This paper is a qualitative study which explores perceptions of the ideal wedding dress held by Singaporean brides who choose to skip wedding fairs in their wedding preparaton process. Ten interviews are conducted: 8 with Singaporean brides who do not attend wedding fairs, and 2 with brides who do attend them. Questions to the interview are formulated by first attempting to understand the bride’s perception of the ideal wedding ceremony, and subsequently that of the ideal wedding dress. For the purpose of this paper, the narratives of two brides who do attend wedding shows are included as an attempt to make the study more complete. For example, brides who attend the wedding show might attend with the sole purpose of acquiring information of what is available for consumption in the wedding market, but still hold the same perceptions as the non-attendees. From the results, perceptions of the ideal wedding dress in relation to wedding shows are catagorised as follow: (A) The perception that a wedding dress offered by the wedding show is a bad investment; (B) The perception that the wedding dress available for sale at the wedding show is not “unique”; (C) The rejection of the wedding dress altogether; (D) The rejection of the idea of a “wedding dress package”; (E) Attributes that have nothing to do with perceptions of the ideal wedding dress, such avoiding wedding shows because brides do not like “hard-selling”, or perceiving the wedding show as a “marketing gimmick”. Wedding show organisers can consider these perceptions when planning future communication and sales efforts to appeal to a larger pool of prospective brides.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impacts of the utilitarian, hedonic and symbolic benefits of consuming sportswear on consumers’ purchase intention and willingness to pay. Also, the potential moderating role of the type of brands (i.e., luxury vs. regular brands) is examined. A multiple regression was performed to examine the impacts of the perceived utilitarian-, hedonic-, and symbolic benefits on individuals’ purchase intention, while controlling for descriptive norm, financial constraints, prior brand attitude and familiarity, prestige sensitivity, fashion consciousness, and demographics. It appeared that respondents who indicated that the advertised sportswear fulfilled their hedonic, utilitarian, and symbolic benefit had greater purchase intention. A log-linear regression analysis was performed to examine the impacts of the perceived utilitarian-, hedonic-, and symbolic benefits on individuals’ willingness to pay for sportswear, while controlling for the descriptive norm, financial constraints, prior brand attitude and familiarity, prestige sensitivity, fashion consciousness, and demographics. As respondents’ willingness to pay was logarithmically transformed in order to correct its skewed bias from the normal distribution, the findings indicated that those who indicated that the utilitarian and symbolic benefits were fulfilled were likely to pay 35% and 19.4%, respectively, more for the sportswear. In order to explore the potential moderating role of the type of brands, we examined the influences of utilitarian, hedonic, and symbolic benefits on purchase intention and willingness to pay for two split samples—one for the two luxury sportswear brands, and the other for the regular sportswear brands. After estimating coefficients for luxury and regular sportswear brands, respectively, a series of z-tests was performed to examine whether the magnitude of coefficients varied across the luxury vs. regular brands. The impacts of hedonic and symbolic benefits on purchase intention were greater for the luxury brands than for the regular brands, whereas the opposite pattern was observed for the utilitarian benefits. Similar patterns of relationships were observed for consumers’ willingness to pay, although the hedonic benefits did not have any significant impact. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed along with future research directions.

The study investigates the influence of “country of ingredient authenticity” towards product and brand evaluations of luxury brands and ultimately how these constructs influence the willingness to buy and recommend luxury brands.

Increasing attention has been paid to marketing and consumer behavior of luxury industry but research into value creation network and operational mechanisms is very limited. This study focuses on two aspects of the luxury industry: luxury brand and value chain, to inform a comprehensive understanding of the value creation process for high value added brands. In luxury industry, the key elements that create and deliver value are brand, design and research, production, distribution, and retail. A clear brand identity is found as the first step of this value chain, which influences the choices of all other activities. Luxury goods companies will align all the activities in line with brand identity to deliver consistent tangible and intangible values to end users. Furthermore, a luxury value chain is a holistic network with strong coordination among its elements. A combined approach of case study and secondary data collection is pursued. A sample of 9 luxury companies within 6 selected industries is investigated. Data is qualitatively collected via semi-structured interviews, document analysis, and observations as a triangulation approach for the purpose of ensuring the reliability of the research data. Multiple interviews of the general manager, industrial manager, brand/communication manager, creative director, and store manager are conducted in each company to achieve a broader perspective and also make data triangulation procedures possible. This research contributes to the luxury brands management as well as value chain concept. It discusses the value creation network and operational mechanism from a less explored corporate perspective. It unveils a secretive existence of brand in value generation process and further establishes a model to amplify the relationship between each activity in the value chain. Also, it expands the research of value chain into luxury industry. It argues that a supply leading value chain can also command a premium rather than the customer-centric value chain discussed by most researchers recently. It also provides valuable insights for companies who want to have a high-end market position. It shows that the widely adopted luxury strategy invented mainly by French and Italian companies employs fundamentally different rules from those of fast-moving consumer goods in mass market. In short, a luxury strategy is different in nature, not in level.

