With increasing competition in the global marketplace and the shift marketing activities from product-centered to consumer-centered, companies make efforts to collect information on overseas markets and global consumers prior to the initiation of new marketing activities. The concept of customer equity has been introduced as a tool to continously secure customers and create profits in the future. These trends also play an important role in the fashion industry since many fashion brands are growing into global companies, but need to adapt their innovative marketing strategies to different market environments, such as cultural settings. For this reason, more understanding of the individual consumers and the responses to marketing strategies is required. Furthermore, the trend cycle of SPA brands tends to be very short, so corporate profitability is highly sensitive to consumers’ attitudinal changes. The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of cultural value in the global customer equity model focusing on SPA brands. For that, fashion SPA brands which are active globally will be selected and surveys will be distributed in several countries in order to compare and analyze the impact of cultural value on customer equity. The expected results of this study will contribute to the global market segmentation in terms of improved marketing efforts. Marketers will be able to understand which one of the three customer equity drivers – relationship, value, brand – is most important to the cultural setting. Furthermore, the findings will indicate which cultural value is most dominant in the respective country to direct marketing approaches towards these values. Through this improved knowledge over customers, companies can lower their marketing investments, analyze the individual profitability of customers to their company and communicate in more efficient ways to the customers. By gaining more knowledge about the consumer behavior in the respective country, SPA brands will be able to better understand product preferences and purchase patterns and therefore plan product style and life cycles in more efficient ways, which is crucial in such a fast continously changing marketplace. In this way, this study extends the research scope towards a cultural perspective on customer equity.

These days, thanks to lots of smart devices and advanced communication technologies, consumer’s recognition and relations have been changed. They, beyond relying on information and services which are produced by experts, produce information and knowledge by themselves via SNS or web that they want to know. As consumer’s recognition is changing like this, SNS is evolving into social platform. Therefore, this paper is intended to clarify overall relationship between network characteristics in social platform, knowledge sharing, social capital, social innovation and customer’s value. This paper has clarified influences between variables related to consumer’s behaviors in social platform and the results are summarized as following: First, network characteristics in social platform are found to positively affect knowledge sharing efforts of social platform. Second, knowledge sharing has been found to positively affect social capital and innovation in social platform. However, enjoyment in helping others i.e a sub variable is found to positively affect social capital and innovation through anticipated reciprocal relationships. Third, social capital and innovation in social platform have affected customer value in social platform positively. Consequently, this paper is intended to solve various problems found from overall societies and industries through social innovation and also to advance them. For these purposes, social platform is believed to prompt sharing idea and knowledge based on interactions between users and social relationship. These actions become social capitals resulting in social innovation. Moreover, these would create new businesses and marketing opportunities across various areas in the processes that innovative activities form customer values.

