Marketing Strategies under the MBTI Trend

The MBTI was born in the 1820s and 1830s when Myers and her daughter were writing novels to make a living during the Great Depression and were inspired by Jung’s personality analysis theory. From 1923 to 1941, after 19 years of hard work, Myers and her daughter added the dimension of “Judgment J – Perception P” to the Jungian psychological types to form a total of 16 personality types and developed the initial version of the MBTI scale.

Professor Chen Jiyan of Chinese psychology said in an interview with Science and Technology Daily, “The MBTI is often “popular” mainly because it has been very successful in marketing and promoting commercial services, and therefore it is very well-known internationally at this stage. “

The MBTI’s marketing path began with the Myers mother and daughter who developed it. With their connections, the Myers mother and daughter successfully sold the MBTI test to the recently established Strategic Intelligence Agency and then took advantage of the heat to convince more than forty medical schools to use it to enroll students, which was the beginning of the marketing road of the MBTI.

In addition, “More than 10,000 companies, 2,500 colleges and universities and 200 government agencies in the United States use the test,” at that time.

But the MBTI still has many controversies in the psychological academic community. For example, Jung, the inventor of the Jungian test that inspired the MBTI, has publicly opposed it after its release. Not only that, but even Carl Thoresen, chairman of CPP, the original copyright company for the MBTI, as a Stanford psychology professor, did not mention the MBTI in any of the at least 150 academic papers he published during his career. And Thoresen admitted to the Washington Post, “I used it practically, but I didn’t use it in any of my research,” Thoresen says. “In part because it would be questioned by my academic colleagues. That was always a barrier.”

At the moment, MBTI is also taking Korea by storm. For example, the stationery brand Supreme Heart(최고심) is often known for its hotlines, with reports indicating that it takes about two hours on average to stand in line. Even for such a popular brand, they have launched products categorized by MBTI, further intensifying consumer purchases. Not only that, but one of the more famous beer brands that release a campaign that most closely matches the marketing of the MBTI monogram itself, Jeju Beer, has the MBTI monogram printed on the beer’s outer design, and according to KoreanCraftBeer data, over 400,000 bottles were sold within two weeks of release.

김나혜 wrote an article called MBTI 마케팅 that the ability to collect a large amount of data from potential consumers through high consumer engagement rates is also a huge advantage of MBTI marketing. All of these can be found in the above case with corresponding characteristics. However, a generalized herd mentality occurred in the market, and the marketing direction shifted from promoting the characteristics of their products themselves to catering to the MBTI personality test. The main focus was no longer on the advantages of the product but on the relevance of the product to the MBTI. It also needs to pay attention that this marketing topic is only applicable to impulse buying, not for products that need to be purchased carefully such as luxury goods and digital devices. The current marketing route is based on broad engagement with the aim of enabling all MBTIs to participate, but there is less specific, targeted consumer analysis and strategy development based on a specific MBTI. If the brand has a clearly defined personality based on the MBTI, they will be able to create and maintain a strong framework for consistent, reliable brand presentation.

References 

1. L.less 김나혜, 김미나, 김민정, 김윤식.(2022).MBTI 마케팅.Excellence Marketing for Customer,56(7),56-65.
2. Cunningham, L. (2012, December 14). Myers-Briggs: Does it pay to know your type?. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-leadership/myers-briggs-does-it-pay-to-know-your-type/2012/12/14/eaed51ae-3fcc-11e2-bca3-aadc9b7e29c5_story.html 
3. Dinsdale, C. (n.d.). Marketing and Myers-Briggs. Welcome to the StoryStudio. https://www.hearststorystudio.com/blog/marketing-and-myers-briggs 
4. KoreanCraftBeer. (2022, May 13). [편맥] 2주동안 40만캔 넘게 팔린 화제의 MBTI 맥주 | 제주 맥주 맥BTI – 명품맥덕. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g99O0jaDdNE 
5. New 굿즈 트렌드! 부적 사려고 2시간 웨이팅하는 Z세대 근황. 메인 페이지로 이동. (2023, March 22). https://www.careet.net/1049 
6. Wikimedia Foundation. (2023, June 4). Myers–Briggs Type indicator. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indicator 
7. “당신의 MBTI는 무엇입니까”…MBTI 마케팅의 양면 [허태윤 브랜드 스토리]. 이코노미스트. (2022, July 16). https://economist.co.kr/article/view/ecn202207160028