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.

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.

With the diffusion of smart-phones and mobile equipment, as well as the emergence of consumption patterns like showrooming and reverse showrooming, not only online shopping, but also offline stores are becoming important. For this reason, a multichannel which simultaneously runs both offline and online channels is getting the spotlight. A multichannel means a series of activities related to selling goods and services to consumers via more than one channel (Levy & Weitz, 2011). To adapt to this change of the retail environment, the Dongdaemun market, the source of Korean mass fashion, is introducing a multichannel to manage online and offline channels together. ‘Style Nanda’, based on Dongdaemun, is a representative branding case. Having starting with an online shopping mall, ‘Style Nanda’ is now running offline stores and is planning to enter overseas markets. Another example is that of Roompacker which has grown up from an offline store in the Dongdaemun Doota Shopping Mall launched in 2005 and is now emerging as the online and offline powerful actor in the market. As mentioned above, Dongdaemun fashion market-based brands are competitive when they have a multichannel to simultaneously run offline channels, online, and mobile channels. The existing Dongdaemun fashion market-related research has been limited to the analysis of Dongdaemun market’s structural characteristics or the consumer perception of the shopping conditions (Hong & Lee, 2007; Choi & Choo, 2005). Also, most multi-channel studies have focused on the consumer perceptions depending on the channel characteristics; therefore, the studies that measured consumer responses depending on the brand characteristics are very scarce. With the change in the retail environment and the increase in the necessity of revitalizing Dongdaemun commercial districts, a study on the multi-channel properties of the Dongdaemun brands would provide many useful implications. In this context, this research aims to analyze the characteristics of the Dongdaemun market, which is offline-optimized, as well as the utilities and attributes of multichannel shopping services of Dongdaemun fashion brands. Our second aim is to provide implications for marketing. In particular, this research is focused on the effects of these attributes on value equity, relationship equity, and brand equity which are customer equity drivers of Dongdaemun fashion brand consumers. Furthermore, this research explores the effects of customer equity drivers on customer satisfaction and purchase intention. A total of 200 samples were collected to examine the effects on customer equity drivers of Dongdaemun multichannel attributions by consumers in Dongdaemun Fashion Market. The collected data were then analyzed statistically (exploratory factor analysis, reliability analysis, and descriptive statistics) with SPSS 21.0. Furthermore, AMOS 18.0 was used for confirmatory factor analysis and multiple group analysis. The results of this research will serve as a foundation for a distribution channel research to measure the characteristics of Dongdaemun and customer equity regarding a multichannel. They will also be practically helpful in establishing a strategy to introduce a multichannel of offline-centered brands.

There are amount of researches study about corporate competition sustainability, find the way to survive in the competition. But sustainable development has been launched for many years. Sustainable marketing aims to balance among economic, environmental, and social goals. Marketing methods of one company should be innovated with fast development. Marketing practitioners and researchers should follow the idea to sustainable marketing base on the hot issue of sustainable issue. Because sustainable marketing can increase firms’ profit and improve the environment such as nature environment and society. Customer equity is the sum of customer lifetime value, comes from value creation based on profits, costs, cash flow, customers, and customer relationships. Customer equity has been defined as value of future profits that might be acquired from customers, excluding corporate costs (Berger & Nasr, 1998), as profits created when companies allocate resources appropriately to acquire and retain customers (Blattberg & Deighton, 1996), and as the sum of all customers’ discounted lifetime value (Lemon et al., 2001). In this research studied the relationship between sustainable marketing and customer equity. Customer equity has been the key for companies’ sustainable competitive advantage. The company can make proper marketing strategy with customer equity which can both satisfy consumers and make a profit for the company (Lemon et al., 2001). Also test customer attitude to sustainable marketing in different culture. Based on the results this study gave both academy and practice implications.

Dongdaemun Fashion Town, a representative clothing wholesale and retail market in South Korea, is a traditional market that was formed in the 19th century in the late Chosun Dynasty. Since then, the market system has strengthened and, as of now, Dongdaemun Fashion Town can produce various products in batch production and is characterized by a quick market response (Jung, Choo, & Chung, 2007). Furthermore, all fashion-related functions are available, making Dongdaemun Fashion Town an industrial cluster where all related businesses and services are locally concentrated (Ko, Choo, Lee, Song, & Whang, 2013). These characteristics of Dongdaemun Fashion Town relieve market trade cost and build a unique production system. It is positioned as a central clothing wholesale and retail district with the function of a national wholesale market. This Dongdaemun Fashion Town system creates services that customers demand through cooperation, partnership, or outsourcing between various suppliers and various resources (Nam, Kim, Yim, Lee, & Jo, 2009). Thus, Dongdaemun Fashion Town is a system space composed of subordinate markets with unique taste functions; here, a systematic network between the suppliers is significant. It produces value co-creation through collaboration with suppliers. However, few previous studies have investigated co-value created through co-production or co-innovation from Dongdaemun Fashion Town. Also, the shift from product-centered thinking to the customer-centered thinking implies the need for an accompanying shift to the customer-based strategy. It also refers the necessity of strategy to improve customer equity (Rust, Lemon, & Zeithaml, 2004). Therefore, further study is needed on co-creation research to make cyclical growth of traditional market and customer equity. The structure of this study is as follows. First, the characteristics of the Dongdaemun Fashion Town’s co-production, co-innovation, and value co-creation are investigated and each of the subordinate aspects is investigated. Second, the influence of co-production, co-innovation, and value co-creation on customer equity driver is analyzed. Third, the moderating effects on the types of suppliers’ (wholesale/retail) influence relationship are analyzed. In total, 300 samples by wholesalers and retailers were collected for the final analysis. Data analysis was performed used SPSS 21.0 for exploratory factor analyses, reliability analysis, and descriptive statistics. Based on the results, AMOS 18.0 was used for confirmatory factor analysis and multiple group analysis. The results of this study provide an insight into the influence of Dongdaemun Fashion Town’s co-production, co-innovation, and value co-creation on customer equity by wholesalers and retailers. The study concludes with outlining future directions of research that can be used in the development of marketing strategies.

