The role of intangible attributes of luxury brands for signalling status: A systematic literature review

Previously, signalling status had been primarily studied from the conspicuousness of luxury brands, including high prices and prominent designs. However, less attention has been directed toward other elements of brands that could be strategically managed in order to enable consumers signalling status. This study synthesizes the literature using a framework based on four intangible attributes of luxury brands: user profile, purchase usage, personality and values and heritage. The topics studied under each of the four intangible attributes were analysed using a systematic approach. Based on the interconnectedness of the topics studied, this review proposes that the intangible attributes used as a framework may have a synergistic interaction, in contrast with the current perspective that considers them as independently and equally relevant for consumers signalling status. It also reports the psychological function of these intangible attributes and supports the notion that consumers use luxury brands either to routinely affirm their status within a group or to enhance that status. This review contributes to the literature on luxury and signalling by considering luxury consumption as a social process. A functional perspective on the intangible attributes of luxury brands provides the basis for some insightful directions to advance this field of research.     

农产品品牌提高农业竞争力的机理与实证分析——以四川省91个县域的农产品地理标志为例

[目的]文章在构建农产品品牌提高农业竞争力理论模型的基础上，剖析农产品品牌对农业竞争力的作用机理。[方法]运用面板门槛模型和分位数回归模型，利用2011—2019年县域数据，将农产品地理标志的保护范围纳入到农产品品牌的测算中，实证检验了农产品品牌对农业竞争力的影响及作用机制。[结果]（1）农产品品牌的提升能有效提高农业竞争力水平，川南经济区的农产品品牌对农业竞争力促进效果显著，而成都平原经济区和川东北经济区不能有效促进农业竞争力水平；（2）农产品品牌与农业竞争力之间存在经济发展和城镇化门槛效应，经济发展水平为门槛变量时，农产品品牌与农业竞争力之间呈现非线性增长，城镇化水平为门槛变量时，农产品品牌与农业竞争力之间呈现正“U”形关系；（3）在低分位点上，农产品品牌对农业竞争力呈现显著的正向影响，在高分位点上，农产品品牌对农业竞争力的影响不显著。[结论]因地制策，充分发挥农产品品牌对农业竞争力的促进作用；量体裁衣，创新农产品品牌与经济发展和城镇化的协同发展机制；因势制导，推动农产品品牌从政策化迈入市场化。     

The Eureka moment in understanding luxury brand purchases! A non-linear fsQCA-ANN approach

Although substantial research has been conducted to understand the luxury brand consumption at a global level, especially in the Western market, far less attention has been dedicated to the identification of factors driving such purchases in the Asia-Pacific region. This gap is addressed in the present study, which draws upon the extended theory of planned behavior (TPB) and complexity theory (CT) to identify the non-linear causal pathways pertaining to Chinese consumers’ luxury brand purchase intention. An online survey was conducted with a sample of Chinese consumers to gather data related to their attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, self-congruity, power distance beliefs, and gender. An asymmetrical-based approach was adopted by combining fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) with artificial neural network (ANN) analysis. The fsQCA results showed that there are seven solutions (i.e., various combinations of causal antecedents) that can facilitate the formation of luxury brand purchase intention, four of which are gender-specific. After completing the fsQCA, the ANN analysis was conducted to rank the causal conditions in terms of their importance, indicating that attitude and subjective norms are the most relevant antecedents. The present study contributes to the existing luxury branding literature by reevaluating and extending the well-established TPB with new variables and new research lens (i.e., asymmetric thinking). More specifically, this study represents the pioneering effort to apply set theoretic approach in understanding luxury goods consumption, thereby yielding more insightful results that reflect the complexity of reality, and thus advance the findings yielded by past studies that relied on variance-based methods.     

Factors that influence manufacturer and store brand behavioral loyalty

This study examines the factors that are linked to consumer goods brands having unusually high or low behavioral loyalty, after controlling for the association between brand size and loyalty that occurs due to the ‘double jeopardy’ effect. Behavioral, or repeat-purchase loyalty is measured as the brand's average share of category requirements (in volume) among its buyers over a 12-month period. We examine a range of factors that theory or past evidence suggests are associated with higher or lower behavioral loyalty, including brand type (store brand/manufacturer brand), price level, promotion intensity, as well as average brand volume per occasion and pack size. Using extensive US panel purchasing data, we find that store brands exhibit relatively higher behavioral loyalty than manufacturer brands. We explain the theory behind this result. We also find that the brand's average pack size and volume bought per occasion has a markedly positive association with behavioral loyalty. Finally, we find that the effect of low price on excess loyalty is moderated via a positive association with average volume purchase per occasion. These findings add to the body of knowledge relating to patterns in behavioral brand loyalty for both manufacturer and store brands, as well as the marketing-mix factors that influence it.     

Don’t put all your green eggs in one basket: Examining environmentally friendly sub-branding strategies

Although marketers are increasingly developing strategies to promote environmentally-friendly images for their brands, little is known about green brand architecture strategies. The current study examines two sub-branding strategies and finds that when green products are dispersed across several sub-brands (vs. concentrated within one sub-brand), consumers are more likely to infer that the overall parent brand is environmentally friendly. The sincerity of the company’s sustainability efforts is found to mediate the effects of the sub-branding strategy on consumers’ eco-friendly beliefs of the parent brand. Specifically, consumers associate dispersed strategy (vs. concentrated strategy) with intrinsic motive (vs. extrinsic motive) of the company’s sustainability policy. As a result, dispersed strategy instead of concentrated strategy promotes spillover effects of sustainability to the parent brand, demonstrating the impact of brand structure on spillover to the parent brand equity. Managerial implications are discussed related to the automobile company’s sub-branding strategy.     

When goliaths win and davids lose: The moderating role of perceived risk in brand biography effects

Brand biographies trace a brand's evolution to position it as an underdog (i.e., passion and determination that lead to success despite limited resources) or a topdog (i.e., success based on abundance of resources) brand. This study examines how consumers’ risk perceptions associated with brand choice influence brand biography effects. It demonstrates that when perceived risk associated with brand choice is low, consumers process brand biographies narratively, experience greater narrative transportation into underdog (vs. topdog) brand biographies, and evaluate the underdog brand more favorably. When perceived risk associated with brand choice is high, consumers respond more positively to topdog (vs. underdog) brand biographies, due to topdog brands’ greater perceived ability to reduce risk. The topdog effect observed at higher levels of perceived risk reverses, however, when consumers have the opportunity to process the brand biography before receiving high risk information, as this allows for narrative transportation into the brand biography. This study contributes to research on moderators of brand biography effects and suggests that perceived risk should play a role in marketers’ decision to emphasize underdog or topdog characteristics in brand biographies.