A Research on the Segmentation Driving Mechanism of Sanrio Brand

Symbols from the Perspective of Consumer Psychology-Based on the

Psychological and Behavioral Differences Between Students Aged

18-24 and Working People Aged 25-35

Sitong Sun

Department of English, Xi'an International Studies University, 710128, Xi’an, China

Keywords: Sanrio, Consumer Psychology, Consumer Purchasing Decisions, Emotional Consumption.

Abstract: In today's consumer era, consumers' demands for emotional value and emotional comfort have significantly

increased, and "cute economy" symbols have flourished as a consumption form that carries healing functions.

This research focuses on the segmentation and driving mechanism of Sanrio's "cute healing" symbol system

on the 18-24-year-old student group and the 25-35-year-old working group. Through questionnaire survey,

this paper studies how Sanrio's "cute healing" brand lifestyle positioning dynamically affects the consumption

behavior of students aged 18-24 and working people aged 25-35 through differentiated psychological

mechanisms. The research found that the student group takes the emotional resonance of symbols as the core

motivation, and exhibits low-frequency, small-amount, impulsive consumption and occasional repurchase

consumption behaviors; the workplace group takes the practical scene adaptation and social identity attributes

of symbols as the core motivation, and exhibits medium-high frequency, medium-amount, rational decision-

making and relatively high repurchase loyalty consumption behaviors. The research aims to construct a

dynamic conduction model of "age stratification-psychological motivation-consumption behavior" to provide

a theoretical basis for the future segmentation and refinement strategies of lifestyle brands such as Sanrio.

1 INTRODUCTION

With the acceleration of globalization and

digitalization, Generation Z and Millennials have

become the dominant consumer force in today's

society. Contemporary youth are in a state of strong

social desire and are eager to build good interpersonal

relationships in society and gain a sense of belonging.

The resulting "herd mentality" has made the symbolic

attributes of commodities increasingly concerned by

contemporary youth (Wang, Li, 2024). The

proportion of socially motivated consumption such as

showing off, conformity, socializing, and identity

symbol brought about by the symbolic economy and

individual motivated consumption such as self-

enjoyment and self-gifting is gradually increasing

(Wang, Chen, 2023). People's purchasing decisions

are often influenced by the above emotions.

Emotional consumption has gradually become

dominant. In the current consumer market, the

https://orcid.org/0009-0005-3751-6339

interaction between brand positioning, marketing and

consumer psychology is crucial. Sanrio, a global

lifestyle brand, seized this opportunity to build an

emotional economic ecosystem with its "cute and

healing" symbol system, attracting two core groups:

students aged 18-24 and working people aged 25-35.

However, its differentiated driving mechanism has

not been fully studied. This research aims to answer

how Sanrio's symbol system drives segmented

consumption behavior through differentiated

psychological needs.

From the perspective of consumer motivation,

existing research has discussed in depth the

purchasing decisions triggered by consumer

psychological mechanisms. Hong Qinghui et al.

(2025) mainly discussed consumers' purchasing

intention and analyzed dimensions such as external

emotional factors, emotional arousal and irrational

beliefs. Du Yanyan et al. (2024) explained that brands

need to explore the inner world of consumers and are

434

Sun, S.

A Research on the Segmentation Driving Mechanism of Sanrio Brand Symbols from the Perspective of Consumer Psychology-Based on the Psychological and Behavioral Differences

Between Students Aged 18- 24 and Working People Aged 25-35.

DOI: 10.5220/0013846600004719

Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on E-commerce and Modern Logistics (ICEML 2025), pages 434-441

ISBN: 978-989-758-775-7

not only providers of goods or services, but also

communicators of emotions; From the perspective of

marketing strategy, He Yuan (2022) analyzed the

current status of Perfect Diary's brand marketing,

including brand image, communication, promotion

and positioning. It pointed out that there were

problems with brand spokespersons, social media

platform marketing communication, sales channels

and price positioning. It provided Perfect Diary with

marketing strategy suggestions such as optimizing

target market strategy, selecting consumers mainly

from Generation Z as the target market, and

establishing brand image. Deng Chunli et al. (2021)