The information technology has affected many aspects of retail world as in other areas of human life. This makes understanding consumers’ acceptance and usage of such technological innovations a critical task for both retail businesses and scholars alike. The technology acceptance model (TAM; Davis 1989) is one of the most widely adopted theoretical frameworks for explaining and predicting consumers’ acceptance of technology. Implementing the meta-analysis method, this study aimed at testing the validity of TAM for understanding consumers’ attitudes and behaviors toward the various technologies adopted in fashion retail stores and online commerce sites. Specifically, the effect sizes of two TAM antecedents of perceived usefulness (PU) and ease of use (PEOU) were estimated and compared. Moderating factors that affect the effect sizes of PU and PEOU on attitudes and behaviors were also explored. A meta-analytical SEM methodology was expected to deliver more thorough and valid test of the model than single sample studies, because accumulation of multiple samples through meta-analysis would bolster the test's statistical power (Hom et al., 1992). A sample of studies on consumers’ acceptance of retail technology in fashion retail context that adopted the TAM model were collected through a systematic search through the databases such as EBSCO, Google Scholars, and Dissertation Abstracts. Efforts were made to include unpublished studies to avoid publication bias. A total of 31 published and unpublished research reports that allowed the calculation of effect sizes of the key paths in the model were included in the final analysis. The effect sizes were calculated out of the identified samples, and the homogeneities of the effect sizes were tested using comprehensive meta-analysis software. The types of technology, product type (apparel vs. general merchandise), subject characteristics (gender; country; student vs. general), and study setting (actual experience vs. simulated situation) were considered as moderators to explain for the variances in correlations among variables. Finally, a meta-SEM model was tested on the aggregated data using AMOS.

Exhibitions are becoming a new important marketing tool in the fashion industry. Consumer’s interest in the haute couture and arts is increasing in parallel to the increase of the need of museums to attract visitors. While many fashion brands have been holding exhibitions, very few studies have investigated the effectiveness of exhibitions. This study aims to obtain practical implications which can be applied to further exhibition marketing processes. To this end, the main goals of this study are thus as follows: (1) to analyze the fashion exhibition cases by categories; and (2) to examine customer satisfaction by the fashion exhibition types and to determine how customer satisfaction affects the brand image. In order to classify the fashion exhibition types, a total of 160 cases held in the last five years in all over the world were collected and the range was set to the B2C fashion exhibition practices. For quantitative analysis of the customer recognition, the survey was distributed to total of 309 participants. Each of respondents evaluated three stimuli therefore the nine stimuli were respectively evaluated by 103 people. As a result of our analysis, nine types of fashion exhibitions were derived by two criteria, namely, (1) the main purpose of an exhibition and (2) the contents of an exhibition. Most fashion exhibitions are held with the goals of aesthetics, sociability, and remembrance. Exhibitions display various fashion products, such as apparel, shoes, bags, and jewellry, fashion photography, as well as various artistic media, such as video, drawings, and installation arts. The nine types of fashion exhibitions were used as a stimulus to quantitatively verify the effectiveness of fashion exhibitions. According to the results of the statistical analyses, customer satisfaction and brand image were significantly different in the fashion exhibition type but the exhibition type does not directly affect the brand image. This study provides a better understanding of the growing influence of factors on the fashion exhibitions and extends the limited research area by verifying the response of fashion exhibition visitors on the marketing level. Moreover, our results provide practical implications for fashion brands to establish successful exhibition marketing strategies.

With the recent hype concerning three-dimensional (3D) printing technology, affordable 3D printers have been launched, enabling individual machine owners to download or create design files and thus produce artifacts. As a design community, Shapeways—which comprises over 300,000 members and 25,000 online shops—commercializes and promotes good ideas using 3D printing technology (Shapeways, 2015). Through Thingiverse, people can globally upload and share design modeling files without cost and print out items as desired. In general, 3D printing communities provide data without charges and witness gradually increasing data sharing rates. Literature on 3D printing mainly focuses on cases of technology-related patents, policies, and intellectual property rights. Thus, there is a paucity of empirical studies on 3D printing users. To overcome the limitations of previous studies, this study first builds on both social cognitive and social capital theories to elucidate the effects of 3D printing community users’ self-efficacy; altruistic tendency; and perceived structural, cognitive, and relational capital on their voluntary knowledge sharing and innovative behaviors. Second, it aims to verify inter-group differences in innovative behaviors of 3D printing community users while considering either high or low levels of fashion innovativeness and fashion involvement. For this verification, antecedents of knowledge sharing are elicited from previous research followed by an interview and a questionnaire survey with 3D printing community users to substantiate such antecedents. Next, the data collected from the interview and survey is analyzed using SPSS 18.0. The results indicate that first, altruistic tendencies influence knowledge sharing, which is consistent with the social cognitive theory, whereas structural, cognitive, and relational capitals affect knowledge sharing, which parallels social capital theory. Second, knowledge sharing in 3D printing virtual communities exerts significant effects on innovative behaviors. This study establishes the antecedents and consequences of knowledge sharing in 3D printing virtual communities and proposes a model for effective knowledge sharing, which is projected to stimulate the application of 3D printing technology in creating and sharing fashion design content and providing substantive data for market formation.

