The consumption landscape is currently moving, making it hard for marketers and managers to anticipate consumers‟ needs and behaviors. With the digitalization of their daily life, ways of selling/communicating/involving with consumers has been re-invented, shifting from a traditional brick-and-mortar environment to a click-and-mortar -if not purely digital- one. Besides, consumers themselves have evolved from postmodern values to hypermodern ones: they do not buy a product anymore for purely functional or hedonic values, but for a combination of both. The hypermodern consumer is in on ongoing quest of “meaning” (Lipovetsky, 2004): the products he buys and services he consumes need to „make sense‟ and help him give some meaning to his life. Such life meaning is then communicated to his network, via (among other media) digital tools, turning a traditionally small network (primary group) into a much larger one (take bloggers for instance (Maman Larraufie & Sommer, 2015)). Still, very few consumers switch towards a 100%-digital way of consuming. They tend to melt physical stores along with digital expectations. The store therefore needs to be a showcase of the brand values, aligned with consumers‟ values of consumption. Some studies have even showed that brand and consumer personalities needed to be aligned to create some store involvement and attachment (Wilson, Wagner, & Maman, 2015). Semiotics is a discipline that focuses on understanding how meaning is produced for consumers (analytic process) or can be produced for consumers (constructive process). Therefore, it can be used to design marketing tools to build some meaning for consumers that would be consistent with their consumption values (Harmon, 2005; Mick, 1986). This would enable turning the store/the communication/etc. into some device enabling the consumer to make sense of his life. As presented before, the store is the current point of tension, as the reconciling showcase between virtual and real brand environments. In this presentation, I will stress out how structural semiotics (Greimas, 1966) can pragmatically help brand managers or marketers reconcile the rational and emotional dimensions behind the so-called store experience, while allowing the consumer associate some inherent meaning to the product/service showcased in the store. I will present several positioning deriving from it, and based on the objective of communication associated with the store, using the Jakobson‟s functions of speech (Jakobson & Halle, 2002). I use visual examples from various sectors of activity, from fashion to hospitality including jewelry, etc.

Ever since sustainable development was brought up in the United Nation in 1987, sustainability has been one of the top priorities in the policy making process of different governments as well as different companies. Despite the fact that different industries have been putting efforts in promoting sustainability in their business, little effort was initially shown in the luxury industry. The sector has been regularly criticized by the general public for its lack of sustainable development imperatives. This has led to an extensive discussion in the academic field on whether luxury and sustainable development are by nature compatible or not. Some scholars suggest that the two concepts are indeed able to co-exist as they share many similarities. They suggest that virtual rarity is the key to increase the motivation of luxury consumers for sustainable luxury purchase. However, no further studies have concerned the relation between virtual rarity and sustainable luxury. It is the objective of the present paper to challenge this hypothesis, confronting it with the market perspective. Studying the views of Western regular luxury consumers towards the two concepts should ultimately help luxury managers design more efficient, and hopefully effective, strategies to promote sustainability in their companies. To achieve this objective, the paper is organized into the following parts. First, a thorough literature review helps defining the concepts of virtual rarity and of sustainable luxury, and ultimately merges both. Then, the qualitative methodology to conduct the study is explained, along with a detailed description of the methods used for data collection and data analysis. The paper then focuses on the most important theoretical and managerial findings, still acknowledging further research developments due to research limitations.

