Search

Consumers show increasing levels of concern regarding disclosing information to companies, as retailers’ access to their personal information heightens their feelings of vulnerability. Although customers’ personal information is crucial for targeting actual and potential customers, the extant discussion regarding the determinants of customers’ willingness to disclose personal information is limited. Drawing upon social judgment theory, this study investigates how consumers experience different levels of perceived warmth, which alleviates privacy concerns and, in turn, affects their willingness to disclose personal information during different stages of the online customer purchase journey. A mixed-method design combining a focus group (Study 1), an online experiment, a field study and a laboratory experiment (Studies 2, 3 and 4) provide a multifaceted representation of this phenomenon. The results show that compared to the prepurchase phase, asking for personal information at the end of the online customer purchase journey (i.e., purchase and postpurchase phases) leads to a higher perception of warmth and lower privacy concerns, thereby increasing customers’ disclosure of personal data. The findings are robust to consumers’ brand familiarity and other relevant sociodemographic variables. This research provides insightful theoretical and practical implications for retailers regarding how to enhance perceived warmth and improve customers’ willingness to disclose personal information.

QR code is an important pull technology tool that has increased exponentially worldwide. Although its usefulness for marketers has been widely recognised, little is known about the type of message ...

Purpose This paper aims to provide scholars and practitioners with an innovative method of analyzing luxury brand associations in social media (i.e. Twitter). To do so, authors investigated the alignment between luxury brand identity and luxury brand image in online communication, taking into consideration firm- and user-generated content (UGC) in the form of bloggers’ contents. This paper introduces new tools that luxury brand managers could use to manage and adapt the way they communicate and interact with their customers. Design/methodology/approach The study adopts a qualitative approach based on a content analysis of Twitter posts of six luxury fashion brands (1,334 posts) and the related Twitter electronic word-of-mouth of fashion bloggers (329 tweets). Findings The results show a match between luxury brand identity and luxury brand image on Twitter. Specifically, the findings indicate that both brands and bloggers stress the same dimensions of luxury (aesthetic, desirable, symbolic, restricted accessibility and hedonistic experience) confirming that the ways they communicate luxury brands to consumers are aligned. Moreover, the results suggest that luxury brands could reinforce their brand value by making more use of words that are semantically related to luxury. Originality/value This study approaches the relationship between social media and luxury brands in a novel way and provides scholars and managers with a tool for monitoring the gap between desired and perceived brand associations.

© 2020 Elsevier Inc. There is a general lack of clarity regarding measurement of the self-brand congruity construct, which also calls for cross-national validation. Although previous evidence suggests a positive relationship between self-brand congruity and consumer brand associations (brand attachment), this relationship requires a deeper investigation. This study tests and validates a personality congruence scale in the luxury sector on an international level. Based on a survey of nearly 1500 international luxury customers, it also measures the effect of congruence on brand attachment. The findings confirm that the personality congruence structure is based on five dimensions: prestige, emotion, trust, anxiety, and order. The results highlight the personality congruence effect and its influence on brand attachment. Finally, similarities and differences across countries are detected in the personality congruence and brand attachment relationship. Theoretical and managerial implications are also discussed. This study contributes to the literature on brand personality congruence and its impact on brand attachment in the luxury context.

This paper aims to understand how user-generated content (UGC) affects the process of place branding by identifying the main associations of various actors related to London and Florence, both traditionally linked to the fashion industry. In particular, this study focuses on fashion as a city image component that contributes to the construction of the image of London and Florence. This research applies a content analysis of visual information (pictures) and textual information (hashtags) available on social networks (i.e. Instagram), typing the hashtags #London and #Florence, to reconstruct the brand image of these two cities. As the recent literature has argued for brands or products, even for places and cities, it is important to monitor the perceived city brand image resulting from the overall online experience, especially on social media. This paper is one of the first to apply content analysis on Instagram in relation to city branding, where the core of communication is based on images. Therefore, in contrast to previous studies, this work principally focuses on visual communication, as a form of textual paralanguage communication, for the construction of a city image for London and Florence.

This special issue was jointly conceived together with the 2015 Global Fashion Management Conference at Florence entitled “Renaissance of Marketing and Management in Fashion” organized by t...

Price has always had a key role in the luxury fashion market, because high prices are linked to the uniqueness and the prestige of luxury products and brands. Because of this direct contribution of price to the luxury essence, scholars have partially neglected the possible existence of unintuitive and controversial pricing strategies followed by luxury firms. This article deals with this literature gap, particularly analyzing a specific pricing strategy that seems to be in contrast with the nature of luxury pricing: the odd-even price (OEP). With the direct observation of physical and digital store windows of 20 luxury brands, this research investigates the role of OEP in the fashion luxury sector. Particularly, this work examines the relationship between the OEP strategy and the luxury level of fashion brands considering both offline and online channels.

