Search results

This study sets out to explore how consumers may be segmented based on their levels of apparel product involvement using Kapferer and Laurent's consumer involvement profiles (CIP). It also seeks to examine whether consumers within each profile group could be differentiated by their personally‐held values.

Questionnaires were mailed to female consumers, ages 18 and over, randomly selected from a consumer database. Responses from 757 female consumers were used. The response rate based on delivered questionnaires was 30 percent. Laurent and Kapferer's CIP was used to measure consumer involvement and Kahle's list of values (LOV) was used to measure consumer values.

Five consumer involvement types were identified based on four dimensions of involvement: challenged moderate, knowledged enthusiast, indifferent moderate, challenged enthusiast, and cautious moderate. This study found that values could be used to further explain differences between the enthusiast and moderate consumer types. All nine value items showed significant relationships with dimensions perceived/sign and pleasure interest. Knowledge enthusiast and challenged enthusiast types perceived many values to be significantly more important then challenged moderate types.

Current findings varied somewhat from prior study results using the CIP scale. Further examination of the CIP scale in terms of dimensionality, validity and reliability are suggested.

This research segments consumers based on their levels of product involvement and profiles each group by personally‐held values.

Going beyond odd and even prices, this paper aims to explore the rationale behind the widespread practice of setting prices ending in “50” or “80” in the luxury industry. The authors argue that when they set such prices, managers agree to reduce their profit margin to limit the anticipated guilt luxury consumers associate with luxury shopping while also protecting their brand luxury. The authors label these prices compromise prices and formally define compromise pricing as the practice of choosing a price’s ending so that the price falls below (but not just below) a round number to boost sales without damaging brand luxury.

Following the observation of the overrepresentation of prices ending in “50” and “80” in the luxury clothing category, an experiment explores the impact of compromise prices on anticipated guilt and brand luxury in the luxury watch category. Then, to identify when luxury pricing managers typically favor compromise prices, multinomial regressions investigate prices collected on two online luxury fashion retailers for the luxury clothing and handbag categories.

Compromise prices reduce the anticipated guilt luxury consumers associate with luxury shopping compared with even prices while enhancing brand luxury compared with odd prices and interestingly, with even prices also. This finding gives rationale to luxury managers’ preference for compromise prices in the ninth hundred (i.e. €X950, €X980), especially for higher-priced products, i.e. when the potential for price underestimation and/or the risk of damaging brand luxury are more important.

This research contributes to the field of luxury pricing by providing evidence to an original price-ending practice, coined compromise pricing, which consists in agreeing to a slight reduction in prices and unit margin to protect brand luxury.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual model that examines wine channels typified by differing levels of service orientation, and resulting branding implications based on consumer involvement and value co‐creation properties. Examples of channels characterised by relatively low levels of organisational service provision include supermarket retailing, while higher levels of service orientation are found in channels such as restaurants and wine tourism. The model thus provides a framework for analysis of wine branding across distribution channels characterised by differing levels of service orientation.

A literature review addressing service provision in wine marketing, consumer involvement and needs, value co‐creation and branding is proposed in the paper.

An integrative conceptual model and associated research issues are derived from a review of relevant literature.

The paper provides a research agenda for involvement‐based wine branding across more traditional, external marketing‐oriented channels (e.g. supermarket retailing) and emerging, more interactive/relational wine marketing service sectors (e.g. restaurateurs, tourism).

The paper provides a deeper understanding of wine marketing in growing forms of service‐based wine channels.

This study investigates consumers’ affective attachments toward products, based on generalizable and managerially relevant product attributes. Two surveys of 123 consumers found that high‐involvement, high‐meaning products tend to share ten common attributes. The managerial implications of each attribute are discussed, including specific ways that brand managers and new product development teams can engineer relationships between brands and customers.

Wine tourism is a major public relations medium and for many wineries a major source of revenue. This article uses theories of brand equity to develop cellar door strategies. These theories are supported by previous research into product involvement with wine, which shows that high and low involvement wine buyers behave differently. The two segments must be catered for differently if a winery is to build its overall reputation and brand equity. Wineries can enhance their long‐term market‐based assets through building customer relationships at cellar door. Strategies and examples are provided.

Adam Smith sees religion both as having a useful and a dangerous role. People create gods to explain what they do not understand and appease their desire of justice when human justice is perceived to fail. These are socially useful functions of religion. But when religion is used as a political tool and is used for state capture purposes, then it becomes a dangerous and destructive force in society.

This chapter intends to give insights into the use of technologies such as virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and artificial intelligence (AI) in tourism and hospitality. Thus, the objectives are to: (1) give an overview about the meaning of luxury the use of technologies in tourism and hospitality, (2) provide examples about the use of such technologies (e.g., VR, AR, AI in practice) and (3) point out suggestions about further research in the interface of luxury and technologies in tourism and hospitality. The chapter is of interest to both academics and practitioners since it presents luxury, VR, AR and AI concepts, gives examples of technologies applications and points out critical areas for future research.

Companies inevitably interact and entrench in complex organic systems of business relationships with other. These business networks are not objectively defined, instead they are shaped by the subjective perception of actors. This inherent subjectivity is associated with the notion of network pictures, that is, a research tool that researchers or managers can use to grasp practitioner theories. In this chapter, we discuss how the importance of identifying these theories results mainly from underlying principles of sense-making theory, as well as from the idea around performativity. Drawing on these theoretical groundings, this chapter has two objectives: to explore how practitioners actually perceive their business surroundings and to assess the extent of overlapping between (IMP Group) academic theories and practitioner theories. To achieve these objectives, the researchers use a dimensional network pictures model previously developed in the literature to analyze the network pictures of 49 top-level managers across 17 companies from two very distinct contexts or networks: a product-based network and a project-based network. Among other practices, findings illustrate how practitioners tend to simplify what is going on in their complex surroundings, to personalize their relationships with those surroundings, and to think in a stereotyped way. Moreover, the juxtaposition between the captured practitioner theories and academic (IMP Group) theories show that these are not always overlapping, and are in some cases quite the opposite. This research contributes to the ongoing discussion of the importance of grasping actors’ views of the world, arguing that sense-making theory and the notion of performativity are the two main conceptual drivers justifying the urgency in making those views more visible. This research also adds to the research on the impact and suitability of IMP Group theories on managerial thinking and practice. Finally, this research reinforces the current call for further practice-based research in business network contexts.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to further our understanding of the sources of consumer animosity and the moderating role of product involvement on purchase intentions.

Animosity is examined in the context of South Korean consumers’ purchase intentions toward Japanese products. A structural equation model was estimated in Lisrel 8.80 to assess the proposed model.

The results offer evidence that consumer ethnocentrism and susceptibility to normative influence have a positive relationship with animosity while cosmopolitanism has a negative relationship with animosity. Furthermore, animosity negatively influences intentions to purchase for high-involvement products, but not for low-involvement products.

International marketing managers can better identify the risk that consumer animosity poses to their products and services based on level of product involvement and characteristics of the market segment.

This study offers clarity to the understanding of animosity by examining additional antecedents of animosity that reflect different world views. It also provides an exception to the previous findings that in general animosity has a negative impact on consumers’ willingness to buy products of countries for which consumers have animosity. In other words, the effect of animosity on purchase intention of products from a disliked country depends on the degree of involvement.