In a period of crisis and uncertainty as the current, heritage marketing is a suitable strategic opportunity because it associates values and meanings to products and services by using corporate heritage or brand heritage in order to communicate identity, continuity and stability. Heritage marketing seems particularly appropriate for high symbolic fashion brand that require the ability to transmit identity and to generate symbolic meanings. In relation to high symbolic fashion brand, an opportunity for heritage marketing strategies is to narrate the myths associated with the brand. In fact, literature has highlighted that fashion brand can be associate to the concept of myth thanks to the presence of symbolic values and meanings. Heritage and myth are concepts linked to time and progression. Therefore, they should continually innovate and evolve in relation to the community of reference in order to find a balance between continuity and renewal. However, a risk of heritage marketing strategies is to merely celebrating the past thus losing the ability to generate and regenerate myths and symbolic values. This paper aims to provide a critical contribution to heritage marketing literature highlighting the risk of obsessive fixation in the celebration of the past. In order to avoid this risk, the paper proposes that a possible solution might be the integration of mythopoesis which is the ability to generate and regenerate myths in order to create and perpetuate sense and meaning through narrative.

Introduction The growth of the luxury goods market has seen an increased level of interest in the topic from both practitioners and academic researchers. The luxury market consists of a number of diverse categories (e.g., luxury clothing, cars, wines, jewelry, vacations) and is considerable in size, reaching €865 billion (over 1 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2014 (D’Arpizio 2014). While the topic of luxury brand marketing historically received only limited attention in the academic literature (Berthon, et al., 2009; Miller and Mills, 2012a) recent years have seen a growth of studies on the marketing of luxury products, including both goods and services). As the last half-decade has seen especially accelerated attention given to the topic, the time is right to examine the body of the overall literature on luxury brand. With the need for consolidation of findings in mind, this paper conducts a literature review of studies of luxury branding that is designed to contribute to the literature on luxury branding in multiple ways. First, the study is designed to provide guidance for researchers on luxury brands as to the definition and measurement of a “luxury brand.” While a number of studies have attempted to define the term, no single widely accepted definition of luxury brand exists and multiple measurement schemes have been put forward. This paper will review key definitions and measurement scales in an effort to help guide future researchers. A second intended contribution is to identify the most influential theories that have been used to help understand whether/why consumer behavior towards luxury brands differs from that towards other brands. A third intended contribution is to outline major sub-areas of research on luxury brands and identify key themes in the findings within these areas in order to summarize the state of knowledge of luxury brand marketing. These areas are: 1) consumer motivation for consuming luxury brands; 2) segmentation strategies for luxury brands; 3) international considerations; and 4) the role of social media in the marketing luxury brands. In conjunction with this goal we summarize how luxury brand marketing has been found to differ from the marketing of other types of brands. In other words, we identify what principles appear to be unique to luxury brand marketing. Finally, the study is designed to contribute to the literature by identifying areas especially in need of additional research in order to move this body of literature forward. Defining “Luxury Brand” Unfortunately for researchers, there is not a widely accepted definition of luxury brand. For example, the American Marketing Association’s dictionary of terms does not contain a definition of “luxury,” “luxury brand,” or “luxury marketing.” Yet, several scholars have attempted to define what constitutes a luxury brand. Prior research is characterized by, “…a lack of clarity regarding a definition, operationalization, and measurement of brand luxury” (Miller and Mills 2010, p.1471). This observation is consistent with previous calls by researchers for a more precise definition of luxury goods marketing (e.g., Berthon, et al., 2009). It has further claimed that the definition and measurement of luxury has been highly subjective (Godey et al., 2009). To the extent that it is true that definitions of luxury have been subjective, this is based on what individual researchers have put forward, as opposed to luxury being an inherently subjective construct. Thus, it is possible and desirable to define what a luxury brand is and measure the degree to which a given brand is a luxury brand. Fortunately, some researchers have made attempts to define luxury. The Miller and Mills (2012a) paper focused on fashion brands and also intentionally included several characterizations of luxury that were not designed to be formal definitions. Thus, it is not directly applicable to our purpose here, which is to identify key usable definitions of luxury brand that are generally applicable. For our purposes, a definition of a luxury brand should meet three key criteria in order to be considered viable definition. First, it should be based on a sound conceptual foundation, as is characteristic of academic definitions in general. Thus, we list here only those definitions that are logically derived from previously articulated and supported concepts. Second, the definition must be broadly applicable to luxury brands in general, and not just a subset such as only products or services, or one type of product category (e.g., fashion goods or automobiles). Finally, the theoretical definition should be capable of being operationalized in a way that allows the construct to be measured. Further, if the definition is multidimensional, it must be possible to measure all of the dimensions. We assembled a collection of definitions that meet these criteria that is displayed in table form. The literature largely defines luxury brands based on consumer perceptions (Heine 2012, Hagtvedt and Patrick 2009), managerially determined dimensions such as marketing activities and product attributes (Keller 2009, Nueno and Quelch 1998), or a combination of both (Vigneron and Johnson 2004, Berthon et al. 2009, Tynan et. al 2010, Vickers and Renand 2003). Some dimensions are present in multiple definitions such high quality (Keller 2009, Heine 2012, Dubois et al. 2001, Tynan et. al 2001, Vigneron and Johnson 2004, Nueno and Quelch 1998) rarity (Tynan et al. 2001, Heine 2012,Vigneron and Johnson 2004, Nueno and Quelch 1998), premium pricing (Keller 2009, Tynan 2010, Heine 2012, Nueno and Quelch 1998), and a high level of aesthetics (Keller 2009, Dubois et al. 2001, Heine 2012). Though the authors of many of these definitions present some explanation of the dimensions underlying the brand luxury definition, further clarification on how these dimensions should best be measured would make any definition of brand luxury more useful. Without methods to clearly measure brand luxury there exists a cacophony of definitions, all with their own grouping of necessary dimensions that lack true clarity or empirical backing. Measurement Scales for Brand Luxury Essential to a better understanding of luxury brands is availability of reliable and valid scales to measure the level of luxury a brand possesses and consumer perceptions of luxury value. There are a variety of reasons why widely accepted