As the demand for luxury brands faces uprising trends in popularity, marketing strategies strive to fully encompass the shifting tides of the market. Especially, high-end customers, hereby VIPs, are heavily nurtured based on their high-spending nature. With the understanding of VIP sales behavior based on social comparison and the adequate use of VIP marketing programs, luxury brands can optimize their sales of luxury brands. However, scant research examines the simultaneous impact of social comparison and VIP marketing in the luxury industry.

본 연구는 LMO 유전산물의 위해성평가를 위해 바실러스로부터 증폭된 Vip3Aa 유전자를 이용하여 대장균에서 단백질 순수분리 하였으며, MALDI-TOP 분석법을 통해 기존의 알려진 살충성 Vip3Aa 단백질과 동등한 단백질임을 증명하였다. 순수 분리한 Vip3Aa 단백질을 이용하여 꿀벌 과독성 급성섭식독성평가를 수행하였다. 그 결과 무처리군, Hepes buffer, Vip3Aa 단백질 처리군 모두 치사 및 일반 중독증상을 보이는 개체는 발견되지 않았다. 이 결과를 통해 Vip3Aa 단백질은 꿀벌에 위해성을 나타내지 않는다는 결론을 얻을 수 있었다. 본 연구 결과는 향후 국내 LMO 유전자산물 위해성평가에 유용하게 활용될 것이라 사료 된다.

This study aims to assess the effectiveness of backstage storytelling in luxury brands’ social media communication and examine a psychological mechanism that elucidates how luxury brands’ backstage storytelling influences consumers’ attitudinal and relational outcomes. The theory of narrative transportation (Escalas, 2004) was employed as a theoretical lens. Focusing on the effects of visual storytelling in a social media platform, this study proposed that photos of a luxury brand’s backstage images offer a greater level of narrativity than staged images of products and models. Additionally, this study proposed VIP emotions and perceived intimacy as mediators between transportation to photo narrative and attitudes toward the brand, brand evaluation and self-brand connection. In addition, the effectiveness of social media for luxury brands’ visual storytelling was tested by testing the role of telepresence in viewers’ information processing. This study selects Instagram, a visual-oriented social media platform, as the study context; Chanel, a luxury fashion brand, was selected to develop the study stimuli. Two Instagram accounts for Chanel were created as study stimuli through a pre-test: one account with frontstage brand photos and one account with backstage brand photos. Students from two universities in the Southeast and Midwest were recruited and randomly assigned to one of the two experimental conditions, frontstage (n=118) or backstage (n=134) Chanel Instagram account. Manipulation checks confirmed that respondents perceived the experimental conditions as intended. Our results revealed that viewers in the backstage condition experienced higher levels of transportation than those in the frontstage condition; VIP emotions and perceived intimacy mediate the relationship between transportation and attitudes towards a brand’s Instagram, brand evaluations, and self-brand connection. Additionally, ANCOVA results confirmed the interaction effects of telepresence on transportation is significant only in the backstage condition. Findings from this study shed light on the effectiveness of luxury fashion brands’ visual storytelling in social media communication.

