For many years, Tiger Woods was not only a reigning champion in golf, but he was a highly regarded figure in the golf community and many golf enthsiasts thought of him as an associative figure. An associative figure/group “is a group with which the individual would like to be associated or identified”. Tiger Woods was a very prominent figure and many customers of Nike, EA Sports, etc liked to be associated with Woods and would purchase merchandise by using him as a reference group. However, after Tiger Woods scandal in the year 2009 many customers then wanted to dissociative themselves from Tiger Woods, a man who was once a model figure; this is known as a dissociative reference group, where “group is characterized by attitudes, values, or behaviors inconsistent with those held by an individual [and] the individual wants to distance him or herself from this group”.

Major companies viewed this as a threat and believed that not only would their sales take a hit, but more importantly they would be promoting their brand, idea, and products through a dissociative reference individual. So, companies like AT&T, Gatorade, Gillette, Tag Heuer, and more dropped Tiger Woods from their company and ended all endorsement contracts. 

Companies do not want to associate with a dissociative reference group and in some extreme cases they even pay individuals to stay away from the company’s products. For example, “teen apparel retailer Abercrombie & Fitch Co. [offered] to pay Michael “The Situation” Sorrentino not to wear its merchandise”.

The new generation iPad mini and iPad Air have been unveiled  and a lot of the customers may be facing an uncomfortable and unsettled feeling after purchasing the Apple products. This feeling of uncertainty in context with value is also known as post purchase cognitive dissonance. Post purchase cognitive dissonance can be defined as “the psychologically uncomfortable state produced by an inconsistency between beliefs and behaviours that in turn evokes a motivation to reduce the dissonance; buyers remorse”. As stated in Rich Trenholm’s article “iPad Air, mini are ‘overpriced boringness’ say CNET readers” , consumers believe that these products are overpriced and do not offer enough value to them. In other words, the potential customers are saying that they would be giving up more than they are receiving if they buy the iPad mini or iPad Air.

Apple is faced with a problem here that could result in a loss of a large amount of customers. Apple should be concerned regarding this issue and should come up with a solution that minimizes post purchase cognitive dissonance because they can lose customer loyalty and can result in weakening of the Apple brand image gradually. Customers are the ‘KING’ in todays market and negative word of mouth could potentially be very harmful for Apple’s future sales; a lot of the customers who were loyal to the brand may be so upset that they may not buy an Apple product ever again. Once again, Apple should take this important issue into consideration because it will affect them negatively in the long run.