This paper aims to gain an understanding of luxury brand positioning in relation to brand attributes, distribution channel and the target consumer characteristics. In so doing, we hope to get a fuller explanation of brand perceptions within the market environment in which the transactions occur. Luxury brands need to flourish in an increasingly complicated and competitive environment. In the past socio-demographic characteristics were used to position the offering, but this is becoming more difficult to apply in contemporary global markets. It is possible to broadly position luxury brands using Aaker’s (1997) 3A’s framework to show how brands are crowded and compete in the middle “aspirational” segment. There also appears to be a polarization within the market on the part of highly informed and expert consumers who do not follow traditional norms of purchasing behaviour; purchasing elite luxury and high street purchases at the same time. Such inconsistent behaviour compels us to investigate the luxury brand consumer in depth. Consumer perceptions of luxury value comprise financial, functional, individual and social components (Hennings et al. 2012), as well as changing cultural interpretations (Mo and Roux. 2009) and symbolic and human characteristics (Aaker, 1997). Examing the brand and the consumer is not sufficient and a third aspect needs to be considered relating to distribution channels (D’Astous and Lévesque 2003). This is the environment where the personality of the brand is staged to reinforce tangible and intangible attributes that further influence consumer perceptions. Store personality suggests functional qualities and psychological attributes that help define the store in the consumer’s mind (D’Astous and Lévesque, 2003). In order to differentiate between brands perceived with similar positioning, the symbolic qualities of the luxury brands become highly relevant and a key motivation of luxury brand purchase behaviour (Heine 2009; Liu et al 2010). What is of interest to us in this study is the congruity between consumers’ perceptions of a luxury flagship store personality, the personality of the luxury brand and consumers own personality traits. Drawing upon the foregoing we have established that there is a need to understand how consumers see themselves in relation to luxury brands. Understanding the relationships between the consumer, the brand and store personality is critical for the effective positioning and strategic management of the luxury brand in terms of product mix strategy, pricing, advertising and distribution. Our analysis draws upon Aaker’s (1997) brand personality, luxury consumer personality traits from Weidmann et. al., (2009) and store personality dimensions from D’Astous and Lévesque, (2003) and we delineate luxury using the four values, financial, functional, individual and social from Weidmann et. al.,(2009). The difference in the degrees of alignment represents what we have termed “congruence distance” between each personality dimension. Misalignment may indicate that the corporate view of the luxury brand is out of sync with consumer perceptions and may impact upon strategic marketing efforts. Using a quantitative research approach we report the results of a survey of Tod’s consumers in the UK, France and Italy. Constructs are developed to measure consumers’ perceptions of a luxury flagship store personality, the personality of the luxury brand and consumers own personality traits. Our theoretical contribution hopes to enhance explanations of luxury consumption. We have taken three disparate frameworks that each look at elements of luxury brand positioning to assess levels of convergence using one case study. We add to luxury brand theory by presenting a rubric of congruence distance that draws the three frameworks together and highlights clusters within dimensions of value. Managerially, we find the importance of alignment across a variety of dimensions and clusters. Through this rubric, multiple segmentation and positioning scenarios can be assessed with implications for strategy. We find that consumer interaction with sales personnel is critical to consumers’ experience of the brand based upon an understanding and expectation of the luxury it represents.

The luxury market keeps growing in the global world. Marketing scholars focus on Chinese luxury consumers, because Chinese consumers show different characteristics comparing to foreign consumers. Personal hedonic value cannot be ignored among factors which influence consumers’ purchase intention. After the survey on 128 consumers who have luxury purchasing experience, the study finds out that as the two of three sub-dimensions of hedonic value, self-gifting and self-pleasure can significantly influence luxury perceived value, but self-enrichment has nothing to do with it. Luxury perceived value can directly affect consumers’ purchase intention on luxury products. But this relationship can be negatively moderated by interpersonal effects. At the end, managerial implications and theoretical contributions are discussed.

The online game market has grown rapidly in worldwide. The world game market earned 111.7 billion US dollars and online game occupies 18.9% (21.1 billion US dollars) in the world game market in 2012. Online game companies have launched a variety of free online games to online game players such as League of Legends (LOL), World of Tank, and Hearthstone. These online games provide online game with free install with online game players. Online game companies, however, sell some of online game items to the game users. For example, LOL sells Skin that is the cloth which only provides fancy effect to online game hero through the online game shop. In case of ‘Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft’, game user can purchase game card deck by cash. This study was initiated to answer the following research question called “How these online game companies get profit?” because their online games are free to play. The research upon the question mentioned above leads to the second research question called “how online game users purchase the cash game items?”. To understand purchasing behavior and attitude of online game players about cash game item, this study conducts focus group interview of LOL game player to understand purchase behavior of game players for online games items. The results of focus group interview help us to understand the relationship between attitude toward online game items and consumption values. The purposes of this study are 1) to understand online game players’ purchasing behavior for LOL luxury Skin, 2) to find out relationships among online game experience, design innovative Skin, consumption values, and repurchase intention, and 3) to draw academic and practical implications based upon the result of analysis in this study.