Social media, Web 2.0 based social activity and powerful marketing tool, brought about a new paradigm for the 21st century culture and society. In line with the trend, the fashion industry is vigorously undertaking marketing activities on social media, seeking to build and maintain relationships with their customers through the Internet and mobile devices. The one-way provision of information by firms to customers has evolved to a symmetrical form of customers, whereby the customers also supply information to the firms share information with other customers. Through social media services, customers not only share their thoughts and experiences but also exchange tangible products and publicize the products, thereby directly participating in production and marketing activities of brands. Such participation of consumers offers inspirations for differentiated service on the part of the brands, for which proactive and long-term participatory activities of customers are required. Customer participation is of primary importance in current service marketing industry. Until now, related literature on customer participation has mostly centered on offline service situations. However, the advent of social media has simplified the process of participation for customers, and invoking voluntary customer participation has become the greatest challenge facing service industries, and, at the same time, the path to success. Those of us who live in the age of information technology are offered the opportunity to engage in two-way communication with other customers, the brand, and the media. Thus, customer participation is just as, if not, more important in an online environment. More and more customers are becoming directly involved in brand activities, which affect the brands as well as the customers themselves. Nonetheless, extant customer participation research focuses on developing constructs that are largely based on offline situations. Although such constructs correspond in part to the online setting, they fall short of meeting the unique characteristics of customer participation in social media. Therefore, in order to establish constructs for customer participation in social media, revision and supplementation of the offline-based constructs were found to be necessary. Based on interaction theory, this study explored the notion of customer participation in fashion brands’ social networking site (SNS) service by categorizing it into three types: customer-customer, customer-brand, and customer-media participation. In addition, it examined the external factors that influence customer social participation and how active social participation of customers in SNS affects trust and customer equity. The association between measurement variables according to the brand type was also closely examined. This study underwent two pre-tests to revise and supplement the survey items on customer social participation. A preliminary investigation was conducted on 516 respondents, and a total of 582 respondents participated in the main investigation. The respondents who were invited to participate lived in Korea, were in their 20s or 30s, and had previous experience in using fashion brands’ SNS service, SPSS 18.0 was used to conduct frequency analysis, exploratory factor analysis, reliability analysis, and t-test. Based on the results, AMOS 18.0 was used to undergo confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. The results of the study are summarized as follows. Based on the brand type (SPA and luxury) and the rate of sales, Uniqlo, a global SPA brand that boasts the largest number of SNS fans, and Louis Vuitton, a global luxury brand, were chosen for the study. The respondents consisted of consumers in their 20s and the 30s who, within the last six months, had previous experience in using the SNS service of the brands. The sample consisted of 40.7% male and 59.6% female, and 72.5% were in their 20s and 27.5% in 30s. A large percentage of the respondents were students (64.9%). The large proportion of university students reflects the trend of most active users of SNS being university students. Second, SNS service shopping context found positive association with customer-customer participation and customer-brand participation, but customer-media participation was insignificant. The results show that as the SNS is characterized by its linkage to different websites and platforms, customers are exposed to constant opportunities for participation. On the other hand, customer-media participation was found to be insignificant, which can be interpreted as indiscriminate constant supply of information that seeks to spur impulsive buying leading to antagonism of the customers. Such negative situations can be avoided by departing from indiscriminate provision of information to offering information that is customized to the needs and demands of each customer and invoking the customer to participate in information delivery. Third, SNS participation motivation and customer social participation were all positively associated. In particular, customer-media participation demonstrated the strongest influence, followed by customer-customer and customer-brand participation. As such, active participation of the customer with the brand is the most effective way to create collaborative, synergy effect or co-creation. Fourth, all routes from SNS user orientation to customer social participation were significant. SNS users in general possessed high levels of self-efficacy and tended to feel elevated as well as find altruistic pleasure in providing information that would help others. Such users participate through numerous ways such as customer-brand and customer-media participation but were the most active in customer-customer participation. Fifth, it was found that customer-customer and customer-brand participation builds trust of the customers toward the SNS service and the information or the information provider. However, customer-media participation did not indicate the same results. In order to build trust through participation, brands need to provide an inviting environment for customers to post comments and share information. Furthermore, marketing strategies, such as offering events and coupons to stimulate E-WOM activities of customers as well as creating a space for open communication are vital to building trust. Sixth, customer-media participation was positively associated with customer equity. Unlike customer-customer and customer-brand participation which requires constant physical effort of the customer, customer-media participation demands considerably less time and effort apart from the initial stages during which customization process is undergone to receive tailored information with just one click. Therefore, establishing convenient and practical system that targets the Y-generation in their 20s and 30s is emphasized in order to maintain a long-term relationship. Seventh, trust is positively associated with customer equity. Building trust is based on interactivity among people. This study found that customer-customer participation and customer-brand participation influence customer equity through trust, while customer-media participation leads to customer equity without being mediated by trust. Therefore, all three types of participation are equally important to customer equity. Eighth, brand type was a meaningful moderator to the relationship between SNS service shopping context, SNS service user orientation, participation motivation, customer social participation, trust, and customer equity. To summarize, the type of participation to encourage is based on the brand type, and as customers may have different expectations according to the brand, it is important to understand their orientations and provide customized information or an open space for communication. In addition, participation behavior has a strong potential to influence customer equity, but depending on the type of participation, trust may not necessarily positively influence customer equity. Therefore, it is recommended that brands offer credible and sincere information that customers can trust and follow. The significance of this study is that it is one of the first studies to examine customer participation in a social media environment. At a point in time where customers’ value creation is attracting increased attention, this study empirically revealed that customer-media relationship, which enables customer-customer and customer-brand participation on SNS, is also within the bounds of participation. Furthermore, this study identified the importance of relational marketing approach to brand and customer through customer social participation. By applying the concept of customer equity, which is in its fledgling stage in the area of consumer fashion marketing, it offers a basis for future research on long-term relationship building with firms The limitations of the study and suggestions for future research are discussed below. The sample of the study consisted of Koreans between the ages of 20 to 30. The limitation in the sample is inadequate to generalize the findings, and therefore, a comparative study with broader sample across culture and age is necessary. Moreover, this study observed customer participation on SNS environment. However, as there was a lack of preceding literature in this area, the measurement scales were revised and supplemented to fit the purpose of this study. The measurement instrument, therefore, needs to be further applied with different antecedents and consequences in subsequent research. Finally, due to the lack of previous literature on customer participation in SNS environment, the theoretical basis of the relationship between the variables lacked solidity. This study adapted a part of a theoretical framework to fit the context of the study to come up with the hypothesized relationship between the variables. Therefore, it is suggested that future research works toward developing and strengthening the theoretical framework of customer social participation.

In the past few decades, much attention has been focused on corporate social responsibility (CSR) (Dahlrud, 2008; McWilliams & Siegel, 2001; Maignan & Ralston, 2002; Montiel, 2008), consumer responses to CSR initiatives (Brown & Dacin, 1997; Sen & Bhattacharya, 2001) and more recently, employee attitudes towards CSR (Kim et al., 2010; Michailides & Lipsett, 2012; Rupp et al., 2006; Zhu et al., 2012). Although awareness of environmental sustainability has increased over the past few decades, the current market share of sustainable products remains low. Because of their market position, large-scale and high- volume customer interactions (Vella et al., 2009), supermarkets appear to be appropriate venues for investigating perceived sustainability initiatives (Hampl & Loock, 2013). Our study examined the extent to which supermarkets are perceived to have embedded sustainability initiatives in their marketing strategies and to have taken sustainable tactical measures on the store floor. In addition, the study considered the roles played by social identification (as an indicator for intrinsic motives) and by perceived external prestige (as an indicator for extrinsic motives). Based on a literature review and semi-structured qualitative interviews with the chief executive officers (CEOs) of Dutch supermarkets (n = 8), we conducted an online panel survey among the managers of these supermarkets (n = 99). The results of the qualitative study show that although CEOs’ opinions differed regarding the relevance of sustainability, the majority of CEOs indicated that the implementation of a sustainability strategy is strongly dependent on the intrinsic motivation of board members, the family business in general or local entrepreneurs (supermarket managers). Specifically, the role of the supermarket manager was recognized as important concerning sustainability initiatives on the shop floor. The results of the quantitative study show the positive impacts of managers’ social identification with a sustainable consumer group and managers’ perceived external prestige on the perceived environmental sustainability initiatives of Dutch supermarkets. The study finds that managers’ social identifications are powerful ways to engender employee loyalty. Moreover, organizations that are perceived to have more external prestige are perceived as being more capable of developing sustainability policies.

