How digital platforms influence luxury purchase behavior in India?

In an emerging country such as India, consumers are tech savvy and connect easily with digital media platforms. They use these platforms even for luxury purchases. However, there have been only a few conceptual papers on this process. Therefore, this study aims to explain how digital platforms influence consumers’ decision for luxury brands in India. Two qualitative studies were conducted with young Indian consumers as they are the heaviest users of digital platforms and the most frequent purchasers of luxury brands. The first study consisted of 156 respondents in 15 focus groups in four major Indian cities. The second was made up of 95 on-site customer observations in 18 retail luxury stores and 45 consumers’ interviews. These data were further validated by 32 interviews with luxury brand managers and retail managers We found and developed a cyclical framework that projects digital media influences on Indian consumers at all the phases of purchase, i.e., pre-purchase is digital and hedonic, purchase is experiential and enjoyable while digital media is used and post-purchase is based on aspirations, lifestyles and virtual networks. More importantly, these consumers are always connected to reference groups digitally who significantly affect their purchase behavior and subsequent brand choices.     

Pillars of sustainable food experiences in the luxury gastronomy sector: A qualitative exploration of Michelin-starred chefs’ motivations

Based on a qualitative exploratory study that combined three sources of qualitative data: interviews, archival data, and observational notes this research aims to explore the dimensions of sustainable food experiences offered in the luxury gastronomic industry. Our research indicates two critical findings. First, chefs’ definition of sustainable luxury food experiences should encompass both functional (e.g., sustainable and healthy food, eco-friendly practices) and experiential (e.g., sensory, creativity, pleasure, aesthetics) aspects. Second, Michelin-starred chefs’ motivations to adopt and promote sustainability incorporate, in addition to extrinsic factors (Planet and people), intrinsic factors (plate, pleasure, and place) not addressed previously in the literature. Our study enriches the literature on sustainable hospitality overall, and in particular in luxury restaurants by considering an emic perspective centered on the way the principal actors (chefs) define and implement sustainability in a new service and hospitality sector: the luxury gastronomy sector.     

Away from home: How young Chinese consumers travel with global brands?

This interpretive study investigates how a group of young Chinese students consume global brands of American origins, in China and in the UK. More specifically, this research examines how meanings attached to global food brands travel abroad with consumers and investigates the relationship between brand consistency and brand meanings across national boundaries. Findings from a thematic analysis of focus group interviews conducted over a nine-month period, reveal that some brand meanings are context and culture specific (contextual meanings) while other meanings travel with consumers across borders (core meanings). Theoretically, this study shows how global brands provide a platform of structural meanings, ideas and practices that are global and globalising in themselves, allowing a degree of fluidity and adaptation in relation to the local context of consumption.     

Political brand image: an investigation into the operationalisation of the external orientation of David Cameron’s Conservative brand

This paper seeks to address the limited understanding of how to operationalise the external brand image of a political brand. More specifically, this research critically assesses the transfer potential of the six variables of brand image by Bosch, Venter, Han and Boshoff to deconstruct the UK Conservative Party brand from the perspective of young people aged 18–24 years during the 2010 UK General Election campaign. This research demonstrates the applicability of the six variables otherwise known as the ‘brand image framework’ to the political environment. However, the application of the brand image framework in its original conceptualisation proved problematic. Many of the brand image variables were clarified, rearticulated and simplified to address the political context. This refined conceptualisation provided an in-depth understanding of how to investigate the political brand image of David Cameron’s Conservative Party. This study addresses the paucity of research that operationalises external brand image and provides practitioners and academics within and beyond the context of political branding a mechanism to understand the external orientation of brands. This research may also be used by political and non-political brands as a basis to explore external brand image and compare its consistency with internal brand identity.     

Status of brands in children’s consumption: What letters to Santa posted on La Poste website tell us

