Brands Act as Social Glue After Major Life Disruptions

Ceyda Sinag
1 day ago
5 min read

Written By Ceyda Sinağ, Post-Doc at Sabancı University, Türkiye

Greek philosopher Heraclitus once said, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.” His quote tells us that change is inherent to life. Time is in constant flux, and everything changes. However, not all changes, or their effects on our lives, are the same. Some are expected, some are unexpected; some are minor, whereas others are major.

Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

In their IJRM article in press, “Reconstructing collective identity: how consumers mobilize brands and consumption practices after major life disruptions”, the authors Laetitia Mimoun (ESCP), Mathilde Hédon Lapostolle (Supper Paris), and Julien Schmitt (ESCP) take us to a major event that changed everyone’s everyday lives: the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the pandemic as a case, the authors shed light on how major life disruptions destabilize collective family identities, and how consumers use brands and consumption practices to reconstruct their shared identities.

The role of brands in reconstructing collective identities

The authors offer consumer research a useful typology of major life events (MLE) that affect consumer identities. MLEs differ in their temporalities (unexpected or anticipated events) and underlying causes (external or internal). As an unexpected event with external causes, the COVID-19 pandemic can be considered a major life disruption (MLD), similar to natural disasters and wars.

To understand how MLDs affect collective identities and how consumers use brands and consumption practices to reconstruct their disrupted shared identities, the authors collected data from families during the first lockdown through individual and collective interviews and consumer diaries. Due to temporal slack, sudden, heightened intra-group dependence, and deep uncertainty about the future, families experienced individual and collective identity disruption. The authors identify three adaptive responses: ritualizing consumption with specific brands to structure time for individual, relational, and collective temporalities, such as watching TV series with family members, watching films with friends, and engaging with educational content alone; redefining and engaging in shared consumption practices through brands, like gathering around board games to forge stronger family bonds, and using brands to romanticize legacy consumption practices sharing stories with their grandchildren over Zoom. Their research offers managerial guidance on how brands can participate in collective identity reconstruction across consumers’ adaptive responses to MLDs.

Not a usual collaboration, but a fruitful one

Laetitia explains this publication’s unusual backstory. Although she is the lead author, she reveals that she joined the team after Mathilde completed data collection. In her PhD research, Mathilde was interested in examining how families form their identities through consumption. However, a major life disruption, the COVID-19 pandemic hit just before she began data collection. So, with her supervisor, Julien, they decided to study how the pandemic shaped family identities. Mathilde collected the data during the lockdown, after which the authors needed analytical help to theorize the process. So, Laetitia joined the team to bring her expertise in theorization, but Mathilde abruptly left academia to pursue a business career. Consequently, Laetitia took the lead. Despite these unexpected twists and turns, the team collaborated effectively.

“Mathilde is passionate about data. That is why she moved into market research, where she can … play with data. I like writing papers and handling the theory and the conceptualization part. Julien is a sustainability scholar. He has a different mindset, so he asks questions that can bring you a bit outside of your box … So it was a very complementary team.”

- Laetitia Mimoun

Collecting rich data in a limited, uncertain time frame

The authors faced two major challenges with their research: one in data collection, and the other in the revision process.

To begin with, Mathilde and Julien knew that COVID was a temporary phenomenon, but not when it would end. So, Mathilde had to collect the data within a limited, but uncertain time frame. If the lockdown ended too quickly, the researchers would not be able to capture families’ evolving experiences. Despite the stress of collecting the data within a limited, uncertain time frame, some moments were fun. Because of constrained sociality during the lock-down, participants were eager to share. Consequently, the authors obtained a richly detailed dataset. In addition, the authors were fascinated to see all the creative solutions families devised to reconstruct their family identities.

A challenging but constructive revision process

Reviewers pushed the team to theorize the role of brands in the process and questioned the transferability of their results. This led the authors to theorize the MLD concept and foreground the role of brands in identity reconstruction.

“The Associate Editor helped us prioritize and make sense of the reviews. While the reviewers helped us be more abstract, both in terms of the brand characteristics and in refining our typology of life events.”

- Laetitia Mimoun

Mathilde left the team after the first submission. However, because two IJRM revision requests required them to return to Mathilde’s original data, the team remained in touch throughout the review process. Of course, they celebrated together when IJRM accepted the paper!

Laetitia also shared that the IJRM team helped the authors refine the managerial implications by broadening their perspective to include MLEs more generally.

“The reviewers, the area editor, and the editor were really helpful in guiding us toward making the managerial implications more generative and forward-looking…”

- Laetitia Mimoun

Read the paper

Interested in reading “Reconstructing collective identity: how consumers mobilize brands and consumption practices after major life disruptions”? Access the full paper here .

Want to cite the paper?

Mimoun, L., Lapostolle, M. H., & Schmitt, J. (2025). Reconstructing collective identity: how consumers mobilize brands and consumption practices after major life disruptions. International Journal of Research in Marketing.

Meet the Author

Laetitia Mimoun

Associate Professor at ESCP Business School

After the pandemic, what kinds of changes did you observe in your own consumption habits and your relationship with brands? How did it change your family’s collective identity?

In my family, we did a lot of ritualized structuring. A lot of that collective valorizing happened in my family. We did a lot of online games, like Pictionary and stuff, because some of my siblings were stuck abroad. These online game brands specifically helped us find engaging collective valorization. It is interesting to see that the brands that participated in our collective identity reconstruction during that disruption gained significant closeness and importance in our family identity, and that this lasted for several years at least.

If you would not be a marketing researcher, what would you be?

I would be an amigurumi creative. Amigurumis are crocheted plushies. I make them for fun, for the kids in my family, and for my friends. I will probably do more of it if I have to find a new job.

Who is the researcher from any field you would like to sit down to lunch with? What would you say to him/her?

It would be Judith Butler. First, I would ask “What criticism of your work made you rethink something important in your own work?”. Sometimes when we get criticized, it can be very generative. And it would be interesting if that ever happened to them. The second one, "What would be the advice to someone trying to understand their life work and where to start?" Because students often struggle. It's quite complex, and they are always like, "I don't know where to start". And I have my own opinion on that, but I would be fascinated by Judith Butler's answers. Should we start chronologically or end with the most recent? That would be very interesting.

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