For decades, marketing practitioners and scholars have envisioned that environmental characteristics of market offerings will become an important consumer concern (Grant 2007; Henion 1981; Kassarjian 1971; Kotler 2011; Ottmann 2011) and a myriad of consumer surveys indicated that consumers are willing to change their purchase and consumption habits for a better environment (Banikarim 2010; Ferguson and Goldman 2010; Imkamp 2000; Laroche, Bergeron and Barbaro-Forleo 2001). However, consumers’ actual adoption of environmental market offerings has been far below what had been expected and predicted so far (Connolly et al. 2006; Davis 1993; do Paço and Varejâo 2010; Kilbournes 1998; Horne 2009). To bridge the gap between consumers’ stated interests in and attitudes regarding adoption of eco-friendly market offerings and their actual adoption of eco-friendly market offerings, marketers need an accurate understanding of: 1) what determines consumers’ willingness and propensity to adopt eco-friendly market offerings and consumption behaviors, 2) how those individual, social, and marketing determinants of eco-friendly consumer behaviors are interrelated with each other, 3) where consumers stand currently in terms of those determinants, and 4) what needs to be done to remove the bottlenecks in the adoption and diffusion processes. To provide answers to above four aspects of eco-friendly consumer behaviors, this paper attempts to advance a more theoretically-based and comprehensive model of eco-friendly consumer behavior than extant models by incorporating recent findings of research on determinants of pro-environmental consumer behaviors and integrating various relevant theories of attitude-behavior links including the value-belief-norm theory, the theory of reasoned action, and the elaboration likelihood model. The structural validity and generalizability of the proposed model is tested based on two sets of survey data collected from consumers in the U.S. Midwest region and a metropolitan area surrounding Seoul, the capital city of Korea. The findings of the empirical study demonstrate that while the proposed model explains eco-friendly consumer behaviors by both the U.S. and Korean consumers, the relative importance of the predictors of eco-friendly consumer behaviors vary between the two groups of consumers. The analysis of the data also reveals that consumers in the two groups differ significantly from each other on many variables which are included as direct and indirect determinants of eco-friendly consumer behaviors in the proposed model. Together, the findings provide interesting and practical implications for strategies to facilitate consumer adoption of eco-friendly market offerings.

This study investigates the role of green perceived value, green trust and perceived quality on the adoption behavior of green consumers. A survey was conducted using a sample of 188 respondents and a partial least squares approach was used to validate the research model. The research results show that both green perceived value and perceived quality have a direct influence on green purchase intention. Green trust also mediates the relationship between green perceived value and green purchase intention, which in turn predicts the purchase behavior of green products. The research results indicate that the drivers of green product adoption are represented by green perceived value, green trust, and perceived quality. Marketers should be putting more emphasis in this relatively new approach of green marketing strategies to induce purchase and adoption of green products by creating competitive advantages for the company.

This study explores relationship between social responsibility in advertising and brand attitude in luxury products. This study investgates how psychological constructs of attitude towards advertising affect brand attitude and purchase intention of luxury brand consumer and how it can lead the sustainable development of luxury products. Consumers no longer purchase products only but depend on quality and price of product. With globalization and rapid growth, corporate social responsibility becomes important issue. And the advertising represents corporate image and management concept. More recently, and coinciding with some major corporate ethical disasters, many companies have been including sections on governance, ethical practice, and social responsibility (David S. Waller & Roman Lanis, 2009). According to David S. Waller & Roman Lanis (2009), Corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure has been the subject of substantial academic accounting research (Farook and Lanis 2005; Gray, Owen, and Maunders 1987). Advertising is one of the typical means that can represent a corporate image. As defined by Lutz (1985, p. 53), attitude toward advertising in general is “a learned predisposition to respond in a consistently favorable or unfavorable manner to advertising in general.” In his framework, Lutz viewed attitude toward advertising in general as being directly influenced by general perceptions of advertising (Srinivas Durvasula et al., 1993). Authors would like to study following issues in this research. (1) How perceived social responsibility influences Attitude toward advertising. (2) How fashion consumer behavior influences Attitude toward advertising. (3) How attitude toward advertising affects brand attitude and purchase intention. (4) How proximity plays a moderating role among perceived social responsibility, attitude toward advertising and brand attitude.