used the SWOT matrix to analyze the internal and

external competitive environment of the Beast brand,

analyzed the current status of its content marketing,

and proposed marketing strategies such as cultivating

key opinion consumers of the brand and telling good

brand stories. In summary, in terms of consumer

motivation, although existing research focuses on the

impact of the connection between brand symbols and

psychological factors such as consumer emotional

needs on consumer behavior, most of them analyze

consumers as a relatively unified group, lacking in-

depth and detailed differentiated research on

consumer groups of different age groups. In

marketing strategy research, although brand

operation strategies are generally proposed with

contemporary youth as the target market, the deep-

seated differences behind the consumer behavior of

youth of different age groups are not fully considered,

ignoring the important role of age stratification in the

consumer decision-making process. In response to the

shortcomings of existing research, this research

focuses on Sanrio's main consumer market, the 18-

24-year-old student group and the 25-35-year-old

working group, and constructs a dynamic conduction

model of "age stratification-psychological

motivation-consumption behavior", filling the

research gap in the driving mechanism of symbolic

consumption grouping.

2 METHOD

The questionnaire of this research mainly includes

three core parts: the first is the basic information of

the respondents, covering age, occupation and

income, which is used to accurately divide the groups.

The second part focuses on the psychological

mechanism module, and sets up questions such as

emotional resonance, social identity, and aesthetic

preference around Sanrio's "cute healing" symbol to

explore the psychological cognition and reaction of

different groups to this symbol system; the third part

is the consumption decision-making module, which

analyzes the driving mechanism of psychological

mechanism on the consumption behavior of the two

groups through questions such as purchase frequency,

consumption scenarios and influencing factors.

The questionnaire covers basic personal

information, including age, occupation (divided into

students and working people), income level, etc.,

which will help to conduct subsequent group analysis

and understand the consumption differences between

the two groups of people, such as the impact of

different income levels of different age groups on the

consumption capacity and preference of Sanrio

products. By setting questions to explore the

psychological motivations behind consumer

purchasing behavior, the core driving factors of

different groups are clarified, and questions such as

the frequency of purchasing Sanrio products, the

amount of single consumption, the channel and type

of product purchase are set to outline the consumption

behavior patterns of different groups, providing a

basis for analyzing consumption tendencies and

habits.

The questionnaire includes mandatory multiple-

choice questions, which are convenient for

respondents to answer quickly; it includes mandatory

scale questions, which are conducive to quantifying

the attitudes of respondents, conducting data analysis

and comparing the attitude differences of different

groups; it also includes non-mandatory open-ended

questions, which can obtain more in-depth and

personalized thoughts and feelings of respondents.

This questionnaire is arranged in order from easy to

difficult, from objective to subjective, and related

questions are grouped to make the questionnaire

structure clear.

The questionnaire clearly targets students aged

18-24 in different grades and majors and

professionals aged 25-35 in different industries and

positions. The questionnaire was imported through

the Wenjuanxing platform, and the questionnaire QR

code was shared online through social media such as

WeChat and Xiaohongshu to relevant student class

groups, interest groups, and personal friend circles for

social fission. Students were invited to fill out the

questionnaire in places with large traffic on the

university campus in their spare time. The

questionnaire collected 218 questionnaires in 2 weeks,

including 114 from students aged 18-24 and 104 from

professionals aged 25-35. Through strict screening of

answering time, logical consistency, and

completeness, 36 invalid samples were finally

excluded, leaving 182 valid samples, including 98

A Research on the Segmentation Driving Mechanism of Sanrio Brand Symbols from the Perspective of Consumer Psychology-Based on the

Psychological and Behavioral Differences Between Students Aged 18- 24 and Working People Aged 25-35

435

from students aged 18-24 and 84 from professionals

aged 25-35.

In the data analysis phase, the statistical software

SPSS was used to conduct multi-faceted analysis of

valid sample data. Reliability and validity analysis

was first conducted to ensure the reliability and

validity of the data. The Wenjuanxing platform was

used for cross-analysis, with age groups set as

independent variables, and psychological

mechanisms and consumer behavior-related issues

set as dependent variables. The two main self-defined

age groups (18-24 years old, 25-35 years old) were

compared to reveal data characteristics from multiple

dimensions, and the differences between age groups

were preliminarily presented through cross-analysis.

SPSS variance analysis determined the significance

of the differences, and correlation analysis, cluster

analysis, and regression analysis explored the

relationship between variables from different angles,

segmented consumer groups, and clarified key

influencing factors, providing strong data support for

studying the market performance of different groups

of the Sanrio brand and formulating marketing

strategies.