The purpose of this research is to study the evolution of the price of Burgundy wines and to try to identify the reasons for such an evolution. Land prices, rent prices and wine prices in Burgundy will be analysed over the last decades. In terms of results, the price of wine in Burgundy has been observed to rise drastically in recent years as well as the evolution of land and rent prices. A better comprehension of price variations could help wine companies manage their long term profitability, especially if land were considered as an investment (and therefore, part of the company). As a recommendation, marketing tools but also training should be used by craftsmen to build, promote and distribute strong brands in order to remain on the market but also to attract major agents and importers and be distributed worldwide.

Fashion design itself has an independent artistic value of its own. However, legal protection for fashion design is still lacking. In the fashion market, design piracy and trademark piracy are universal phenomena and the imitation behavior is made by a wide range of subjects in real time. The protection of the authentic holder in the relatively-short-cycled fashion design should be done immediately. Accordingly, this study aims to conduct a comparative research on the laws designed to protect fashion design significantly, to promote the creation of fashion design, and to provide implications for the future fashion design protection. The specific objectives of this study are as follows. First, we aim to examine the market trends relating to the theft of the fashion design between Republic of Korea and the United States. The second objective is to consider current legislation to protect fashion design in Republic of Korea and the United States and to analyze the differences between the two countries. Thirdly, the present study seeks to measure consumers’ perception on counterfeit in order to analyze the current status of design piracy. Our results suggest that both countries cohere in that the market size of counterfeit goods is expanding and fashion products are prominent in the counterfeits market. However, while Republic of Korea is not capable of effectively controlling domestic counterfeit products, the United States is trying to protect the intellectual property rights with regulations of counterfeits through the Customs and Border Protection Agency. In the domain of legal protection for fashion design, the United States enacted individual laws such as DPPA and IDPPA through cooperation with the fashion industry and the legal profession since 2006. On the other hand, the effectiveness of laws for fashion design protection appears to be weaker in Republic of Korea. According to the analysis of consumer perception, Korean consumers continuously buy counterfeit goods, whereas U.S. consumers rarely report having had a counterfeit product purchase experience. Korean consumers have a relatively high level of legal knowledge concerning fashion design protection and, compared to their U.S. counterparts, they are negatively recognized about counterfeit goods. Despite this, they do not hesitate to buy counterfeit products in real life. The results of our analysis of the consumer perception suggest that Korean consumers’ attitudes and purchase behaviors with regard to counterfeit goods are inconsistent; the reason underlying this tendency is that the force of the legal system is insufficient. Therefore, this study suggests to strengthen the rigor of the law-enforcement and to establish the laws that would help enhance consumer awareness in the Korean society.

Global depression has brought the Korean economy into the period of low growth. The notion of lifetime employment has long crumbled, while economic recession is gradually taking away quality jobs. Furthermore, the average lifespan for the population has neared 100, while baby-boomer retirement is swinging into high gear. The simultaneous inrush of social and economic problems is threatening our wellbeing. However, there has been insufficient amount of research conducted on the factors that influence the satisfaction with lectures in lifelong education designed to address the problems. If we look at the earlier studies, most of them are on the satisfaction with lectures in regular courses. Our society demands that jobs be created for retirees including the baby boomers and that quality jobs be provided for those who want to go back to work after they have withdrawn from previous employment. In this light, the current study aims to bring light on the causal relation between the influential factors and variables involved in the satisfaction of lectures of non-degree programs with a view to solving those problems, and suggests the need to draw up marketing strategy that uses it. Specifically, the purpose and method of this study are as follows. First, to develop variables to be used in this study through in-depth interviews with field staff in the industry and training staff. Second, to identify predisposing factors that influence the satisfaction with the lectures of non-degree programs. Third, to identify the variables mediating predisposing factors and satisfaction with lectures. Fourth, to propose marketing strategy for non-degree programs using the results of the study. As identified through this study, the influencing factors for satisfaction with lectures are physical environment, composition of contents, and instructor ability and attitude, while mediating variables are interaction and immersion in lectures. If these factors are reflected in education, a higher level of satisfaction with lectures will be ensured for business starting youths, retirees, and those who want to have some other job after withdrawing from their previous ones. Educational institutions will be able to use it in ensuring stabler recruiting of trainees and establish a more efficient guidance and marketing strategy. Reflecting the results of the study in education will contribute to heightening educational sustainability, social sustainability, and economic sustainability.