As advances in digital technologies (e.g., Apps, QR code, RFID tag) is rapidly changing market environment, marketing researches have extended technology acceptance models in different contexts. Since a supermarket chain, “Home Plus,” in Korea, had opened the first QR code virtual store at the subway platform in 2011, many firms attempt to use QR code technology convergence into their retail business. According to a survey report (Embrian, 2012), QR codes are highly familiar with consumers in Korea, and more than 70% mobile phone users have ever scanned QR codes. Due to ubiquitous nature of QR codes, it is obviously implied that marketers would capitalize the QR code technology on their retail business. Yet, it is skeptical for individuals to adopt QR code virtual store because it is in an infant stage in the retail store context. Therefore, marketers need to predict acceptance and use of QR code virtual store from a consumer perspective. Based on UTAUT (Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology) suggested by Venkatesh et al. (2003; 2012), this study formulated consumer acceptance model with four core determinants of intentions in the context of QR code virtual stores. Specific objectives are (a) identify perceived value in the context of QR code virtual store; (b) test the changes in consumer perceived value by experience over time; and (c) to predict UTAUT model for consumer acceptance to use QR code virtual store across different time points (i.e., from the time of their initial introduction to stages of experience). A longitudinal field study was conducted at the selected QR code virtual stores among individuals using smart phones. A self-administered questionnaire was developed based on literatures the context of consumer use of QR code virtual store. The multi-item scales of perceived value (i.e., performance expectancy, effort expectance, social influence, and facilitating condition) were adapted from Venkatesh et al.’s (2003) UTAUT constructs. Four items of behavioral intention to use QR code virtual store was developed. All items were measured on 5 points rating scale. Sample in this study was obtained from volunteers who participated in three different points in time: initial experience (T1), one month after first experience (T2) and three months after second experience (T3). Participants were required to visit to an assigned QR code store and do shopping task per each time. Then, they were asked to answer the questions on a survey, and there were 123 valid respondents to the first stage of the field experiment. As removed the respondents who did not participate in T2 or T3 point, a total of 309 pooled data across time (103 each time) were analyzed. The sample represents more females (n=66, 68%) than males (n=31, 32%), aging from 19 to 29 years (mean=21.58 years). Preliminarily, using the data pooled across times, factor analysis was conducted to identify underlying constructs for all research variables. As expected, a factor analysis of perceived value constructs revealed four factors: social influence (5 items), performance expectancy (5 items), effort expectancy (4 items), and facilitating condition (3 items). All factor loadings were ranged from .63 to .86, and all internal consistency reliabilities were greater than .80. Also, a unidimensional behavioral intention (4 items) confirmed to be valid (factor loadings=.88 to .93) and reliable (α=.94). Therefore, it is deemed that content validity and reliability were within acceptable ranges for further analysis. Of the four perceived value constructs, there were significant differences in the effort expectancy (F=7.10, p<.01) and facilitating condition (F=8.22, p<.001) across times of experience. Specifically, the perceive effort expectancy tended to be increased over time, indicating a difference of means between T1 and T2 at the significant level of .01 as a result of Duncan’s post-hoc test. With respect to facilitating condition, the mean tended to be increased over time, but post hoc test indicated a significant difference between T1 and T2. The perceived effort expectancy and facilitating condition tended to be changed in positive from T2 to T3 point, which were not significantly different. Therefore, the finding implies that the second stage of experience (i.e., one month after first experience) is a critical point for consumers to increase perceived value of QR code virtual store as a new retail technology. Otherwise, the other factors, such as social influence, performance expectancy and behavioral intention were not significantly increased during the three times of experience. To predict UTAUT model for consumer acceptance to use QR code virtual store, behavioral intention was served as dependent variable and the four factors of perceived value were served as independent variables in regression analysis. In the initial experience (T1), behavioral intention was significantly predicted by social influence (β=.39, t=4.42, p<.001) and performance expectancy (β=.46, t=4.44, p<.001), which explained for 57% of total variance (F=32.08, p<.001, adjusted R²=.57). In the second experience (T2), behavioral intention was significantly predicted by three factors, such as social influence (β=.43, t=5.91, p<.001), performance expectancy (β=.35, t=4.10, p<.001) and facilitating condition (β=.15, t=2.32, p<.05), accounted for 68 % of total variance (F=52.35, p<.001, adjusted R²=.68). In the three month after second experience (T3), behavioral intention was significantly predicted by social experience (β=.36, t=3.33, p<.01) and performance expectancy (β=.33, t=3.33, p<.001), accounted for 52 % of total variance (F=27.65, p<.001, adjusted R²=.52). This study supports the UTAUT model for consumer acceptance of QR code virtual store over time from a theoretical perspective. It should be noted that social influence and performance expectancy appears to be a determinant of behavioral intention to use in most situations. The effect of facilitating condition on behavioral intention was only significant when experienced in second stage. In addition, future study needs to expend technology acceptance model of virtual store in conjunction with digital technological attributes across different product categories.

Introduction Over the past 30 years, Chinese textile and clothing manufacturers have successfully established themselves as leading original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) for world markets. This reputable position requires dedicated cost management; however, incremental increases in labor, land prices, rent, and production costs in China threaten and may eventually eliminate their OEM advantage (Yam, Lo, Sun, & Tang, 2003). The worldwide economic and business recession has intensified cost cutting measures as the essential survival tool for maintaining competitiveness. Since the mid-1990s, many Chinese companies have begun to recognize the importance of developing their own global brands and moving up the value-creation ladder (Fan, 2006). One such company is Aimer Group, Ltd., a vertically integrated premium underwear manufacturer. Initially founded in 1993 as an OEM, Aimer quickly transitioned to establish its own brands in domestic markets and, in recent years, has ventured into international markets. Currently, Aimer and its umbrella product lines are among the most recognized underwear brands in China with a manufacturing capacity of 10 million pieces. Their merchandise includes an array of women’s, men’s, teen girl’s and children’s lines as well as custom-made lingerie. According to the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce, Aimer Group has maintained the highest market share and the largest sales volume in the underwear sector for several years in China’s markets (Aimer, 2011). Objectives The purpose of the study was to investigate the design strategies implemented by Aimer to support their successful branding efforts. Specifically, the researchers seek to find: (a) the core elements in Aimer’s design strategies; (b) Aimer designers’ approach to product development; and (c) How design strategies support Aimer’s overall branding and marketing strategies. Findings will provide valuable implications for other Chinese apparel manufacturers who strive to integrate design innovation in order to remain competitive. Research Method A case study method was implemented which included: on-site visits to Aimer Group’s headquarters, manufacturing facility, and retail stores in Beijing; in-depth interviews with Aimer Groups’ Chairman, senior management, Chief Design Officer, designers, retail store managers, and the general manger of the Beijing manufacturing facility; and a review of the company website and other internal documents, as well as an extensive external search of relevant news reports, social media contents, industry information, and academic literature. A qualitative data analysis method was utilized. Findings Aimer brands have grown and matured along with the Chinese consumers. Until the late 1990s, consumers passively accepted whatever the industry provided for them. Today, 15 years later, consumers have become keenly aware of what they want in underwear and that desire drives the industry’s new product development. Aimer’s design strategies are consumer-centric but also a reflection of its internal strategic direction. Its core elements include the following: (1) Understanding consumer lifestyles: Extensive fashion industry trend analysis, consumer research, and market/sale feedback are just starting points for product development at Aimer. In addition, they use broader consumer lifestyle analysis, including an examination of new technology trends, consumer preferences for jewelry, cosmetics, car and cell phone designs, popular video/computer games, consumers’ financial management behaviors, and societal hot topics as a way of guiding product design. (2) Innovation: Innovation is of paramount importance in Aimer’s product development. They have maintained active partnerships with international suppliers and Research & Development teams to ensure the latest fiber discoveries, fabric developments, and pattern engineering technology are incorporated into new product design. (3) Tradition preserved and reinvented: Aimer brands keep certain essential elements integral to their overall style, reinventing and integrating heritage elements into new designs. By doing so, brand history is enriched and continuity sustained. Aspers (2010) suggests that product development must embrace contextual knowledge: the designer’s general knowledge of fashion and their lifeworld. Each domain is used to interpret fashion. A designer’s lifeworld comprises their inherent values and beliefs, presenting challenges when creating products for consumers who live in different lifeworld. Aimer’s solutions to the challenge include the following: (1) Designers as entrepreneurs: Designers are trained to be entrepreneurs who must think of design not only from creative aspects but also within a business context. The company has established effective protocols for new product design and adoption procedures and standards; meanwhile, designers are provided with weekly sales records as market feedback to guide their future design directions. They are also given opportunities on a regular basis to travel to various international and domestic markets to gain first-hand experience and knowledge of fashion trends and consumers. (2) Teamwork: Designers from various regions of China and internationally are grouped in teams and assigned to work together on brands. This provides ample opportunity for them to interact and learn from each other so that their lifeworld is expanded. Branding literature suggests that consumer’s individual and shared brand experiences affect a consumer-brand relationship (Chang, Long, Chieng, & Hua, 2006) which is of critical importance to brand loyalty. Aimer’s design strategies support its branding and marketing strategies by: (a) contributing to consumers’ positive, consistent, and multi-dimensional brand knowledge as a part of the brand-leveraging process (Keller, 2003); (b) providing value-added product and service features to enhance brand-augmentation (Magrath, 1997); and (c) offering strong and effective design capacity for brand tiering (Magrath, 1997). Implications Based on the findings, implications for Chinese apparel manufacturers who strive to upgrade with design innovation will be discussed.

