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The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of a research study that sought to identify the key dimensions of luxury from a UK consumers’ perspective.

The project was empirical in nature and based on a two-stage methodology that involved a series of depth interviews with consumers and a street intercept survey of 131 consumers in the UK.

The project found that UK consumers appear to recognise five dimensions of luxury (affect, characteristics, status, gifting and involvement).

The main limitation was a small sample size and limited statistical significance.

The paper should usefully focus the attention and efforts of managers of luxury brands, managers of ordinary brands who desire to develop them into luxury brands, and managers who are considering creating luxury brands in the UK. The findings should inform management decisions relating to product development, advertising, promotion and distribution of luxury products and services.

The paper makes an original contribution to knowledge by reporting the findings of an empirical study of luxury from the UK consumers’ perspective. It has value to academic researchers who are interested in the concept of luxury as well as those involved in or considering luxury brand management.

Rohm and Haas have appointed one of their most senior executives to the post of regional director of environmental health and safety.

In recent years, quality assurance schemes have grown considerably in number and scope. Several useful benefits have been claimed for them including their value as marketing advantages. However, there appears to be a paucity of published research to support this claim. This paper, therefore, seeks to substantiate the claim that quality assurance schemes represent useful marketing advantages as well as determining the magnitude of the advantage. The study is based on conjoint analysis as it is argued that this is a more realistic and therefore, appropriate research technique than the direct elicitation approach embodied in simply asking consumers for their opinions concerning quality assurance schemes. The paper concludes that quality assurance is an influence on the consumer decision process for mince beef and in addition provides an indication as to its relative importance. It also speculates on the implications for quality assurance schemes in general.

This paper seeks to address a gap in the literature relating to crisis brand management in emerging markets.

The study is based on secondary research and 15 qualitative depth interviews with mothers living in Beijing.

The study found that the Chinese infant milk powder incident significantly reduced confidence in domestic brands, altered perceptions of domestic brands, and had a profound effect on buying behaviour.

The study is based primarily on a consumer perspective and the findings cannot be generalised to a wider population with known levels of statistical significance because of the qualitative methodology and small sample size.

The paper concludes that while crisis brand management requires managers to undertake similar actions whether they work in an emerging or a developed market, the cultural environment may cause them to actually take different actions.

This paper makes an original contribution to knowledge regarding crisis brand management in an emerging market via insight provided by the 2008 Chinese infant milk powder incident.

Against a background of world‐wide recession, there are now definite signs that the chemical industry is again on the upturn. But optimism is clouded by persistent problems of overcapacity, price instability and the difficulty of retaining acceptable profit margins. One possible solution—taken up by ICI—is a commodity exchange offering greater flexibility on contracts. Report by Roger Eglin.