Given the strategic importance of firm reputation due to its potential for value creation, extant reputation research focuses on favorable customer outcomes. Building on an established conceptualization of customer-based corporate reputation, this study proposes and tests a model that relates the reputation of fashion retailers to customer-perceived risk and two relational outcomes—trust and commitment. Using a sample of more than 300 German fashion shoppers, the study finds support for the hypothesized linkages. Furthermore, not all linkages are equally strong between women and men. Implications for marketing theory and practice conclude.

The potential of a scale to measure relationship authenticity in marketing is explored. A measure of this type is argued to be particular valuable when brands have a difficult time in partnering with charitable organizations. An exploratory study and a pilot study suggest that there is potential for development of a full scale.

Fashion industry pressure on natural resources has grown dramatically as consumption grew in emerging countries and the principle of rapid change of fashions extended to mass market in western counties, at the same time supply chains expanded globally to countries with lower labor and environmental standards creating critical sustainability challenges. Meanwhile, sustainability has become a hot topic for consumers that hold brands responsible for sustainability performances along the whole supply chain. The paper traces developments in the fashion business commitment to sustainability over two decades, with a focus on the implication for SCM. Academic literature focuses mainly on partial issues, missing the overall picture, the interaction among a complex set of factors, and to account for the role of past decisions and mistakes on current SSCM (sustainable supply chain management) strategy developments. The time span considered captures sustainability awareness in the fashion business which is in its statu nascenti (nascent state) and the trial and error process that led to progressive refinements of both means and ends. The paper provides an extensive review of academic articles, business reports, technical documents, regulations and direct information from the field and identifies five key lessons learnt in this process that influence current fashion business strategies in sustainability and SCM.

If a picture speaks a thousand words, imagine what kind of story a video could tell… The need for videography in Consumer Research has been recognised and endorsed by the ACR Film Festival, which has been growing for more than a decade. Belk and Kozinets (2012) argue “As industry increasingly embraces videographic techniques for representing consumer realities and portraying their marketing research findings, it is useful for our field to follow suit and, in many ways, lead the charge towards finding new, rich forms for understanding the consumer”. Indeed the ACR film festival has showcased incredible research that highlights the importance of videography, the rich data it provides and the captivating presentation and storytelling of consumer research (e.g. Hietanen, Schouten, & Vaniala, 2013; Kawaf, 2014; Rokka, Rousi, & Hämäläinen, 2014; Seregina, Campbell, Figueiredo, & Uotila, 2013; Veer, 2014) This research takes videography to a new level in consumer research, an unavoidable move toward studying the ever-growing arena of digital consumption. Therefore, this abstract presents screencast videography as a method of studying consumer behaviour in the specific context of online fashion shopping. With the rapid evolving nature of technology, various experiences have moved completely or partially to the digital world. New experiences and opportunities arise everyday for the average individual as well as for businesses of all sizes. This is apparent in the rapid growth of ‘netnography’ as a method for studying ‘the field behind the screen’ by Kozinets (2002). This method has allowed an infinite number of possibilities for studying online communities in digital ethnographic fashion. Similarly, if visual ethnographies and videography research such as Burning Man, ESPN and Nike Town (Kozinets, 2002a; Kozinets et al., 2004; Penaloza, 1998) allowed such rich understanding of observable experiences, so far the same has not been possible in the context of online experiences. The consumption experience of online fashion websites along with browsing, shopping or interacting with web atmospherics occur within the personal and private space of the individual; and so there is currently no method in the literature that allows for such work to be done in studying online experiences and behavioural decision making processes. Therefore, my proposition in this abstract is to introduce screencast videography as a form of videographic interpretive approach to studying the consumption experience of digital spaces. Screencasting is defined, in Information Technology research, as “a method of presenting digitally recorded playback of computer screen output which often contains audio narration” (Brown, Luterbach, & Sugar, 2009, p.1748). The use of screencasts is most popular in education and particularly in virtual learning environments. Brown et al. (2009, p.1748) argue, “Because screencasting captures desktop activity along with audio commentary, it can be a particularly effective method of explaining computer-based procedures”. I work on employing this method in understanding the consumption experience in online context; the empirical use of this method has been presented at the ACR film festival (Kawaf, 2014). Similar videography, this approach allows for the production of natural data (Knoblauch, Schnettler, Raab, & Soeffner, 2006) and is indeed less obtrusive since the hindering camera effect argued by Belk and Kozinets (2005) is not present in this approach.