3 RESULT

3.1 Differences in Consumption Ability

Among Groups

Figure 1: Disposable funds for students aged 18-24 and working people aged 25-35.

Referring to figure 1, the monthly disposable funds of

students aged 18-24 are concentrated in 1,000-3,000

yuan (63.16%), and the disposable funds are limited;

the monthly disposable funds of working people aged

25-35 account for 32.32% of more than 5,000 yuan,

and the disposable funds have increased significantly.

3.2 Differentiation Mechanism of

Psychological Motivation

Figure 2: Purchase reasons of students aged 18-24 and working people aged 25-35.

18,42%

63,16%

11,40%

7,02%

12,12%

27,27%

28,28%

32,32%

0,00%

10,00%

20,00%

30,00%

40,00%

50,00%

60,00%

70,00%

1000 yuan or less (including 1000 yuan) 1000-3000 yuan (including 3000 yuan) 3000-5000yuan 5000 yuan or more (including 5000 yuan)

students aged 18-24 working people aged 25-35

88,60%

16,67%

8,77%

14,04%

18,42%

6,14%

61,62%

35,35%

31,31%

25,25%

21,21%

7,07%

0,00%

10,00%

20,00%

30,00%

40,00%

50,00%

60,00%

70,00%

80,00%

90,00%

100,00%

Healing and cute characters Have common topics with

friends

Express personality Follow the trend Collection hobbies Others

Students aged 18-24 Working people aged 25-35

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436

Referring to figure 2, 88.6% of 18-24-year-old

students take emotional healing as the core driving

force, and make purchases because of "healing and

cute characters"; 35.35% of 25-35-year-old working

people make purchases because of "have common

topics with friends" and establish social connections

through Sanrio products.

Figure 3: Sources of healing feelings among students aged 18-24 and working people aged 25-35.

As shown in figure 3, the 18-24-year-old student

group prefers the intuitively driven "immediate

healing"; 50.51% of working people pursue the

healing experience of high-frequency scene

penetration, and believe that daily high-frequency use

categories such as stationery notebooks series and

household living supplies bring a sense of

companionship in daily scenes.

Figure 4: Reasons for repurchasing among students aged 18-24 and working people aged 25-35.

As shown in figure 4, the repurchase behavior of

the 18-24-year-old student group is highly dependent

on the "like character design"; the repurchase

motivation of the 25-35-year-old working people

shows a compound driving feature.

74,56%

40,35% 40,35%

42,11%

41,23%

1,75%

54.55%

50,51%

26,26%

29,29%

5.05%

0,00%

10,00%

20,00%

30,00%

40,00%

50,00%

60,00%

70,00%

80,00%

Plush toys Stationery notebook series Household living supplies Joint limited products Character-themed accessories Others

Students aged 18-24 Working people aged 25-35

29,82%

72,81%

21,05%

35,96%

16,67%

1,75%

30,30%

57,58%

34,34%

36,36%

23,23%

3,03%

0,00%

10,00%

20,00%

30,00%

40,00%

50,00%

60,00%

70,00%

80,00%

Trust in brand quality Like character design Recommended by others Continuous attraction to new products Emotional dependence Others

Students aged 18-24 Working people aged 25-35

A Research on the Segmentation Driving Mechanism of Sanrio Brand Symbols from the Perspective of Consumer Psychology-Based on the

Psychological and Behavioral Differences Between Students Aged 18- 24 and Working People Aged 25-35

437

Figure 5: Purchase frequency of students aged 18-24 and working people aged 25-35.

3.3 Differentiation of Consumer

Behavior

Referring to figure 5, the 18-24-year-old student

group mainly consumes at a low frequency, with

"occasionally (1-2 times a year)" and "generally (1

time per quarter or 3-4 times a year)" accounting for

69.3% of the purchase frequency; the 25-35-year-old

working people have medium-to-high frequency

consumption, with "very frequently (≥1 time a week)"

and "somewhat frequently (2-3 times a month)"

accounting for 32.32% of the purchase frequency.

Figure 6: Single purchase amount of students aged 18-24 and working people aged 25-35.