As its use widens across many different industries such as airlines, retailing, banking, and hotels, the effective management of customer loyalty programs is becoming an important issue. Previous studies have shown that loyalty programs have a positive impact on customer retention, customer share, market share, and sales (Bolton et al., 2000; Mägi, 2003; Verhoef, 2003; Lacey et al., 2007). A loyalty program is defined as any institutionalized incentive system that attempts to enhance consumers’ consumption behavior over time beyond the direct effects of changes to the price or the core offering (De Wulf et al., 2001; Palmatier et al., 2006; Henderson et al., 2011). The fundamental goal of loyalty programs of firms is to have a long-term relationship with their customers and to increase their customer lifetime value (Reichheld, 1993; Sharp and Sharp, 1997). Most earlier studies that showed positive effects of loyalty programs have been mainly concerned about the changes in customer response resulting from being inducted into the VIP program (Bolton et al., 2000; Mägi, 2003; Verhoef, 2003; Lacey et al., 2007). On the other hand, most loyalty programs are hierarchical, which sets several customer classes and provides preferential benefits to customers based on their status. And customers who are placed at higher VIP level are required to spend larger amounts to maintain that status level. Under these types of loyalty programs, many recent studies have focused on how customers perceive and respond to their status and the accompanying preferential treatments (Mathies and Gudergan, 2012; Mayser and Wangenheim, 2013; Xia and Kukar-Kinney, 2014; Pez et al., 2015). Companies adjust each customer’s VIP status level on a regular(yearly) basis based on his or her actual spending level during the previous period. A customer can be demoted to a lower level if he or she fails to spend the required amount while a customer can be elevated to a higher level if the spending exceeded the required level. Although this is a common practice in the industry, only a few studies to date have looked at customer responses to changes in their status level (Wagner et al., 2009; Berlo et al., 2014; Eggert et al., 2015; Hwang and Kwon, 2015). While most of these studies have relied on measuring attitudes under experimental conditions, the motivation of this research is to examine customers’ actual behavioral response to a status adjustment using real-life data. We particularly focus on the effects of status demotion and how the response is moderated by situational or psychological factors. Specifically, the research questions are presented as follows: 1)If customers are demoted as a result of not fulfilling the firm’s required spending level, how does their purchase behavior change? 2) How does the shortfall amount (the difference between the spending required to maintain the status and the actual spending) impact the demotion effect? 3) What moderators strengthen or weaken the relationship? Using actual VIP customer data from one of the major department stores in Korea, this paper applies the event study methodology to investigate changes in customer purchase behavior resulting from a demotion. Shortfall amount, which can be defined as the degree to which a demoted customer does not meet the firm’s required spending level, is the key variable in analyzing the different purchase response of demoted customers. Propensity for conspicuous consumption and store familiarity of the customers are also proposed as moderators that interact with the shortfall amount. People who experience status demotion in organizations have been found to respond negatively toward the organization by reducing their loyalty, trust, or commitment and increasing switching intentions to other organizations (Pfeffer, 1981; Trice and Beyer, 1984; Wagner et al., 2009; Berlo et al., 2014; Hwang and Kwon, 2015). Status demotion of VIP customers is also expected to negatively influence their purchase behavior. Equity theory (Adams, 1963) provides the conceptual foundation for hypothesizing about the role of shortfall amount in moderating the negative effect of status demotion on customers’ purchase amount. According to equity theory, people in social exchange relationships perceive the fairness of transactions by comparing their inputs (costs) into the exchange to outputs (benefits) from the exchange. People also perceive the fairness by evaluating whether their input/output ratio is consistent with that of their referent groups. Adams (1963) argues that people are motivated to restore equity when they perceive unfairness in a social exchange relationship by increasing or decreasing inputs based on their input/output ratio relative to that of their referents. In our context, the equity theory implies that demoted customers whose shortfall amount is smaller are more likely to perceive the status change to be more unfair than those whose shortfall amount is larger. These customers may feel that the decrease in preferential treatment they receive due to demotion is unfairly large given the small difference in spending between themselves and those who were able to maintain their status level. They may also feel that their spending (i.e., contribution to the company) is much greater than other customers in the lower demoted status level. To the extent that these customers are likely to feel that the exchange relationship with the firm is unjust, they will respond negatively toward the firm (Campbell, 1999; Xia and Kukar-Kinney, 2014) and it is predicted that they will show a larger decrease in their post demotion spending compared to their counterparts whose shortfall amount is larger. That is, the smaller (greater) the demoted customers’ shortfall, the stronger (weaker) the negative relationship between customer demotion and purchase amount. In this research, consumers’ propensity for conspicuous consumption and store familiarity are presented as variables that moderate the effect of shortfall amount on post demotion spending. Desire for status motivates conspicuous consumption and often leads to purchases of