Gender has been considered as a very important factor in influencing the effectiveness of sex appeal advertising, yet only biological sex (male or female) has been examined. Therefore, this paper aims to examine the role of gender identity (masculinity, femininity or androgynous) in how people respond to sexual appeals in advertising. By studying the influence of this variable, present research would help in building a more comprehensive picture of why people respond to sexual appeals as they do.

Luxury retailers are said to be leading the way with investment in instore technology (Patel 2013). As consumer decision making has shifted from the rational to the emotional and experiential (Kim et al., 2009), luxury fashion retailers are increasingly investing in experiential retailing to provide a differentiated retail experience and encourage consumers to dwell and consume. However, although academic research has identified the increasingly important role of technology in consumers’ lives (Gilmore and Pine, 2002; Kim et al., 2009; Srinivasan and Srivastava, 2010), there is a lack of research on technology implementation in the luxury context; on how it could be conceived and what beneficial effects it would have on the shopping experience. The aim of this research to explore the adoption of in-store technology within the luxury retail store environment with respect to the motives and methods employed. Motives include the proliferation of e-commerce, the showrooming concept, to increase dwell time and spend instore, to enhance the level of interaction with customers and also that in-store technology can be a PR generator. There are three main methods that luxury brands have been using technology in their flagship stores and these are functional, inspirational and experiential.