Referring to figure 6, the 18-24-year-old students

mainly spend small amounts, with 50.88% spending

less than 50 yuan; the 25-35-year-old working people

mainly spend medium amounts, with 50-200 yuan

accounting for 34.34%, and high amounts of more

than 500 yuan accounting for 11.11%.

7,02%

8,77%

35,09%

34,21%

14,91%

15,15%

17,17%

21,21%

32,32%

14,14%

0,00%

5,00%

10,00%

15,00%

20,00%

25,00%

30,00%

35,00%

40,00%

Very frequently (≥1 time per week)

Somewhat frequently (2-3 times per month) Generally (1 time per quarter or 3-4 times per year) Occasionally (1-2 times per year) Never purchased

Students aged 18-24 Working people aged 25-35

50,88%

39,47%

7,89%

1,75%

41,41%

34,34%

13,13%

11,11%

0,00%

10,00%

20,00%

30,00%

40,00%

50,00%

60,00%

Under 50 yuan 50 - 200 yuan 50 - 200 yuan More than 500 yuan

Students aged 18-24 Working people aged 25-35

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Figure 7: Decision-making speed of students aged 18-24 and working people aged 25-35.

Referring to figure 7, students aged 18-24 show

impulsive consumption characteristics, and 40.35%

of consumers complete the process from "want to

buy" to "place an order" within 1 hour.; the 25-35-

year-old working people are characterized by more

rational decision-making, with "considering for a few

days (1 day to 1 week)" and "hesitating for a long

time" accounting for 44.44% in total.

Figure 8: Repurchase behavior of students aged 18-24 and working people 25-35.

As shown in figure 8, the 18-24-year-old student

group mainly repurchases occasionally, "may

(occasionally repurchase)" accounts for 57.89%, and

"definitely (frequent repurchase)" accounts for only

12.28%; the 25-35-year-old working people show

higher repurchase loyalty, "definitely repurchase"

accounts for 23.23%, 10.95% higher than the student

group, and "may repurchase" accounts for 51.52%.

3 DISCUSSION

The psychological motivation of the 18-24-year-old

student group is centered on "emotional intuition".

Humans are emotional, and emotions are a very

important driving factor in human behavior and

decision-making. Therefore, people's purchasing

behavior will be affected by emotions and make

"emotional consumption" (Du, Zhang, 2024).

Consumers will be more inclined to purchase

products and services due to positive emotions such

as pleasure, excitement, and satisfaction, but may also

reduce purchases or choose other brands due to some

negative emotions (Huang, 2025). Student consumers

often perceive products and services through sensory

intuition such as vision and touch. Sanrio's "cute

healing" products meet the emotional needs and

psychological motivations of such consumers.

Emotionally driven purchasing decisions are more

direct and quicker, and consumers may make

purchasing decisions based on their emotional

identification with a brand (Liu, 2025). This type of

purchasing decision behavior is influenced by many

factors such as emotional factors. Decisions based on

40,35%

35,09%

8,77%

15,79%

27,27%

28,28%

16,16%

28,28%

0,00%

5,00%

10,00%

15,00%

20,00%

25,00%

30,00%

35,00%

40,00%

45,00%

Immediately (≤1 hour)

Consider for a few days (1 day-1 week) Hesitate for a long time (more than 1 week) Not sure

Students aged 18-24 Working people aged 25-35

12,28%

57,89%

22,81%

7,02%

23,23%

51,52%

17,17%

8,08%

0,00%

10,00%

20,00%

30,00%

40,00%

50,00%

60,00%

70,00%

Definitely will (repurchase often) Maybe (repurchase occasionally) Not likely Not at all

Students aged 18-24 Working people aged 25-35

A Research on the Segmentation Driving Mechanism of Sanrio Brand Symbols from the Perspective of Consumer Psychology-Based on the

Psychological and Behavioral Differences Between Students Aged 18- 24 and Working People Aged 25-35

439

limited rational consumption are affected by non-

rational factors such as people's intuitive judgment,

psychological shortcuts, emotional influences, and

availability bias when making decisions (Liu, 2024).

Hence, this type of student group essentially takes the

visual and emotional symbol attributes of the

character Intellectual Property (IP) as the core starting

point, and satisfies emotional value needs through

instant decision-making with low thinking costs; The

25-35-year-old working group turns to "social

rationalization", integrating social symbols and

emotional companionship into practical functions.