While borrowing from the theory of lookism, defined as “prejudice toward people because of their appearance” (Tietje and Cresap 2005, p, 31), this paper ventures into an emerging pattern of consumer behavior—designing one’s own body with the help of a surgical blade. The “designer body” idea has gradually moved from futuristic fiction to the exclusive domain of celebrity personalities and has lately arrived in the more mainstream marketplace (Kim, 2015). Available statistics indicate a growing number of plastic surgeries and clinic locations, the booming popularity of the aesthetics surgery specialty in medical schools, and burgeoning medical tourism with the goal of aesthetically reinventing one’s body (Akam 2014). Consumer vocabulary has embraced “rhinoplasty” and “liposuction” and lovingly transformed the dry medical jargon into the softer slang terms “rhino” and ‘lipo.” While breast augmentation is the most popular surgical procedure, in this work we purposely focus on the face. Unless veiled, the face is the body part that is always on display. In addition, we intentionally perform this study in the specific cultural domain that places strong metaphorical value on the face and has historically developed the dignity-centered concept of “saving face” as a major guiding principle of life. The choice of South Korea within this vast cultural realm seems the most logical given the fact that twenty percent of women in the country have something surgically done on their faces, which is arguably the highest known proportion in the world (Willett 2013). Finally, South Korea’s emphasis on Confucian values is part of our approach. Our research objective is to understand the interplay of major cultural forces that define the embrace of a novel mass marketed product (plastic surgery) designed to correct one’s genetic make-up. Considering marketing to be one such cultural force (Fedorenko 2014), we specifically aim to conceptualize its role in an ongoing interaction with Confucian values. What makes a culture rooted in conservative beliefs and respect for the elderly so openly question and surgically correct the “quality” of the body received from one’s parents? Does it happen because of or in opposition to Confucianism? Does fashion simply extend its province by converting desirable pointy noses and v-shaped chins into “in” items similar to pointy shoes? These research questions have shaped our qualitative methodological approach (Strauss and Corbin 1998) that relies on the juxtaposition of norms and values dictated by Confucian beliefs and those manifested through marketing channels. To uncover the normative messages and consumer directions coming from marketers, we turn to the so-called language of the street and perform close analysis of fifty advertising billboards and street signs promoting plastic procedures and located in Seoul, the capital of South Korea. We read both visual and textual data against the traditional Confucian literature. This methodological direction for our study was developed with the purpose to fill in the gap in the existing research, as detailed in the literature review, followed by the analysis of data, discussion of our findings, and the final section outlining a potential course for future research.

Purpose: Brand and line extension represents an essential vehicle for growth and is currently one of the most applied marketing strategies within the luxury sector. Though it has its advantages, there are several risks associated with pursuing such a strategy. Consequently, this paper attempts to understand the reasons for brand and line extensions as a way of growth in the new era of luxury expansion. Theory: The study extends the literature of brand and line extensions through an empirical study. Methodology: An integrative model of key success factors behind brand and line extensions is proposed by combining current research with empirical findings obtained through an explorative and qualitative research design based on primary data from eight semi-structured interviews with managers from luxury brands. Findings and Contribution: We identify five key success factors: (1) add value through originality, (2) stay at the level of the brand regarding price, quality, style and image, (3) create relevance to core business and be aligned with DNA, (4) stick to the vision of the founder and (5) assure consistency in brand identity and image. Sig-nificantly, the predominant themes are alignment between the parent brand and the extension and the extension in itself, which resonates with the existing research on the field. Further, drawing on the notion of alignment, this thesis also finds evidence of the importance of consistent brand cues such as storytelling, values, heritage, tradition and visual icons. Practical implications: It is suggested that the five success factors identified in the empirical data to the greatest extent possible should apply to any future brand extension and that resources should be allocated to reinforce the alignment between extension and parent brand. Research limitations: It would be insightful to conduct additional interviews with top managers from other brands to further elaborate on the identified success factors.

This study confirms that the shopping experiential values perceived by Chinese tourists affect their product and store attitudes through the emotions of entertainment and escapism. It is particularly notable that this study verifies diverse roles of different emotions such as entertainment and escapism in the context of tourist shopping. This study employs empirical analysis on tourists, and provides practical implications including the importance of shopping experiential values for developing retail strategies. The summary of the main results is as follows. First, the results of image attribute on each cultural marketing communication pattern, uniqueness on cultural communication and public interest on cultural sponsorship had the most positive responses. Second, the analysis on the relationship among brand attitude, artist attitude and purchase intention showed that aesthetics and communicativeness positively influenced both brand attitude and artist attitude. Also, both brand attitude and artist attitude had a positive effects on purchase intention. Third, the differences between lifestyle brand and high, low fit artist, aesthetics and public interest showed positive effective relationship toward brand attitude while nobility and communicativeness showed positive effective relationship toward artist attitude as far as artist fit is high. The notable result of the analysis on relationship among the cultural arts lifestyle groups are as follows. Aesthetics to artist attitude, uniqueness to brand attitude were found to have highest response from mass culture enjoyers group, while proponents of high culture group showed greatest response to nobility toward artist attitude. The analysis of the relationship differences in patterns, the effect on nobility to artist attitude, brand attitude to purchase intention for cultural communication displayed highest. For cultural sponsorship, communicativeness to brand attitude, brand attitude to artist attitude to purchase intention showed the most positive effect, while, in cultural corporate image pattern exhibited a great response aesthetics toward brand attitude and communicativeness toward artist attitude, the second strongest effect on brand attitude to artist attitude to purchase intention. The implication of the study is that it demonstrates the relationship of image attribute specifying each pattern from the previous studies and investigates the difference in the relationship of brand attitude, artist attitude and purchase intention among image attribute. In addition, by demonstrating the difference in the relationship among the cultural arts lifestyle groups, as well as the high and low fit between lifestyle brand and artist, the study provides an insight and a specified path for marketers as they plan out ways to utilize cultural marketing communications. Finally, by verifying the relationship among patterns, our study offers useful points of reference also for artists or art foundations who plan it with lifestyle brands using strategic approach to consumers by specified means.