A large body of recent research has established that word-of-mouth websites have a major impact on consumer purchases and that this trend is particularly prevalent among the young in Japan. However, prior research into consumer decision-making processes has mainly discussed the sequence of events leading up to purchase, and only a few studies have considered the generation of word-of-mouth communication. Moreover, in the empirical analyses of this research, data was mainly gathered by experiments, and a survey field to firmly gather data has not been developed. This research has two objectives: 1) To propose a new decision-making process that considers the generation of word-of-mouth communication and 2) to create and empirically demonstrate a field that can observe the generation of such communication. Specifically, the author presents a new model of the consumer decision-making process that is based on the AISAS model, a model of advertisement flow, and empirically exhibits a survey field that uses mobile phones. From the results of the analysis in this paper, the following findings were confirmed for the three consumer packaged goods (CPG) investigated: the actual existence of a decision-making process of word-of-mouth communication for the functional drink; in post-purchase behavior, a high percentage of consumers not only engage in word-of-mouth communication, but also view product official homepages; in the case of the line-extension product, while awareness is easy to obtain, only a small amount of word-of-mouth communication takes place on the Internet and even for a private-brand product, information can be spread widely by skillfully utilizing topics in the mass media. Theoretical Background Research into consumers’ decision-making processes can be broadly divided into two flows. The first is constructed from research into consumer behavior and the second from research into advertising messages. The differences between the two are that the former is advanced by investigators who are focused on attitude formation in the decision-making process, while the latter is developed by practitioners who concentrate on how information flows. The stimulation-response type and the information-processing type decision-making processes have been constructed by research into consumer behavior. In the stimulation-response type, it is thought that consumers are mobilized by external stimuli, such as advertisements, store promotions, and discounts, which ultimately cause them to make a purchase. The Howard-Sheth model that appeared in the 1960s is representative of this type, and it describes a decision-making processes that occurs when the product purchased is comparatively inexpensive and requires low participation. In contrast, the information-processing type is a decision-making process for a purchase in which the consumer actively collects information and decides on his or her attitude in achieve personal purchasing goals. It is represented by the Bettman model and describes actions taken when the product price is comparatively high and when risks exist at the time of purchase. Consumers are assumed to adopt either of these decision-making processes, depending on which is more appropriate for their particular situations, but both models mainly describe the process up to the time the purchase is made and hardly mention word-of-mouth communication after it. The area that has been being researched from the perspective of successfully communicating an advertising message to consumers has relied on the AIDMA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Memory, and Action) model that was published in 1956, which was based on the AID (Attention, Interest, and Desire) model, advocated in 1898. Searching for advertisement effects based on this flow is known to be useful in predicting consumer behavior and in corporate branding. It is widely used in the business world, since it can be usefully applied to actual businesses, but it involves hardly any empirical analysis and so is frequently used just as a concept. As described above, consumer decision-making processes have developed as two systems, but as is seen in the review, the conventional decision-making process barely touches on word-of-mouth effects after purchase. Incidentally, during the last few years in the area of advertising messages, models incorporating word-of-mouth communication after purchase have spread in Japan. A typical example is AISAS, which is an abbreviation of Attention about the product; Interest; Search, including on the Internet; Action, namely, the purchase; and Share, such as purchasers writing their impressions of the product on the Internet. Related research has established that those people who are aware of and interested in the product are more likely to listen to word-of-mouth communication and that some people tend to be more likely to listen to it than others. The SIPS model, which was developed from AISAS and assumes that word-of-mouth communication is the starting point for a purchase, is an abbreviation of Sympathize→Identify→Participate→Share & Spread. It is a model with a new paradigm in that rather than the mass media, the trigger for a purchase is word-of-mouth communication, such as a comment on Facebook. From the above, it is clear that a decision-making process for the Internet age that addresses the following points needs to be established: 1) Rather than the conventional one-way model that starts with awareness and ends with the purchase, it is necessary to consider the effects that the sharing of information after a purchase have on others who are searching for information; and 2) the decision-making process is not concluded solely within the individual, and it is necessary to consider the effects that individuals have on the market as a whole. However, in actual purchase scenes, if there are products that are bought through the proliferation of information via SNS, then, as before, there are still many purchases generated by promotions. In other words, it is thought that decision-making processes will vary according to differences in products and consumers and that these various processes coexist. Therefore, next, we will consider how these processes vary because of differences in products and consumers. Empirical Analysis For the analysis in this paper, Minrepo from Docomo Insight Marketing Inc. (DIM) was used. DIM is a joint venture between NTT Docomo Inc., which is the mobile phone company with the largest share of the Japanese market, and Intage Inc., which is Japan’s largest research company. DIM’s Minrepo is a survey and an experiment field for an SNS that uses smart phones and a mechanism by which information posted on the SNS can be confirmed. The Docomo smartphone users post reports with attached photographs of products, meals, and other items they have been used or consumed, in response to which other Docomo smartphone users click on buttons such as “Looks good” and “Wish.” Unlike Facebook, users connect loosely with people with whom they are not acquainted, and so, in actuality, its network structure is closer to that of Twitter or blogs. In addition to observing their actions, it also enables the participants to be surveyed. The current survey period was one month, July 2013, and 2,342 people participated in the survey (of whom, 1,140 were men and 1,202 were women), and a total of 19,196 reports were posted. These postings included reports on three product brands: A, a high-selling functional beverage; B, a line-extension ice bar; and C, a private-brand sweet roll. Brand A was surveyed twice via smartphone, at the beginning and at the end of the survey period. Results First, data were compiled on whether many routes existed for the decision-making processes. From these data, among the 374 people who bought brand A during the relevant period, it was found that 254 of them had some sort of awareness or interest in the product prior to their purchase, that 55 of them purchased it without thinking, and that 65 were aware of and interested in the product and had word-of-mouth communication about it prior to their purchases. Moreover, of these purchasers, 33 of them said word-of-mouth communication was the information that spurred their purchases. Many people were aware of and interested in the low-price beverage prior to their purchase of it, which might be because it is a functional beverage. The percentage of people who sent out word-of-mouth communication was slightly more than 15%, while marginally more than 10% of people were influenced by it, and it is thought that this demonstrates that it is meaningful to take word-of-mouth communication into account when considering decision-making. Next, the routes for the awareness of the three products and the consumers’ behavior after the purchase were investigated. Table 1 shows the results of this investigation. In terms of this characteristic, the awareness rate within the store was high for each of the products, but the awareness rate for brand A was often the result of the many TV commercials that were broadcast for it, while the awareness rate for brand B, which is a line-extension product, was significantly influenced by the parent brand. In contrast to these findings, the cognizance from SNS was high for brand C, and even though consumers were not subject to advertisements about it through the mass media; it was ascertained that this brand succeeded in earning awareness in stores and via SNS. Table 2 shows the consumers’ behavior after their purchases. From it, we see that much word-of-mouth communication was generated for each of the three brands, but compared to brands A and C, the volume of word-of-mouth communication generated on the Internet for brand B was extremely small. This is result is thought to reflect the fact that brand B is a brand-extension product, and so while awareness of it tends to be high, it lacks freshness to the extent that it becomes a topic on the Internet. In addition, for brand A, a large percentage of the people surveyed checked the product on the company site after their purchases of it. It is thought that this was to ascertain what was meant by it being described as functional. Finally, for brand A, the results of the surveys of the conditions before and after the experiment were compared, and the characteristics of those people who responded that they did not first send out word-of-mouth communication but did so after the experiment were investigated. From this investigation, it was ascertained that those who frequently use Twitter and Facebook and those who believe that other people expect them to be a source of information engage in word-of-mouth behavior. This shows that it is not only the product, but also the characteristics of the consumer that greatly influence word-of-mouth communication. Discussion From a review of prior research on consumers’ decision-making processes and on the flow of advertisements, this paper presents a consumer decision-making process that corresponds to the present age of a developed Internet environment. This process was confirmed with data obtained from a pseudo-Twitter world, via actual mobile phones. From this, the following findings were established: the existence of decision-making behaviors that generate word-of-mouth communication; the coexistence of conventional information-processing and stimulation-response processing, according to the product investigated; differences in behaviors for coming into contact with information prior to purchase and for transmitting and searching for information after purchase; and the greater likelihood that people who use Twitter and Facebook to engage in word-of-mouth communication.

This study examines the effects of sampling promotion of a new product in terms of the purchase and WOM. Existing users of the category and related category which the new product were introduced tend to purchase it, compare to non-users. Consumers who knew about the new product before receiving the sample tend to engage into WOM