The essence of human beings is the sum of all social

relations. Consumers engage in social interaction by

consuming various commodity symbols, and are

eager to build interpersonal relationships in society

and gain a sense of belonging in social relationships,

which triggers the herd mentality (Wang, Li, 2024).

"Socialization" is an important consumption

motivation for consumers. The vast majority of

consumers want to have a common language with

their friends, in order to have a common language

with friends around them who have already purchased

products, maintained social relationships and then

generated purchasing behavior (Qi, Liu, 2020). The

essence of "practical healing" for the workplace

group is to achieve practical, healing and social multi-

dimensional satisfaction through the functional

embedding of high-frequency practical categories

and the superposition of emotional symbols under the

pressure of work and life, and to transform the "cute

healing" symbols into practical solutions for daily

high-frequency scenarios.

Based on the differentiated psychological

motivations and consumption behavior

characteristics of the 18-24-year-old student group

and the 25-35-year-old working group, lifestyle

brands such as Sanrio should build a group marketing

strategy system based on "emotional intuition drive"

and "practical healing orientation". For the 18-24-

year-old student group, the core brand strategy should

revolve around "strengthening emotional resonance

and instant consumption". In terms of product

strategy, brands should focus on low-priced, high-

frequency items to meet their emotional catharsis

needs in fragmented scenarios. In terms of scenario

marketing, brands should stimulate visual emotional

resonance through cute content, and achieve close

contact through campus communities and

convenience stores. In terms of user operations,

brands need to strengthen the in-depth interaction of

character IPs, and continue to stimulate occasional

repurchase behavior caused by this group's "liking for

character IPs" through rapid iteration of new products

and limited edition scarcity design; For the 25-35-

year-old working group, the brand strategy focuses on

"the integration of scenario-based practical value and

social identity". In terms of product strategy, brands

should develop "workplace healing" categories, such

as character-themed office stationery and co-branded

household products, taking into account both

practicality and design. In terms of scenario

marketing, brands should create scenario-based

content such as "office ritual sense" and "commuting

companionship" through workplace Key Opinion

Leaders (KOLs) to build a link between symbolic

value and productivity. In terms of user operations,

brands should build a membership system to improve

brand loyalty, provide limited peripheral redemption

and exclusive services for highly loyal users to

improve consumer stickiness, and use the scarcity of

co-branded products to meet their social capital

accumulation needs.

It should be noted that this research mainly relies

on quantitative data from questionnaire surveys.

Although it can reveal significant differences

between groups and provide group marketing

strategies, quantitative data is mainly based on

statistical laws, which may mask individual

differences and make it difficult to present specific

scenarios and emotional details in consumer behavior.

Moreover, quantitative research relies on preset age

and identity groups and may ignore subgroup

differences. Hence, this research still has limitations

and needs to be supplemented by mixed methods.

4 CONCLUSION

This research established a dynamic conduction

model of "age stratification-psychological

motivation-consumption behavior" to analyze the

different purchasing decision-making behaviors

driven by the differentiated psychological

motivations of the 18-24-year-old student group and

the 25-35-year-old group. Among them, the 18-24-

year-old student group takes the inner emotional

needs as the core driving force, presenting low-

frequency, small-amount, impulsive consumption

and occasional repurchase consumption behaviors. It

is necessary to build a marketing strategy of

"emotional intuition drive" for them to strengthen

emotional linkage. The 25-35-year-old group takes

"social identity, practical healing" as the core driving

force, presenting the characteristics of medium-high

frequency, medium amount, rational decision-making

and higher repurchase loyalty. It is necessary to build

a marketing strategy of "practical healing orientation"

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for them to deepen the penetration of high-frequency

scenarios. This research is limited to the use of single

quantitative analysis. In the future, mixed methods

can be used to deepen the analysis, and eye tracking

and other technologies can be combined to explore

the subconscious appeal of symbol design. The

difference in cultural context between countries may

also lead to the division of consumer motivation and

behavior, and cross-cultural comparative research can

be further carried out in the future.

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A Research on the Segmentation Driving Mechanism of Sanrio Brand Symbols from the Perspective of Consumer Psychology-Based on the

Psychological and Behavioral Differences Between Students Aged 18- 24 and Working People Aged 25-35

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