International audience; Scant evidence is available on of how social media marketing activities influence brand equity creation and consumers' behavior towards a brand. This research explores these relationships by analyzing pioneering brands in the luxury sector (Burberry, Dior, Gucci, Hermès, and Louis Vuitton). Based on a survey of 845 luxury brand consumers (Chinese, French, Indian, and Italian), who follow the five brands studied on social media, the study develops a structural equation model that helps to address gaps in prior social media branding literature. Specifically, the study demonstrates the links between social media marketing efforts and their consequences (brand preference, price premium, and loyalty). The study measures brands' social media marketing efforts as a holistic concept that incorporates five aspects (entertainment, interaction, trendiness, customization, and word of mouth). Another contribution of the study is that it finds that SMMEs have a significant positive effect on brand equity and on the two main dimensions of brand equity: brand awareness and brand image.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the relationship between fashion events and the territory where they take place, focusing on how this relationship can also affect fashion consumers’ behavior. History and culture, together with creativity and innovation, represent the distinctive traits of global fashion cities; at the same time, these characteristics are the basis of the fashion industry, which combines past, present and future in a constant state of renewal. On the empirical side, using a qualitative methodology, the research presents a case study, investigating the relationship between the city of Florence and its most important fashion events, Pitti Immagine fairs. Main findings show the distinctive elements of these events, highlighting the strong synergy and the mutual influence between Pitti Immagine fashion events and the territory of Florence. In terms of managerial implications, the authors suggest the existence of a mutual effect between the Florentine city and Pitti Immagine, both i...

This special section, “Italian Fashion Case Study”, is part of the Global Fashion Landscape project initiated by the Global Alliance of Marketing & Management Associations. Researchers and business leaders aspire to understand current trends, types and characteristics and their application to consumer behavior in leading fashion cities. Understanding consumer behavior in those major global fashion cities will affect the success of the fashion business in the future. The current special section shows the relevance of the link between fashion cities and fashion brands. It provides the opportunity for marketing scholars to investigate the transfer of culture and heritage of a city in the perception of fashion brands through different points of view. Undeniably, the reputation of a city and of the street where a store or a museum is located could influence fashion brands’ identity.

PurposeThe authors' research was carried out with the aim of analyzing perception of luxury and luxury brands among an international sample of young people.Design/methodology/approachThis article was based on an empirical study among 233 respondents. First, a qualitative analysis of content using the respondents' own words was conducted. Then, to show whether there are differences between countries and significant groups of countries, an analysis of variance (one‐way ANOVA) was performed and analyzed with Fisher F‐test and post‐hoc Duncan tests.FindingsBeyond the belief in the existence of two stable groups of developed and developing countries with regard to luxury, this study shows a situation that requires further analysis. The main results show some strong cross‐cultural differences in the perception of luxury, which is multi‐faceted as demonstrated by previous studies in this field.Research limitations/implicationsResults of this exploratory study confirm that the concept of luxury presents multiple facets, and the authors' analysis provides an in‐depth survey of the main categories and attributes that can be used to describe this concept. Although this study was only exploratory in nature, a number of comments can be made to highlight the congruence between the concept of luxury for young people and recent academic literature.Practical implicationsTo maintain their brand equity, companies in the luxury sector seek to improve their image within younger targets. Managerial implications of the authors' research indicate that international luxury companies should take into consideration the multi‐faceted concept of luxury in general, but also the main differences between countries in the continuum between the “status” and “emotional” dimensions of luxury. According to the authors' research, luxury companies cannot adopt a global strategy when addressing the six countries analyzed. Some managerial recommendations are developed in this perspective.Originality/valueThe additional value of this article stems from its reliance on a cross‐cultural in‐depth study between six countries (Italy, France, Germany, China, Japan, and USA). The balance between qualitative and quantitative techniques makes this article particularly relevant when drawing both conceptual and managerial conclusions.

International luxury businesses are challenged by the identification and satisfaction of the common needs and desires of global market segments. Although luxury goods have become available to a wider range of consumers, the traditional conspicuous consumption model has been transformed into a new experiential luxury sensibility that is marked by a change in the way that consumers define luxury. Based on an empirical study in collaboration with American, European, and Asian researchers, the results provide evidence that consumers in various parts of the world purchase or wish to purchase luxury products for varied reasons but that such consumers generally possess similar values. Regardless of their countries of origin, the basic motivational drivers of luxury consumers are similar among the financial, functional, personal, and social dimensions of luxury value perceptions, although the relative importance of these dimensions varies.

International audience; The effects of the country-of-origin (COO) upon consumer perceptions and purchase intentions remain of interest to marketing researchers. Our paper analyses the perception of the COO and of brands, and their influence on consumer perception and purchasing intention. A cross-national sample was set up in order to obtain a more complex understanding of how the COO concept operates in various countries across different product categories (convenience products, shopping goods and specialty/luxury products).

Recently, has there been a change in the perception of luxury: from an elitist concept to a consideration of luxury as a many-faceted issue [3], [10]. In the last few years, it has become clear that luxury consumption is open to different kinds of consumers, and that it therefore contributes to defining differentiated identities.

International audience; This research aims to update the factors influencing consumer purchase of luxury goods and, more specifically, to consider the combined effect of brand and country of origin (CoO) on the purchasing decision. This article extends an exploratory phase constructed from qualitative data previously gathered on this topic. The study includes administering a questionnaire online in seven countries (China, France, India, Italy, Japan, Russia, and the USA) to a total sample of 1102 respondents. The richness of this research relates to the possibility of an intercultural analysis of the results from seven countries. These results concern the differences in the relative importance of components of the consumer decision-making process in respect of the purchase of luxury and non-luxury goods; the relative importance of CoO for consumers making purchasing decisions relating to luxury goods; and the variation in consumers' decision-making criteria depending on the maturity of the luxury market. This research allows the authors to confirm, develop, and generalize results previously obtained in the exploratory phase of their work. They are interesting in terms of management recommendations for a company that wishes to expand internationally in a geographic area covered by the study, since the research found significant differences. The results of the research contribute also to the theoretical controversy concerning the importance of CoO in the consumer decision-making process.