scale(s) for measuring luxury are necessary. First, as is evident from the numerous definitions of brand luxury, there exists considerable disagreement on what makes a luxury brand; making objective measurement necessary to clarify potential inconsistencies. Another important consideration in developing scales to measure luxury stems from the reality that amongst consumers and researchers it is acknowledged that not all luxury brands are equally luxurious (Vigneron and Johnson 2004). This suggests that it may be useful to view a brand’s relative luxury as existing on a continuum opposite another construct rather than as an absolute demarcation. The schemes developed thus far are presented with particular focus on those, which are most promising. While there is no generally accepted scale for measuring luxury, the scales that have drawn the most interest for measuring brand luxury appear to be Vigneron and Johnson’s (2004) BLI, and Dubois’ (2001) 33 item scale. Weidemann et al.’s (2009) scale also appears to warrant additional attention, while Miller and Miller and Mills’ (2012) scale appears to be promising but was designed for fashion brands only. Shukla and Purani’s(2012) effort is notable, but the real focus in on consumer motivation and not luxury. Key Theories Though a variety of theories are employed in the luxury marketing literature to explain the motivation for luxury consumption, a number of prominently used theories are summarized in Table 3. Though these various theories all add something slightly different to the understanding of what motivates luxury consumption, they all are largely social in nature. The oldest and perhaps most popular of these theories is conspicuous consumption which originates from Thorstein Veblen’s The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899). Veblen posits that individuals consume in a highly visible manner to signal wealth to others which infers status and power (Veblen 1899). More recently, Bearden and Eztel (1982) found that luxury goods consumed in public were more likely to be conspicuous in nature. Numerous measurement schemes have included conspicuousness as a key dimension of and motivation for consumption of luxury brands (e.g. Wiedmann 2009, Vigneron and Johnson 2004, Dubois et. al 2001). Social comparison theory has been used in a variety of ways to explain different types of luxury consumption motivation. For example, Wiedmann et al. (2009) proposes that since social comparison theory predicts that people tend to conform to majority opinion of their membership groups, that consumers may likely use a luxury brand to conform to social standards. Mandel and Cialindi(2006) find that social comparisons impact not only one’s feelings of self-satisfaction, but also preference for luxury brands. Researchers have also used social comparison theory as a way to understand how consumers engage in comparison between themselves and mass media outlets, Kamal et al. (2013) use this theory in the context of social media marketing and luxury goods. Self-concept theory is another lens scholars have used to examine luxury consumption. Self-concept comprises of how a person feels about his or herself (Gil et al. 2012) making one’s self-concept a potential motivator for luxury consumption. Luxury brands can appeal to self-concept by making consumers feel good about themselves through possession or gift giving (Shukla and Purani 2010). Recent findings have also suggested that one’s self-concept orientation can have an effect on preference for certain types luxury consumption. Kastakankis and Balabanis (2012) find that consumers with an interdependent self-concept are associated with bandwagon luxury consumption while an independent self-concept discourages this type of behavior. Consumer culture theory in general (see Arnould and Thompson 2005) and Belk’s (1988) concept of the extended-self in particular, have informed how many researchers understand luxury consumption motivation. The extended-self helps to explain the symbolic role luxury possessions have in the consumers’ lives (Han, Nunes, and Dreze 2010). Consumers use possessions to form and alter their identities in order to fit their projections of who they are and hope to be (Belk 1988). Value in the possession and consumption of luxury brands is held in the ability to extend one’s self (Hung et al. 2011). Extended-self also serves as one of the five factors in Vigneron and Johnson’s (2004) BLI scale and includes the items of leading, very powerful, rewarding, and successful to measure this factor. While some have argued that a characteristic of luxury brands is their uniqueness (e.g. Dubois et al. 2001), others have also suggested that an individual’s desire to be seen as unique is another important motivation for luxury consumption. Underlying this assertion is Snyder and Fromkin’s (1977) theory of uniqueness, which proposes that individuals develop the need to differentiate themselves from others when there is too much similarity in their social environment. Tian, Bearden, and Hunter’s (2001) concept of consumer’s need for uniqueness is derived from the theory of uniqueness. Consumer’s need for uniqueness suggests that consumers pursue differentness relative to others through the consumption of goods with the intention of developing and enhancing one’s self and social image (Tian et al. 2001). Luxury goods inherent scarcity due to high price and restricted distribution makes it an especially strong category for those attempting to display uniqueness to others (Bian and Forsythe 2012) Motivations and Reasons for Consuming Luxury Goods A consistent theme in the luxury goods marketing literature is that the motives for buying luxury brands differ from those of other types of brands. Numerous studies have explored a variety of potential motives for luxury brand consumption and findings consistently confirm that unique factors contribute to the consumption of luxury brands. At the broadest level, it has been found that luxury brands are attractive to consumers for multiple reasons. Central to the appeal of luxury brands are symbolic meanings consumers attach to them as opposed to specific product features (Han et al., 2010; Kastakanis and Balabanis 2012). More so than standard brands, luxury brands attempt to leverage the meanings consumers attach to them in order to increase sales. The motives underlying the attachment of meanings to luxury brands are a key to understanding why consumers purchase luxury brands. A summary of key articles aimed at exploring motivations for luxury consumption is provided in this section. Clearly, motives for purchasing luxury brands is drawing research interest and is in need of additional research. One longstanding factor that consistently comes up is the importance of social influence and comparisons to others as well as a desire to project a certain image to others due to status consciousness. The role of hedonic pleasure through the consumption of luxury goods has also been a point of emphasis in several studies. More recently, some studies focusing on promising additional factors, including luxury brand consumption as an expression of personal values and as a result of pride, or expressing self-confidence have produced key findings. It is also clear that some variation in motives for purchasing luxury brands has been found, such as differences between product categories, by gender, and culture, and that need more research in these areas. International/ Cross-Cultural Considerations A sub-topic that has been investigated by several researchers is whether international and cross-cultural factors have an impact on luxury brand marketers. It has been well documented that many luxury goods marketers have been successful in selling their products to high income/ high-status consumers around the world. As the market for luxury goods continues to grow consumer demand in Western developed markets have