Consumers receive two types of WOM (word-of-mouth) information: instructional- type WOM and information-type WOM. The instructional-type WOM is WOM information about brands that have not been purchased, while the information-type is WOM about brands have been purchased before. By receiving the instructional-type WOM, consumers come to understand the functional and psychological benefits of the brand. On the other hand, consumers learn nothing about the functional and psychological benefits from information-type WOM, since they already know these benefits through their experience. The information-type WOM about a brand informs consumers that the WOM sender has used the brand and wants to talk about his/her consumption experience of the brand. Although previous research has actively investigated the effects of instructional-type WOM (e.g., Jang, Prasad, and Ratchford 2012; Liu 2006; Zhu and Zhang 2010), the effect of informational-type WOM remains virtually unexplored. When receiving information-type WOM about a brand from friends or family members, consumers are more likely to use the brand in order to build a closer relationship, and therefore fulfill their need to belong. Information-type WOM about a brand from significant others can inhibit consideration of other brands. When a person has the goal of fulfilling the belonging need, only purchasing the same brand as significant others purchase will contribute to satisfying this goal. Purchasing other brands will hinder achievement of the goal, and this impedes their consideration of other brands. The author examined the effect of information-type WOM on consideration set formation using the survey data provided by Yomiuri Advertising Company. The empirical analysis revealed that (1) information-type WOM has a greater impact on consideration than ISP and advertising (i.e., positive own-effect) and (2) information-type WOM has the effect of blocking the entry of other brands into the considerations set (i.e., negative cross-effect). These results suggest that, even for major brands, it is important to generate WOM among consumers. Although information-type WOM might seem to be trivial, this type of WOM function as means to avoid competition in consumers’ consideration sets.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine retail brand equity driver and equity components, and discuss the differentiation of retail branding strategy of three types of supermarket (national chain, local chain and specialty chain) especially in Japan. Design/methodology/approach –The empirical study is based on a sample of 3,062 customers usually using supermarket chain stores (total 58 chain stores) via Internet research household panel to develop this model, and using multiple-group structural equation modeling. Findings – First, store equity driver influence the retail brand equity than policy of corporate driver, and the most affect factor of store equity driver is a service and support. Second, Retail brand equity components were distinctiveness, emotional loyalty, experience value, and trustworthiness. Emotional loyalty and experience value influences the behavioral loyalty. Third, three types of supermarket have different equity drivers, and they influence the purchase behavior. Specialty chain has a strong store driver, which increases of price per unit. National chain and local chain has a strong covariance policy of corporate driver and store equity driver, which influences the retail brand equity. Originality/value – Understanding the retail brand equity in Japanese supermarkets. Retail brand equity is made from a holistic aggregation of some components, and equity driver is made from store attributes and corporate attributes, which are attribution level of operational activities. Consumer recognizes the store as a holistic brand but company wants to know how to increase the behavioral loyalty (purchase behavior), this retail brand equity model integrates the retail brand as holistic and attribution level approach follows retail-marketing activities.

This study investigates Australian consumers’ decision-making styles for everyday products. The CSI is based on preliminary work done by Sproles (1983), in which he argued that there are certain fundamental styles that all consumers apply to their shopping and buying. These styles included brand, price, or quality consciousness and provided a conceptual framework for describing consumer decision making styles. Consumers’ decision-making styles influence how they negotiate their way through the decision-making process, i.e., how they approach information search, evaluation and selection, and purchase behaviour (Durvasula et al., 1996). The characteristics of decision-making styles can be effective in profiling an individual’s consumer style in terms of their product evaluation and selection process (Canabal, 2002). The CSI, however, has some limitations. First, previous studies using the CSI have mostly focused on non-specific product types (Durvasula et al., 1996; Leo et al., 2005). Secondly, most of the research using the CSI has focused on student samples (Fan & Xiao, 1998; Hafstrom et al., 1992; Shim, 1996; Sproles, 1983) that have limited income and marketplace experience, and are still learning their consumer styles. In the light of above limitations, this research is developed focusing on specific products (e.g., confectionary) and distributing the CSI within heterogeneous sample. Based on a sample of 229 respondents, an exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis was adopted to validate Sproles and Kendall’s (1986) Consumer Styles Inventory (CSI). Results found that six decision-making styles: ‘perfectionist, high quality’, ‘confused by overchoice’, ‘impulsive’, ‘habitual/brand loyal’, ‘novelty/fashion’, and ‘recreation conscious’ were retained from the original Sproles and Kendall’s (1986) CSI and one decision-making style such as ‘rational, price conscious’ was developed for Australian consumers. Results also found that 24 items were removed from the original CSI for better fit and ‘brand conscious’ decision-making style showed less than satisfactory reliability indicated that the original CSI inventory needed modification when being applied to Australian consumers. The findings of this study has extended the literature by determining the applicability and the generalizability of the CSI in context of everyday products which is yet to be known in relation to Australian consumers.

Recently, the influence and importance of the IT industry has been increasing. Retailing has been focusing on the functional retail sale of product. However, the needs of companies are focusing on the retail sectors due to the development of digital technology, diverse types of trends, recent trends in consumption patterns, the globalization of the retail market and liberalization of the market. This study examined the effects of IT shopping service quality on consumer's customer loyalty and satisfaction.The purpose of this study is to examine fashion brand's ideal IT shopping service quality on consumer perception and to identify service quality attributes on IT shopping service environment. Therefore, this study will be unable to identify how to improve the quality of IT shopping service and future effects. The research methods are as follow. In the 1st stage, previous advanced studies on fashion brands are explored. Based on this, archival data related to fashion brand are implemented. In the second stage, the first of in-depth interviews method (FGI) and survey are conducted by targeting experts of the fashion industry and customers as a form of survey research. The survey results from 300 college students suggest three dimensions of IT service quality: interaction quality, environmental quality, and outcome quality do have significant impacts on off line customer’s perceived value and loyalty. Both utilitarian and hedonic values are positively related to customer loyalty, and satisfaction. This study concludes with discussions of managerial implications and directions for future research. There is limited research on the domestic fashion retailer IT based shopping service quality measurement. (IT-based services that are not widely spread in Korea). This research will guide the importance of IT shopping service activities and highly recognized variables to consumers, circumstance variables, individual variables Lastly, the study is expected to provide useful information on brand strategy information and management for corporate’s expecting performance.

Culture related research in international business focusses on cultural relativism, that is, on cultural differences between countries. It examines the implications of national culture differences and how to overcome the differences for doing business across national borders. These discussions are either framed within the emic- versus etic- debate, or under the rubric of the national culture dimensions. Our paper addresses the equally important but largely ignored question of cultural universalism in international business, that is, how nations are culturally similar. Using the GLOBE national culture dimensions data, we find significant similarities among the GLOBE nations. Our paper contributes to the cultural relativism versus universalism debate, and extends IB theory with a “universal culture” approach that we believe can enhance understanding and cooperation among international business managers. Overall, our findings have important implications for IB scholars and practitioners.