luxurious or altruistic goods (Han et al., 2010). Rucker and Galinsky (2008) argued that consumers are more willing to spend for status-related goods when they feel that they have low power. Based on the literature, it is anticipated that the effect of shortfall will be diluted if a demoted customer has strong propensity for conspicuous consumption as he or she may increase purchases to overcome threats caused by status reduction. In other words, when customers are demoted, the effect of shortfall on purchase amount is weakened as propensity for conspicuous consumption becomes higher. Familiarity is defined as the number of product-related experiences that have been accumulated by a consumer (Alba and Hutchinson, 1987). As the familiarity with a product increases, consumers generally reduce cognitive effort in choosing the product and are more likely to select it habitually or in inertia (Rhee, 2003). Assael (1998) proposed that a process of consumers’ product choice is similar with that of consumers’ store selection. Thus, based on previous studies, it is predicted that the effect of shortfall on post demotion purchase amount is diluted if a demoted customer’s store familiarity is higher because he or she may be less likely to decrease purchases since they face a higher cost of switching to other stores. In other words, when customers are demoted, the effect of shortfall on purchase amount is weakened as store familiarity becomes higher. This research applies the event study method to study the impact of shortfall amount on post demotion change in purchase amount. Specifically, we capture the increase or decrease in post demotion purchase through notion of cumulative abnormal purchase amount. Cumulative abnormal purchase amount is obtained for each demoted customer by calculating the difference between the actual purchase amount after the status change with the expected purchase amount (i.e., baseline) if the customer had not experienced the status demotion. If the actual purchase amount is smaller than the baseline, then the cumulative abnormal purchase amount is negative, which indicates that the customer responded negatively to the demotion. The results revealed that the average cumulative abnormal purchase amount of demoted customers was negative. Also, the shortfall amount had a positive impact on the cumulative abnormal purchase amount, supporting the hypothesis that demoted customers whose shortfall was small were more likely to show a larger decrease in post demotion purchase(i.e., larger negative cumulative abnormal purchase amount). Both of the moderating variables--propensity for conspicuous consumption and store familiarity of demoted customers--weakened the effect of shortfall on the cumulative abnormal purchase amount. This paper contributes to the literature by extending the understanding of consumer behavior in the context of hierarchical loyalty programs and status reduction in a real-world setting. Specifically, this study uses the notion of perceived fairness adopted from equity theory to hypothesize about the moderating role of shortfall amount on the effect of status demotion. This paper also provides several managerial implications to help marketing managers manage their loyalty program more effectively. First, it is important for the managers to recognize possible negative aspects of hierarchical loyalty programs where certain customers are inevitably demoted to lower status levels. Second, since demoted customers who ‘just miss’ the cutoff by only a small amount may perceive injustice, managers may need to look for a method to reduce such customers’ negative response. Third, companies could also seek for ways to weaken the negative effect of customer demotion through the development of marketing plans based on customer characteristics such as propensity for conspicuous consumption and store familiarity.

In modern society, there are diverse sorts of VIPs including a king and individuals. Some like a king or president are in need of professional secret services, and others become VIPs by being guarded by a bodyguard company at their own request. The former is called a public guard, and the latter is a private one. In the field of the public guard, the nation should be furnished with a guard system in consideration of political circumstances to protect VIPs. That is, the parliamentary cabinet system and presidential system call for a different guard system, and the guard system's professional features vary to some degree with political situations and cultural climate. If the ultimate goal of guard is to protect the chief of the democratic and open state in a most efficient and safe manner, it's mandatorily necessary to set up a professional and specialized guard organization to provide democratic and efficient secret services. It's desired that the domestic presidential guard division should be staffed with not only expert guards but other personnels dispatched from the military and police. In the police, guard mission is splitted among various guard and security agencies, including the National Police Agency's public security bureau or the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency's public security division, 101 security unit, mobile police and 22 special guard division. As a chain of command is separated and it's difficult to manage such organizations effectively, the National Police Agency should be exclusively in charge of VIP guard and security. In the area of private guard, the private police system has shared national security task as a middle organization between the private police and private guard. But now its intent has gradually weakened, and its mission should be redefined. In addition, the way people look at private guard should change, and they should be well informed that it could serve to prevent possible crimes, protect them against crimes and get rid of their inconveniences. To make a good impression on people, the guard associations and businesses should put their efforts into reinforcing publicity activities, and the government, academic circles and press should team up with them as well.