The implication of the study is that it demonstrates the relationship of image attribute specifying each pattern from the previous studies and investigates the difference in the relationship of brand attitude, artist attitude and purchase intention among image attribute. In addition, by demonstrating the difference in the relationship among the cultural arts lifestyle groups, as well as the high and low fit between lifestyle brand and artist, the study provides an insight and a specified path for marketers as they plan out ways to utilize cultural marketing communications. Finally, by verifying the relationship among patterns, our study offers useful points of reference also for artists or art foundations who plan it with lifestyle brands using strategic approach to consumers by specified means.

With traditional boundaries among culture, technology, finance, politics, and ecology are disappearing (Friedman, 1999), the need of businesses to deliver unusual experiences to the consumers have increased in order to survive and thrive. With consumer’s need diversifying and getting more complex, capturing receiver’s attention is becoming the key issue for brands (Jung & Shin, 2010). Resultantly, the traditional operators are feeling the necessity to co-operate with those in other fields to obtain differentiation. Hence, even without one consensus meaning existing, the emphasis on the word 'convergence' is consistently growing. Its popularity of use reflects the era we live in, where boundaries are fading and unaccustomed ideas are brought together (Lord & Velez, 2013). However, despite its importance increasing, researches on convergence marketing are very limited. Most of the studies focus only on qualitative research, especially on case studies or defining conceptual definition of term convergence. Thus, not much is known of how consumers perceive this new way of approach. Therefore, the main goal of this study is to first, understand how the consumers perceive marketing of technology and marketing of culture, and second, how the convergence of these two influence on brand perception. The concept of convergence holds meaning in all sorts of fields from telecommunications, computer sciences, mathematics, logic, to economics, sociology, accounting and others (Lord & Velez, 2013). Although it seems that the word convergence is more or only related to the information technology discourse, however in large, although it is true that it was mainly based on the advance of information technology, the concept of convergence is frequently used both in the media industry and the other academic fields. From media industry, it denotes the ongoing restructuring of media companies as well as to describe the various intersections between media technologies, industries, content and audiences. Yet, in academic fields, in the same context of convergence several other terms are frequently used in the literatures, for example as alliance, partnership, sponsorship, and collaboration (Appelgren, 2004) which is all based on the same ‘coming together’ yet differs in specific goal. The convergence marketing that emerged from the intensified competition among brands co-operates with those in other fields in order to create differentiating point. The convergence in fashion industry is found with two main streams of technology convergence and cultural convergence (Wi, 2013). In line with the fact that convergence in everyday life bases from the improvement of technology, the application of technology in fashion industry is also found throughout the production process, from design to production and distribution. Unlike 2000s where fast fashion changed the fashion system, the impact of technology seems to be the largest in the turn of 2010 (Choo et al., 2012; Ko, Kim, & Lee, 2009). As the convergence of marketing and IT can create rich, technologically enabled digital experiences that engage, delight, and serve the consumer, now it plays a part as a source of innovation (Lord & Velez, 2013). Accordingly, with pioneering advantages that technology appliance can deliver, many luxury brands have adopted new technology in its marketing strategies, including QR code in the magazine ad, hologram technique replacing the plastic mannequin, motion reacting interactive show window are to name a few. Similarly, culture for marketing is found with consumers pursuing more and more cultural and intellectual activities with the improvement of the standard of living. As concept of art exemplified from the marketing standpoint evoke general connotations of sophistication, culture, luxury and prestige (Martorella, 1996), many luxury brands are applying cultural contents to improve brand images (Hagtvedt & Patrick, 2008). In sum, to satisfy consumers’ diverse need, brands are trying to incorporate not only using the novel digital devices, but also conveying the cultural contents to provide emotional stimulus. Thus, this study focuses on the marketing communication using convergence of technology and culture that aims to gain consumers’ evaluation. This study applies complex model of Technology acceptance model to Pleasure-arousal-dominance theory to better understand how consumers perceived and adopt the new type of marketing strategy. TAM is a widely employed in various studies to predict users’ behavior intentions (Hsu & Lu, 2004). Technology acceptance model suggested by Davis (1989) is agreed as the theoretical background useful to explain individual adoption behavior with the introduction of such relatively new medium like this make users to experience new ways (Bagozzi & Yi, 1988). Yet, in the model application stage, it was suggested that TAM model focuses only on the judgment of the system of technology and lacks the ability to explain other potentially important factors that can influence on users’ acceptance process. Thus, similar to the other previous researches, this study also linked the emotion response to the existing technology acceptance model (Igbaria, Zinatelli, Cragg, & Cavaye, 1997; Venkatesh, 2000). This was due to the fact that the usage of technology is extending throughout the industry, and emotional factors are found to work as an important factor in such work. Many other approaches have been made in order to explain the emotional side of the adoption, yet in this study, pleasure-arousal-dominance theory which is often used to explain in marketing communication discourse and is supported in application for experiential aspect (Holbrook & Batra, 1987). Pleasure-arousal-dominance theory (PAD; Mehrabian & Russell (1974)) suggested by Mehrabian & Russell (1974) explains the three basic emotion status to mediate approach-avoidance behaviors in