The purpose of the research is to identify different consumption styles based on a large collection of letters to Santa written by some children and/or their families and submitted to the French Post website (La Poste). One of our main interests focuses on the presence and weight of brands and licenses in children’s wish lists. We have had access to all the anonymous posts sent to Santa Claus through La Poste’s website during the 2013 and 2014 Christmas holidays. We analyzed the nature of the wish lists as shown in the 43,000‐post database using several textual data analysis techniques. Extensive heterogeneity was found among children’s and families’ postures regarding that specific ritual. The different types of emails reflect the meaning families associate with Christmas time but also their different consumption styles or attitudes toward consumption: reasoned, educational, hedonistic, or materialistic, for example. When focusing on brands and licenses, we can also observe significant differences in the way families and children include them in their consumption decisions. Brands could have a very different weight in Christmas wish lists and their natures reflect different value transmission modes. The French market for Christmas children brands is rather stable and focuses on a few top leading global brands such as Playmobil, Barbie, or Lego. At least one of the ten leading brands is mentioned in half of evaluated Christmas wish lists. The analysis confirms that brands are very clearly gendered and associated with the children’s ages. Peak time for brand desire is alleged to be reached between the age of 7 and 9. To our knowledge, our research is the first to analyze a large sample of spontaneous data to capture children’s consumption styles and attitudes toward brands. Because of our classification, a first typology of parental consumption styles has also been identified.     

Dreaming of the West: The power of the brand in Soviet Lithuania, 1960s–1980s

Abstract

The article reveals the interest in foreign trademarks observed in Lithuanian society from the 1960s through the 1980s, when the demand for brand names spread after Western culture reached the Soviet Union. The consumption of Western cultural products, or imitations thereof, became one of the key symbolic expressions of freedom in Soviet society. In Lithuania, the most popular clothes were those bearing fake trademarks, even though Soviet authorities attempted to prevent the desire for and the wearing of these garments through the use of ideological tools.     

Enhancing brand coolness through perceived luxury values: Insight from luxury fashion brands

Consumers of luxury brands have been described as seekers of products that can offer a signaling value to present to others but also a value for their self-concepts in an existentialist spirit potentially linked to being “cool or not.” Prior studies have conceptualized brand coolness and evaluated its impact on consumer responses to brands. However, few studies have contextualized the construct of brand coolness concerning luxury brand realism. We assessed the semiotic tension that luxury brand consumers feel between self-concept and self-presentation to others via a theoretical consideration of four antecedents of brand coolness: individual, social, financial, and functional luxury values; and one intentional outcome such as consumers' passionate desire to use luxury fashion brands. Our findings indicated that luxury values positively influence brand coolness, and brand coolness positively influences passionate desire. We further confirmed that brand coolness plays a complementary mediating role between luxury values and passionate desire. A final contribution is to invite brand managers to consider how luxury values and brand coolness might be used proactively to drive consumers' passionate desires in the relationships with luxury fashion brands.     

Building value co-creation with social media marketing,brand trust,and brand loyalty

Value co-creation has emerged as a critical challenge for fashion brands in the age of social media. Despite its importance, scholars have not adequately explored the role of social media marketing (SMM) in enhancing value co-creation (VCC) intentions among fashion brand consumers in mainland China. SMM encompasses five hierarchical elements: entertainment, customization, interaction, electronic word-of-mouth (EWOM), and trendiness. This study developed a theoretical framework based on attribution theory and employed the partial least squares–structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) method to analyze the value co-creation process. The results indicate that SMM positively impacts brand loyalty (BL), brand trust (BT), and VCC. Furthermore, BT positively affects BL and VCC, while also serving as a positive mediator between SMM and BL and VCC. Finally, BL positively enhances the VCC intentions of fashion brand consumers. Our study's unique insights, derived from the attribution theory's advantage point, enrich the marketing literature. These findings also offer practical guidelines and tips for marketing managers seeking to optimize their SMM mix for VCC.     

Mobile tax base as a global common

If countries anticipate international Bertrand competition in tax rates, they may expend effort that makes some of their taxpayers less mobile or increases the mobility of taxpayers elsewhere. Piecemeal evidence on what activities countries use is provided. Such activities are analyzed that interact with Bertrand tax competition if the size of the groups of loyal and nonloyal citizens or investors is endogenous. Further, the implications of tax harmonization and minimum taxes for these types of nonprice competition are considered. Home attachment reduces the intensity of tax competition, but generates a strategic disadvantage for the country that invests much in such home attachment. Harmonization of taxes and high minimum taxes can intensify countries’ investment in home attachment.      

谈服装品牌中的视觉营销策略研究

一直以来,视觉营销仅仅被作为市场营销层面上一部分销售技术的总和。而在品牌竞争日趋激烈的今天,顾客的注意力就是企业的效益。视觉营销不再只被作为一种实用的技巧,而是被看作一项重要的营销策略、一个完整的系统工程,贯穿品牌整个运作过程的始终。视觉营销策略作为企业有效竞争力,已经成为服装品牌企业在新竞争环境下的新的营销战略思想。