stalled in the face of recessionary trends while the appetite for luxury goods has grown in emerging economies such as China, India, Brazil, and Russia (Shukla and Purani 2012). After reviewing the literature in this area it seems that to date, the studies done on cross-cultural issues in luxury brand marketing appear to raise more questions than they solve. On one hand, it is clear that luxury brands have grown in many parts of the world, resulting in interest in whether there are significant cultural factors independent of income that drive to own luxury goods. On the other, some studies appear to show individualism vs. collectivism matters to consumers while others are suggestive of similar motives across countries. As a result, it is very much worthwhile for more studies attempting to uncover nuances as to the circumstances under which collectivism makes a difference. Moreover, additional study of factors that may vary across culture, such as the influence of country of origin, value consciousness and susceptibility to interpersonal influence as well as other cultural factors should be considered going forward. Market Segmentation for Luxury Brands The extant research on segmentation in luxury brand markets suggests that there are strong possibilities for cross-market segmentation. The findings of Ko et al. (2007,2012) and Wiedmann et al. (2009) are notable examples of such possibilities. However, it must be noted that the research conducted to data primarily focused on markets at high levels of economic development, so further research on the circumstances under which markets can be segmented cross-nationally. It is also notable that much of the research on this issue has been conducted on female subjects, and in light of the Stokberger-Sauer and Teichman (2013) findings of gender differences in Germany, more research is needed on this topic. Effective Use of Social Media for Luxury Brands Research related to social media marketing and luxury brands is reviewed and underlying themes are presented. Because of the evolving nature of social media promotion and the limited number of studies, it is difficult to draw sweeping conclusions from the literature. However, it is clear that social media can be used to build brand image and enhance purchase intention if done properly. Moreover, Kim and Ko’s (2010 and 2012) study provides a promising framework for better understanding the impact of social media programs on various outcome measures. Conclusion and Suggestions for Future Research Recent growth in the study of the luxury market has produced a body of literature that has addressed a number of important issues related to the subject. This literature highlights how the marketing of luxury brands is different than other products while raising even more questions. Future research suggestions on all the topics included are presented based on the findings and themes in the literature review.

This study was designed to investigate luxury brand co-value creation. A mixed method approach was used to 1) identify encounter attributes of value co-creation, consumer value and brand value and 2) examine the relationships among encounter attributes, consumer value, brand value, and purchase intention to explain the process of value co-creation.

3D printing technology, also called the third manufacturing revolution, dramatically changes and revolutionizes the original frame, shifting production processes, supply chains, and the global economic order (Yeh, 2014). The World Economic Forum (2013) selected 3D printing as one of '10 promising technologies'. U.S. President Barack Obama, states in the State of the Union address in 2013: "I will bring a revolution of new manufacturing business on the support of technology of 3D printing". Furthermore, G2 (Group of 2: US and China), China expressed their commitment to invest in the 3D printing technology to restructure the manufacturing industry (Garrett, 2014). By considering its immense economic and creative potential, it is important to understand the effects of 3D printing on the fashion industry. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is (1) to examine the application of 3D printing in fashion industry and (2) to analyze the way it changes the fashion industry. In this study, information from various sources was used, such as governmental market reports, academic literature, newspaper articles, and related other materials. Through analyzing the change of the fashion industry, this research found that technical characteristics of 3D printing were more suitable for customized items that produced in small quantity rather than for the mass market. In addition, 3D printing will change the ‘global operating environment’ for policy makers as well as with regards to business and labor conditions. Governments have to consider the possible risks and problems of 3D printing, ranging from design copyright, security concerns about printing of weapons, and other destructive issues This study indicates how 3D printing technology changes the structure of the apparel industry and the preparation of future changes. The findings will help to understand the effects of 3D printing on the fashion industry and provide a guideline to policy makers to develop a governmental policy. These implications will be useful to both the government and apparel companies. Future research of 3D printing should include quantitative research concerning the attitude and acceptance of fashion consumers on 3D printing technology.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The importance of sustainability is dramatically devoted in fashion industry because the fashion cycle period has been accelerated by fast trend changes. In the past 10 years, fashion companies were trying to meet consumer demands by mass production and quick response. However, due to the low price, consumers are taking low value to products which lead to tremendous amount of clothing waste. This fashion market movement caused social, environmental and economic issues. Therefore, we need to seek for apposite solutions by researchers and practitioners. The traditional educational efforts and approach did not apply to transformative action (Frisk, Larson, 2011). In order to diffuse sustainable knowledge and promote the sustainable behavior, a proper education system has to be developed. According to our pilot study, it shows that the respondents do not have basic knowledge of sustainability or they know the sustainability but it does neither directly nor indirectly impacts to consumer purchase intention and action. A method of this study is focusing on age group 20’s to 30’s because these age groups are the main consumers for the mass production fashion goods and received sustainable education in traditional academic institutions. This study tested a method that can fill the gap between attitude and action by classifying various types of knowledge and find out which knowledge type is the most applicable for fashion industry. The purpose of this study is to provide efficient ways and types to deliver sustainable knowledge which academic institutions and companies can apply. This study presents the results of the role of knowledge in attitude and purchase decision-making in sustainable fashion. Sustainability knowledge captures a broad scope that covers environmental, social and economic perspectives, but with regards to the fashion industry, environmental concern is focused the most. The study results reflects that the proper way of educating potential and existing fashion consumer will help the academic institution and fashion companies to reallocate their sustainable strategy to all three scopes of sustainability (Miller et al., 2011). More of academic institutions and fashion companies are participating to sustainable issues; it will raise the sustainable awareness, which will leads to diffusion of sustainable knowledge and green fashion trends.