The importance of Social Networking Services (SNS) has increased in recent years because consumers are able to communicate with each other to share their information and experiences via SNS. This allows to easily distribute critical information and is beneficial to other potential consumers. Current studies confirm the important role of social media so that firms can get valuable information to respond to the heterogeneous customers’ needs through SNS (e.g., Rishika, Kumar, Janakiraman, & Bezawada, 2013). This paradigm shift allows firms to consider the important role of SNS on the current fashion market. A firm communicates with consumers sharing their opinions, experiences, and feedback existing on SNS, called social platform, which provides valuable information to respond to consumers’ needs. In the last decades, rapid advancements in technology and customer demands pushed firms to collaborate with outside partners to collect information, creating valuable products or services. In such competitive environments, customers’ involvement is increasingly important because integrating external sources of knowledge from them can result in major advantages for the firm (Nooteboon, 1999). Further, Von Hippel (1986) emphasizes the importance of the participation of the lead users whose present strong needs will become general in a marketplace months or years in the future. They have the tendency to adopt new products earlier than normal customers. According to Von Hippel (2006), lead users may provide valuable ideas for the firm which results in novel products. Lead users can diffuse product information to other customer groups and may play a pivotal role between the firm and traditional customer groups. Likewise, the fashion leaders in the fashion industry have an important role because firms are able to know future market trends from them. Further, the role of fashion leaders is much more important because of the characteristics of the fashion industry. It is very difficult to foresee a trend as customer demand changes rapidly and becomes more heterogeneous. Fashion leaders purchase new fashion products quicker than other people, are more interested in clothing, and invest more in fashion than the general consumer (Goldsmith, Freiden, & Kilsheimer, 1993). Thus, fashion leaders hold an important role as a source of information and for the word-of-mouth effect in the fashion market (Kim & Hong, 2011). The fashion information that fashion leaders deliver builds more trust and interest than direct fashion advertisement or PR, and they have an important influence on the spread of new fashion styles (Vernette, 2004). Additionally, the effects of online word-of-mouth are different from the traditional word-of-mouth effects because there are numerous senders and receivers, and conversations last much longer. Moreover, viral content that includes vivid visual images can especially be influential on network participants (Kulmala, Mesiranta, & Tuominen, 2013; Wolny & Mueller, 2013). We argue that fashion leaders may have a strong impact on leading a trend in the current fashion industry and influence the consumers who share information and experiences with them on fashion platforms to purchase products. Thus, the purpose of our study is to examine the role of fashion leaders in influencing purchase intention of the potential customers who are using the fashion platforms to take information from them. Further, we will outline how fashion leaders influence the creation of valuable fashion platforms and valuable information through sharing their knowledge through fashion platforms. Online surveys were administrated to conduct empirical analyses for this study. Taking the gender and age characteristics of interest based SNS users into consideration, the research sample concentrated on female users in their teenage to 30s, who had the experience with fashion social platforms. The main research results are as follows. First, we found that fashion leaders create valuable information for the other users to visit fashion platforms, providing correct, trendy and trustworthy information to other users. Second, the quality of information and value of a fashion platform that are created by fashion leaders positively influence the users when considering their future purchase decision making and recommendations to other potential consumers to visit the fashion platform. We have some implications in our study. First, we contribute by finding a factor to explain how the value of social fashion platforms can be created and how important the value of information provided by fashion leaders is in the fashion industry in Korea. We found that the role of fashion leaders in influencing a trend of current fashion in the Korean industry is important. The advent of social media, such as SNS, allows us to explain how one-way communication with consumers to set up a firm’s marketing strategy is limited. As the results of this study are specific to the fashion industry, they can be used as a fundamental study to understand the role of fashion leaders to create value on social platforms and share valuable information to normal users. Moreover, this study can contribute to the understanding how social platforms affect the fashion industry through two-way communication to the potential customers using the fashion leaders. It is important for fashion corporations that are interested in social services to have a valuable knowledge of social platform users. Therefore, fashion marketers who are attempting to utilize social platforms can use this study as preliminary data to understand fashion social platform users, who are the potential consumers.

Purpose and Rational: Social media is an emerging platform for many retail communication channels accommodating various consumers’ needs and wants. There are many research exploring impact of social media on business practice and behavioral outcomes, however, there is only few research focusing on which factors affect the psychological and social variables on actual usage of social media for shopping. This study focuses on the role of consumer perception on flow of social media usage and the moderating effect of consumer’s social variables (i.e. social identity, group norm and social influence) on actual usage of social media information for shopping. The purposes of this study are as follow: 1) To examine empirical effects of flow of social media usage on perceived ease of use social media for shopping, perceived usefulness of social media information and actual usage of social media information for shopping. 2) To explore the perceived ease of use social media information for shopping and perceived usefulness of social media information affect actual usage of social media for shopping. 3) To investigate moderating effect of social variables between the links. Methodology: This research utilized an online self-administered survey to collect data. Two thousand e-mail invitations were distributed to a randomly selected sample from national panel and in order to address the hypotheses stated a dataset of 342 social media users was compiled. The instrument was designed to obtain comprehensive quantitative data and was an adaptation of questionnaire instruments validated in previous studies. For statistical analysis, the structural equation model was used. The results indicated that flow of social media usage influences on perceived ease of use social media information for shopping, perceived usefulness of social media information and actual usage of social media for shopping. Also consumers’ perceived ease of use on social media for shopping and perceived usefulness of social media information effect on actual usage of social media for shopping. Lastly, the social identity and social influence played as moderator variables between the links at actual usage of social media for shopping in all passages except group norm. The results empirically contribute to verify through quantitative research methods in relation to the role of flow of social media usage and the moderating effect of consumer’s social variables (i.e. social identity and social influence) on actual usage of social media for shopping.