any environment based on the Stimulus-Organism-Response(S-O-R) paradigm. It explains that individual’s emotional status is aroused by the mediating environment (Donovan, Rossiter, Marcoolyn, & Nesdale, 1994). Yet, interpreting the recent studies arguing that in consumption related emotions situation, dominance is not necessary (Donovan et al., 1994), this study was adopted as a two-dimensional construct that can impact the user’s behavior intention. In sum, this study applies perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, pleasure, and arousal as the determinants of adoption. In addition, not simply examining the adoption process of the convergence marketing, but this study relates to the actual effect on consumers’ brand evaluation. The appliance of TAM as the part of individual dimension variable was found in recent studies that investigated the effect of adverting with interactive medium (Han & Park, 2010; Shim, 2009). Previous literatures have suggested the perceived usefulness significantly influences on the attitude toward the retailer that provides such experience (Lee et al, 2006). Especially, such studies were made within the e-commerce conditions, such as investigation of consumer behavior towards a non-profit organization’s virtual store (Chen et al, 2002), influence of perceived usefulness positively influencing on attitude towards the online retailer and intentions to use from such retailer (Vijayasarathy, 2004), and determinants of adoption (usefulness, ease of use, and enjoyment) on the attitude toward the online retailer (Lee et al, 2006). On this account, brand attitude, and purchase intention was examined. In this study, survey method in order to investigate how consumers perceive the convergence marketing in the marketing communication context, and further, how they evaluated the brand performing convergence marketing. Preliminary study was first proceed to understand how marketing of technology and marketing of culture is recognized by consumers, and further, manipulate each stimuli. The adoption process was investigated using technology acceptance model combined with pleasure-arousal-dominance theory, as a part of the individual variables. With mediating effect of consumer characteristics found to be important in convergence marketing (Kim, 2007), personal innovativeness, art involvement, and need for uniqueness was applied to see the mediating effect. Therefore, a survey was conducted to see the differences in the degree of convergence. The preliminary research with 183 samples indicated that convergence marketing method was preferred over the dedicated marketing of technology or culture. Thus, the experimental design that was designed in a form of 2 by 2 between subjects factorial design with factors of innovation of technology and classiness of culture, the 513 samples collected a total of 485 samples being used. The analysis indicated that as the convergence traits of novelty and classic increase, determinant of intentions were strongly generated, followed by the increasing intention to accept, continued to building positive brand attitude and purchase intention. Yet, in specific, novelty trait had direct influences on making emotional feeling, including pleasure and arousal, rather than on generating cognitive reaction. It was the classic trait that had relationship in between cognitive and emotional reaction. Additionally, it was also found that in case of emotional feeling were evoked, pleasure and arousal, it influenced on building positive brand attitude continued to purchase intention even if adoption intention was not made. Moreover, when adoption intention was made, the direct influence on positive brand attitude was found to be significant. Meanwhile, determinants of adoption were found to have the significant influence on adoption intention and on brand attitude. The positive influence of determinants of adoption on adoption intention is in line with a number of researches on ETAM. When perceived to be higher, all resulted in higher adoption intention (Tzou et al., 2009). In terms of brand attitude, it was found that only the emotional variables of pleasure and arousal that had direct influence to have marketing effectance, which coincides with the result of Childers et al. (2001). This study indicates that compared to the perceived usefulness and ease of use, enjoyment was a stronger driver to predict the attitude. In sum, the result implies that convergence marketing can work to satisfy both the cognition dimension as well as the emotional facet. When drivers of determinants of adoption is generated, it strongly influence on the adoption intention. Yet, in order to have the marketing communication effect on brand attitude and purchase intention, it is necessary to consider the emotional aspect, either pleasure or arousal. Such relationship is not only related to the cultural contents, but technology itself can now deliver emotional feelings to the consumers. Thus, the marketing director should focus on the usage of technology to involve emotional facets. In addition, all individual characteristics were found to be significantly moderating. Result of the effect of personal innovativeness implies that those of highly innovated tends to not only have strongly influence on adoption intention, but also had significant effect of advertising effect compared to the less innovated groups. The moderating effects of art involvement turned out that those highly involved in art, novelty did not matter much compared to the less involved group. In case of need for uniqueness, the significant relationship of perceived pleasure on brand attitude was found, yet unlike expected, those low in need for uniqueness had significantly stronger adoption intention. Thus, this can be perceived as due to the marketing activity targeting the mass audience, lacking the attractiveness towards those in higher need for uniqueness. Thus, in order to attract both those in high and low need of uniqueness, delivering both usefulness as well as pleasure is important. The result of this study contributes to understanding on status and recent trend of convergence marketing activities. Further, it is meaningful in that it is in line with the recent studies of applying TAM in combination with PAD theory as well as within the context of marketing communication. Thus, the result of this study is expected to be helpful in understanding the new hybrid consumers and give suggests useful information for establishing future brand communication plans. Yet, to further understand the interpretation process of consumer studies that incorporate variables suggested from the interview should be incorporated in the study.