According to the development of information technology (IT) and new media, customers’ needs have changed to seek not only high quality goods but also a differentiated service in retail stores (Lee & Shin, 2011). For this reason, fashion retail stores started to provide an interesting service by setting up an IT machine or a gadget in the stores. Thereby, customers can get the information or have a special experience while they shop fashion goods. IT shopping service is defined as using technology in retail stores to enhance interaction between retailers and customers. Retailers have tried several types of IT shopping services, which offer information or experience with a high or low level of technology. Informative IT shopping service provides various and useful information, which is related to each product such as size, color, contents, stock, location and fashion styling. Retailers use experiential IT shopping service as an emotional appeal that gives direct experience to customers in some way or other such as watching or acting in a virtual situation. Also, as technology develops, IT shopping services are embodied with diverse technology that are simple or complexity. Some are easy to use with one button and shows 2D images only, but some have a lot of contents such as video clips, SNS share service, showing 3D images, and implementing augment reality. We saw customer responses on the attributes of IT shopping service (informative vs. experimental) x technology level of IT shopping service (high vs. low) x fashion innovativeness/technology innovativeness (high vs. low) This study aims to see the effect of the attributes of IT shopping service and the level of technology on procedure satisfaction and outcome satisfaction, and the moderating effect of perceived enjoyment and perceived complexity. Furthermore, this study will see whether these effects affect visit intention. In this study, the experimental design was adopted as the main methodology, and a total of four stimuli types were selected: 1) informative x high technology 2) informative x low technology 3) experiential x high technology 4) experiential x low technology. The common element, which all types of stimuli have, is a digital touch screen since it is a general equipment nowadays, and the common fashion good for all types is a black blazer. The type of informative service only has the information (size range, color assortment, contents, stock) about selected fashion good with its image. High technology in informative service shows the image with 3D simulation that can help to see 360° of the blazer, and styling tips including a video clip. Moreover, it helps to share the information with friends via SNS. Low technology in informative service only shows a front side of the blazer and presents a store map for customers to find a product they want to try. The types of experiential service draw customer participation providing a picture of customers that are trying on clothes. Experiential service use augment reality (AR) as a high technology and take the back side of customers picture as low technology. For the manipulation check, 18 graduate students in total viewed for each type, and the total sample comprises 387 college students via survey instrument. All hypotheses were tested using AMOS and SPSS 18.0. The main findings of this study are as follows: depending on type of the attributes of IT shopping service and the level of technology affect perceived enjoyment and perceived complexity differently, and there were significant mediating effect of perceived variables toward IT shopping service on procedure satisfaction, outcome satisfaction, and visit intention. Implications for usefulness and role of the IT shopping service in fashion retail stores are provided. And also, limitation of this study and future study are suggested.

Sales of luxury goods have increased drastically in the Asian marketplace over the past decade and therefore imply high potential for further future developments. While Japan has been an important market to luxury brands for a longer period of time, especially China and South Korea have gained in importance due to high sales volumes and increased desire to purchase luxury goods. Especially due to the economic crisis in Europe, luxury brands have to focus on the potential of these emrging Asian countries. In order to adapt and improve the marketing communication strategies successfully to the respective countries, an intensive analysis of the local luxury market, local competitors and the performance of leading luxury brands have to be examined. This is especially crucial to luxury brands since consumers are highly sensitive to the brand image and identitty which is why marketing strategies and brand positioning have to be considered carefully. The purpose of this study is 1) to examine the current luxury market in Japan, China and South Korea according to major fashion industries; 2) to analyze the critical success factors and marketing strategies of leading and aspiring local and global fashion luxury brands in the respective country 3) to give meaningful implications for existing and aspiring luxury brands. For that, after giving an overview of the luxury market in the respective country, case studies on leading and aspiring luxury brands in the major fashion cities (Shanghai, Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo) will be conducted to examine critical success factors. By that, we will give an overview on the market entry and marketing strategy, such as social media, the usage of IT, and general ads as well as retail trends and communication channels. The findings indicate the current trends of luxury fashion brands in China, South Kore and Japan. Through this data review, case studies and suggestions, both academia and industry will gain important insights of the current tendencies of brands and consumers. Global marketers will understand the Asian luxury market better; local brands may find implications of how to enter other Asian markets and aspiring brands can learn about the critical success factors in the market.

