian and American cultures.

The underlying idea behind his research is relevant to students at Penn, Reed said, because of the school’s diversity, in terms of ethnicity, background and interests.

For example, dual-degree students affiliated with both Wharton and the College display “an interesting case of biculturalism in a sense,” he said.

Besan Abu-Joudeh, a Wharton and College sophomore, experiences a constant flux in future goals and plans. “Sometimes I can see myself going into consulting,” she described, “and at other times I would love to work for the U.N.”

Portraying another example, Lori Rosenkopf is both a Wharton professor and a mother. While “a late seminar with colleagues when a child is performing in some production” might create tension, balancing her two roles is “no different than the skills students practice by managing conflicting demands from multiple courses,” she said. “I like to think that I am a good professor and a good mother.”

Students who play sports also have two conflicting identities: the athletic and the academic. But for Justin Kim, a Wharton sophomore and member of the men’s varsity squash team, his participation in athletics has helped him focus on his studies.

“To juggle these two responsibilities,” he explained, “I have to make sure I have good time management skills.”

And having two identities can have its benefits, Abu-Joudeh said. “You can play up or play down a certain degree — you get to pick and choose how you sell yourself to people,” he said.

The research also showed that marketers who try to speak to “both selves” using cultural symbols can lower the value of an ad, Reed said. “You can’t overtly try to appeal to both cultures.”

For an ad to appeal to bicultural consumers successfully, a “complementary synergy” has to be created, Reed explained. “Instead of having everything shouting at you at once, one of the dimensions has to be more subtle.”

It also has to do with “an authenticity issue,” Reed added. “You have to be subtle — if someone thinks you’re being a savvy marketer, then they’re going to reject it.”

The research is necessary because “we’re living in a world that’s changing demographically,” he explained. The number of consumers with multicultural backgrounds is rising, and marketers need to learn how to approach such “presently minority but soon-to-be majority groups.”

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