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ndards and et al. reported the development of a twodimensional scale to measure such interpersonal influenceability, including a normative and an informational dimension. The authors defined the construct as: ‘the need to identify with or enhance one’s image in the opinion of significant Others through the acquisition and use of products and brands, the willingness to conform to the expectations of others regarding purchase decisions, and/or the tendency to learn about products and services by observing others or seeking information from others.’ A considerable number of articles from psychological and consumer research have investigated the tendency of individuals to conform to group norms or to modify their judgment based upon others’ evaluations but have not addressed this influence across situations and with respect to desired benefits and brand choice. The present research tries to close this gap and focuses on the normative ponent, which has been found to relate to situational effects and has been defined as the tendency to conform to the expectations of others. PRODUCT CATEGORY INVOLVEMENT Involvement describes the mental resources an individual is willing to mit to a decision problem. Researchers have shown that consumer product category involvement significantly affects consumer decision making and have typically analysed the influence of involvement on consumer attitudes, brand preferences and perceptions. The practical relevance for brand managers stems from market segmentation studies where individuals who were predisposed to dedicate more attention and effort to a specific decision problem (ie choice of a brand) have been found to be more likely to seek more value. For example, Quester and Smart report that more involved consumers rated wine attributes to be generally more important than consumers who were less involved with wine, and Richins and Bloch demonstrated effects of consumer involvement on situational information acquisition behaviour. In a brand management context, this would mean that if a person is very much involved with a product category, then this person is likely to seek greater brand benefits across the board than a person who is less involved with it. It is, therefore, expected that consumer involvement will be positively correlated with many, if not all, salient brand benefits. DEMOGRAPHIC AND BEHAVIOURAL FACTORS Historically, brand managers have had a strong interest in linking observable consumer characteristics to choice behaviour in order to develop actionable marketing strategies. While past studies tied unobservable variables including susceptibility to interpersonal influence and consumer disposition to consumer demographics, the current research explicitly examines selected demographic and behavioural variables as potential drivers of situational variation in desired brand benefits and choice. Those variables include consumer age, gender and winebuying behaviour (purchase frequency, spending per bottle and wine expenditures). DISCUSSION While past research demonstrated variation in individual behaviour69 and specifically in consumer brand preferences across situations, little is known in terms of defining the drivers of corresponding effects. The present research attempts to close this gap in order to assist brand managers in designing and managing brands that are either robust across consumption occasions or tailored towards a particular situation. Building upon and extending past studies suggesting consumer personality,situational disposition, demographic and behavioural drivers of situational variation, and integrating research identifying relevant consumption occasions, reference groups, and brand benefits for wine, data were collected from a consumer sample in one general session and three consumption scenarios typical for wine. The findings of this study confirm that individual choice of brands varies across three situations.