The world has changed dramatically, and the concern with regard to environmental and social impacts of economic activity have become hot issues that have been extensively discussed. Many marketers are applying sustainability as the part of their CSR and consumers are becoming more involved in ethical value of sustainable issues. However, yet, most people still perceive sustainable products as “alternatives” due to various reasons like price, design or simply unfamiliarity with the brand (Niinimaki, 2010). In a current situation where more and more brands are coming to the market offering the variety of choice of sustainable product, brand popularity can be a signal, or cue that help consumers to decide those of unfamiliar sustainable brand because brand popularity can influence the evaluation and decision in the sense that consumers perceive popular brand not only as trustworthy, but also superior to others (Dean, 1999).In terms of brand popularity, “popular” brands tend to acquire more favorable evaluations and larger user shares with, rather than without the popularity component. However, with such characteristics, brand popularity concept can be used within a cue utilization theory, which suggests that products consist of an array of cues (extrinsic and intrinsic) that serves as indicators of quality for consumers when they make decisions related to the product (Olsen, 1972), delivering brand popularity by extrinsic cue through advertising. In addition, the signaling theory suggests that when brand is ranked as popular, consumers assume there are trust and confidence behind the brand, which reduce their level of uncertainty (Dean, 1999). As such, while it has been argued that this cue could be useful as it provides a certain value to consumers and influence their opinion about the brand and, consequently, purchase decision, up to now, there are little studies that use the brand popularity concept as extrinsic cue.Along with the issue of brand popularity, although different consumers around the world make their decisions based on their own mental or physiological orientation, and the difference among consumer behavior has been widely studied and reported, yet, most of sustainable marketing campaigns are made in the similar fashion, without adapting them to specific traits of consumers in different countries. However, in order for sustainable The world has changed dramatically, and the concern with regard to environmental and social impacts of economic activity have become hot issues that have been extensively discussed. Many marketers are applying sustainability as the part of their CSR and consumers are becoming more involved in ethical value of sustainable issues. However, yet, most people still perceive sustainable products as “alternatives” due to various reasons like price, design or simply unfamiliarity with the brand (Niinimaki, 2010). In a current situation where more and more brands are coming to the market offering the variety of choice of sustainable product, brand popularity can be a signal, or cue that help consumers to decide those of unfamiliar sustainable brand because brand popularity can influence the evaluation and decision in the sense that consumers perceive popular brand not only as trustworthy, but also superior to others (Dean, 1999). In terms of brand popularity, “popular” brands tend to acquire more favorable evaluations and larger user shares with, rather than without the popularity component. However, with such characteristics, brand popularity concept can be used within a cue utilization theory, which suggests that products consist of an array of cues (extrinsic and intrinsic) that serves as indicators of quality for consumers when they make decisions related to the product (Olsen, 1972), delivering brand popularity by extrinsic cue through advertising. In addition, the signaling theory suggests that when brand is ranked as popular, consumers assume there are trust and confidence behind the brand, which reduce their level of uncertainty (Dean, 1999). As such, while it has been argued that this cue could be useful as it provides a certain value to consumers and influence their opinion about the brand and, consequently, purchase decision, up to now, there are little studies that use the brand popularity concept as extrinsic cue. Along with the issue of brand popularity, although different consumers around the world make their decisions based on their own mental or physiological orientation, and the difference among consumer behavior has been widely studied and reported, yet, most of sustainable marketing campaigns are made in the similar fashion, without adapting them to specific traits of consumers in different countries. However, in order for sustainable brand to become main stream it is important to understand how the traits of consumers from other countries differ. Thus, it is important to understand the cultural difference in terms of marketing.Therefore, this study adapts brand popularity concept as an extrinsic cue that serves as a certain indicator for consumers (Dean, 1999) and consumer decision making styles as mental characteristics for shopping orientation (Sproles & Kendall, 1986) in order to see cross-cultural difference in consumers’ perception of sustainability brand among 3 countries: Korea, China and Russia. Choice of countries is not only resulting from the difference in behavior and attitudes towards sustainable consumption of Greendex (National Geographic & Globescan, 2013), but also, the difference among countries even when belonging as a part of Asia. Thus this study investigates overall consumers’ decision making style among three countries of South Korea, China, and Russia to find the effect of brand popularity on brand evaluation. Additionally, the moderating effect of fashion leadership and sustainability involvement was preceded. From this, it aims to provide implication for positioning and marketing sustainable brand in accordance to the difference consumer segmentation. A study was designed to determine which dimensions of consumer style inventory of country are most frequently associated in accordance to countries and whether brand popularity had affect on purchase intention of sustainable brand. The hypotheses were tested with a data set developed form field survey. The study was conducted cross-nationally in Korea, China, and Russia using online and offline survey. The survey questionnaire reflected a quasi-experimental design. The between-subjects design employed consisted of two between-subject factors of brand popularity and consumer decision-making style. The factor brand popularity had two levels: one provided with a brand popularity ranking as an extrinsic cue and one without. The resultant questionnaire was pretest by natives before distributing. No discrepancies among the surveys were reported. The consumer decision making style had three levels of Korea, China, and Russia. The questionnaire was pretest by 30 fashion marketing researchers before distributing. Of the 376 samples collected, 6 were returned incomplete. An additional 18 samples were deleted for further analysis as the answers were unusable. In total 352 samples – 113, 121 and 118 samples from Korea, China and Russia respectively – were subjected for final analysis.A one-way MANOVA revealed a significant multivariate main effect for consumer decision making style of the nation (Pillai’s trace = .23, F (10, 676) = 9, p <. 