The SNS, which is a social network service based on the Internet, is defined as a media service that supports the interactions among individuals, which occurs in the linked-ring. And it is a community-based system created a in a cyber space by individuals, where they open and observe information networks shared by them (Boyd & Ellison, 2007). According to the reports regarding present status in Republic of Korea, the penetration rate of SNS reached 59.0% of the population in 2015, and it is expected that Korea will take the first place in Asia for the second consecutive year as the number of users is on the rise with annual growth rate of 8% (DMC Report, 2015). This is closely connected with the spread of smartphones that has been popularized to such an extent that 95.9% of the whole nation has been using them since the iPhone was introduced in Korea six years ago, in 2009. It has been confirmed that 98.3% of mobile internet users get on the Internet by using a smartphone, as well as 92.4% use the mobile internet services at home, and they prefer to use the mobile internet even in a place equipped with cable internet (Korea Internet & Security Agency, 2014). Accordingly, the mobile contents use pattern has been changing gradually, and especially the SNS use pattern based on smartphones have been rapidly evolving, which results in the appearance of various media, of which the type is different from the existing ones. Due to the changes, many fashion brands, along with luxurious brands (Kim & Ko, 2011) based on the existing Social Media Marketing, are on the lookout for the SNS-based marketing strategy which is one level up from the old ones. Currently, in most of fashion brands, the consumers’ opinions are reflected in their designs after launching the newly designed product through the SNS. This marketing method, in which new strategies and patterns that are differentiated from the existing brands have been introduced, has proved the effects of SNS-based marketing with the great growth rates. In this way, the necessity of studies on the SNS smartphone is on the rise. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the changes in the past and present by investigating the present status of SNS in Korea. Furthermore, it is designed to verify the motivations that have impacts on the changes in usage pattern of the SNS through smartphones. The Day Reconstruction Method (DRM) (Kahneman et al., 2004), which is focused on in-depth interviews and studies on life style, has been adopted as a study method to verify the use pattern. And the strategic implication regarding the direction of development of mobile SNS in Korea has been identified by analyzing the causes for changes. According to the analytical results obtained through the DRM, it has been identified that the lifestyles of teens, twenties, thirties, forties and fifties are focused on the joyful and exciting activities, communication, personal and professional function, general basic function, and limited function, respectively. And according to the analytical results of types of mobile SNS, the teens and twenties prefer to use Facebook and Instagram. However, on the contrary people in their 30s and or older prefer to use the Cacao Story, which is a domestic SNS. The tendency seems to be based on the fact that the older people put more stress on the relationship with friends and acquaintances than the relationship with strangers. And on the basis of present-condition investigation it has been identified that the SNS has developed from the passive roles, which converts the offline-based relationships to online-based ones and merely facilitates storage of documents in digital form, into the active roles in which people may convey their own thoughts and emotions. As shown in the results of this study, the roles of SNS is no longer limited to the opportunities in which users may form a relationship with others on the Internet, but it provides the users with opportunities in which they position themselves as the main body in production, distribution and consumption of information, so we may put much meaning to the cast that the smartphone have brought about the change. In short, the changes in mobile life style prove that the life style has evolved into a structure, in which the users produce information themselves, distribute the information through their own networks and consume the information by using smartphones. And it implies that the sharp expansion of smartphone markets leads to the necessity of marketing strategies focused on the differentiated lifestyle, which is being diversified and subdivided.