000). Given the significance of the overall test, the univariate main effects were examined. Significant univariate main effects for consumer decision making style of nation were obtained for quality (F = 6.95, p <.01), for uniqueness (F =7.54 , p <.01), for favorability (F =6.94 , p <.01), and for purchase intension (F =4.33 , p <.05). Significant nation pairwise differences were obtained in popularity among Korea, China, and Russia. In case of Korea, the effect of brand popularity yielded significantly higher mean score when it was presented. However, for China, the effect of brand popularity was significant as well (Pillai’s trace = .10, F (5, 114) = 2.45, p <. 05). Meanwhile, the outcome of Russia had different aspect to the prior two countries with no significant difference at all. The t-test provides evidence to support the claim that the effect of brand popularity differs according to the consumer decision making style of nations. Participants were placed into "high" or "low" fashion leader groups on the basis of previously obtained attitude. The group was divided according to the mean value (X = 2.98). Significant nation pairwise differences were obtained in fashion leadership among Korea, China, and Russia. In case of Korea, the effect of fashion leadership was not shown significant. However for China, the effect of fashion leadership was significant (Pillai’s trace = .31, F (5, 114) = 10.27, p <. 001). Russia also had dramatic effect of fashion leadership (Pillai’s trace = .12, F (5, 110) = 3.03). Significant nation pairwise differences were obtained in sustainability involvement among Korea, China, and Russia. The significant dependent variables appear differed by nations. In case of Korea, the effect of sustainability involvement was significant (Pillai’s trace = .17, F (5, 105) = 4.33, p <. 01). Similarly, the effect of sustainability involvement in China was significant (Pillai’s trace = .20, F (5, 114) = 5.82, p <. 001). The result of Russian was not significant. This study examines the overall effect of brand popularity and consumer decision making styles among three countries: South Korea, China, and Russia on customer evaluation of sustainable brand with the moderate role of fashion leadership and sustainability involvement. This study found that the effect of brand popularity differs according to the consumer decision making style of nations, fashion leadership, and sustainability involvement. Thus, consumer culture should be considered when applying such communication strategy. The result revealed that first hypothesis that brand popularity will affect consumer evaluation on the sustainable brand was denied. This can be explained due to the experimental condition of this study where it applied a virtual brand and the virtual institutions for evaluation. However, in more specific, this can be described as due to the cross national method of this study. The previous studies only focus on proceeding study in one country (Kim & Chung,1997; Rao & Monroe, 1988). It was found that Koreans tend to be more recreational, impulsive, confused by overchoice, brand conscious, and habitual whereas China brand conscious, impulsive, and less confused by overchoice. Russia was scored significantly low on all above mentioned criteria. The moderating effect of consumer decision making style of nation was investigated. The result indicated significant difference of consumer decision making style of nation. Whereas Korean had positive effect of brand popularity on brand evaluation when presented, China showed negative influence, and Russia had no significant impact. This can be due to the Korean consumers’ tendency to value trust and reputation. Individual Korean consumers tend to buy products of large we The third hypothesis of fashion leadership negatively affecting the effect of brand popularity was also partially supported. The significant dependent variables appear differed by nations. In case of Korea, the effect of fashion leadership did not shown significant, yet China and Russia did. However, while China had positive effect of brand popularity, especially to those with high fashion leadership, Russia had negative effect of brand popularity. The difference on consumer decision making style in between high and low fashion leadership groups was investigated. For Korea, involved subjects were significantly more novelty conscious, hedonic shopper, habitual. In case of China, involved subjects were significantly more perfectionism, brand conscious, novelty conscious, impulsive, confused by overchoice, and habitual Lastly, for Russia, involved subjects were significantly less brand conscious novelty conscious, hedonic, impulsive, and habitual. The result of Korea can be inferred as the high trend sensitivity of Koreans. With less difference in consumer decision making style in between high fashion leaders and low fashion leaders, compared to the other two countries, the effect may have not been clearly shown. The result of China and Russia can be interpreted as that the Chinese fashion leaders being more brand conscious caused higher result when the brand popularity was provided. Yet, in Russian fashion leaders who are less brand conscious and less impulsive may have affected the rigid attitude towards the well-known sustainable brand. Lastly, the effect of sustainability involvement was examined. In case of Korea, the effect of sustainability involvement was significant. Similarly, the effect of sustainability involvement in China was significant. The result of Russian was not significant. "high" and "low" fashion leadership groups differed in their decision making style by nation. For Korea, involved subjects were significantly more novelty conscious, hedonic shopper, and more habitual. In case of China, involved subjects were significantly more perfectionist, brand conscious, novelty conscious, hedonic, impulsive, confused by overchoice, and habitual. Lastly, for Russia, involved subjects were significantly more perfectionist. The difference of the result can be explained through the distinctive culture of each country along with the result of the consumer decision making style of the highly involved groups from each country. Koreans, as mentioned above, the effect popularity cue works stronger than other countries. The tendency of preferring products with powerful brand name would have affected the result as expected. However in case of China, along with that Chinese having suspicious perception on institutional documents, significantly being brand apathy may also explain the result. In addition, Russia overall had a high score of sustainability, which can relate to the fact that although slight decrease in its Greendex recently, it has been ranked for several years now, the sustainability value itself may have worked as a intrinsic value of the brand rather than brand popularity cue.ll-known companies rather than small and unfamiliar ones (Kim & Zhang, 2009). The result of China can be explained with Chinese consumers’ characteristics of having suspicious perception on transparency of the enterprise information (Brandvista, 2013). Especially distrust on official data or the governmental exists. With Russians result, this finding are supported by several previous research that suggests that new brands coming to Russian market at the very high speed and disappears quickly due to complexity of the market, thus consumers don’t have time to strongly attach to one brand (Peskova, 2007).