City-branding is usually a topic that practitioners, official bodies and academic researchers have approached from the marketing perspective, i.e. the deliberate strategy set to better “sell” a city-location to various stakeholders, from tourists to investors. The idea is to shape the city image which, as any location image, is a multidimensional phenomenon involving cognition and emotions. It has been defined as the aggregate of impressions, expectations and thoughts related to a definite place (Kotler et al., 1999; Ulaga et al. 2002). However, some scholars have found that places are “like a blank canvas upon which a series of representation are layered producing a place that is uniquely identifiable” (Staiff, 2014). Such representations include poetry, painting, film, travel writing, postcards, novels, maps, guide books and advertising. They build some imaginary of the place with physical buildings as metonymic characteristics of it, producing in the end some hyperreal meaning of the city, an iconic one (Ellul, 1988; Staiff, 2014). Therefore, studying the successive ways of staging a city in advertising, one should be able to identify the iconic elements of the city, the overall city-image implicitly built (and congruent categories of products) and in the end the culturally-built current visual imagery of the city, i.e. the one being currently promoted by city-branding marketing strategies. Particularly, fashion advertising is, as a creative industry (Howkins, 2002), part of some cultural-expression and cultural-building processes. Regular reuse of a setting would simultaneously shape the imaginary of this setting, while borrowing some of its features and facets. The setting would thus become quite quickly an iconic representation of itself (Greimas, 1966), ultimately becoming hyperreal. We use Venezia as the field of study. Our objective is to show the hyperreal nature of the current city-image, with the disappearance of distinctions between signified and sign (Baudrillard, 1994), thanks to the successive reproduction of preceding reproductions of reality in fashion ads using Venezia as a setting. To do so, we use semiotics, building some analytic grid. Particularly, we study: the general impression/feelings when observing the ad; denotation; iconic semiotic analysis including gestalt elements; lexicographic analysis of the text present on the ad; enunciation and emitter’s position; whether the ad is opaque or transparent; the connotations that derive from all previous; and the ultimate classification of the ad depending on its ideology (Floch, 1990). The final results will be ready by the time of the conference. Some interesting trends already emerge, for instance the regular empowering nature of the city for human beings represented in the ad, or the transparent nature of the ad. Besides from providing interesting conclusion on Venezia and on fashion advertising systematically using some setting, we believe the added value of the research is also in the methodological approach that could be used by official entities to understand how their city is iconically represented and craft consistent city-branding strategies, esp. when the city has some historical linkage with fashion and luxury history. Similarly, fashion marketers and advertisers would benefit from knowing about the processes behind systematic reuse of a setting with insights for all fashion-related or luxury-related cities (Paris, Milan, Florence, New York, etc.).

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

Luxury consumption is intrinsically related to unusual expectations from the consumers, among which some are equally shared around the globe. For instance, Europeans, Americans and Asians claim that luxury products should be flawless and their producers (i.e. the luxury brands) should have some history and heritage (Wiedmann et al., 2007). What they put behind these two last notions can fluctuate, but they are systematically stressed out in studies, be they academic or applied, qualitative or quantitative. Therefore, it sounds fundamental for the luxury Maisons to communicate on their heritage and history (Wiedmann et al., 2012). While until the end of the XXth century brands could rely upon different message content and copy to do so, due to localized options of communication, the Internet has implied to complete revision of their approach. The Maisons’ websites, even if available in different languages, are unique platforms to showcase the brand’s history, ambience and offering to a worldwide audience. They should be able to reach consumers, both cognitively and emotionally, recreate the store atmosphere, while simultaneously stimulating some desire to discover new collections. They stand for an open-window on a boundary-free world, be it from the geographical or from the time point of view. However, as pointed out by academics and professionals from the very beginning, the road is paved with risks, especially in terms of brand image management (Geerts & Veg-Sala, 2012). This comes from the apparent non-compatibility between luxury and the online environment. However, such discrepancies have led to a complete redefinition of the luxury concept, with its new semiotics economy (Maman & Kourdoughli, 2014). Part of it is ‘heritage and history’, with little surprise. We can therefore raise the issue of a lack of academic research regarding how such Maisons communicate about their history (even if short) and heritage on their website, be it an institutional or a transactional one. The only studies we have found deal with the automotive sector (Wiedmann et al., 2011) or watch one (Baum, 2011), the second one being a Master’s thesis. It is the objective of the present study to fill in this gap, and to uncover the various ‘signs’ used by luxury brands to communicate their heritage and heritage to their worldwide audience. Besides, we wanted to understand whether different semiotic systems were used by French vs. Italian luxury brands, and whether other variables such as the place of origin or the ‘age’ of the Maison would lead to different signs. To reach this goal, we used a two-pronged approach. First we gathered data from 56 websites of fashion luxury brands, using an inductive approach of content analysis (Kim & Kuljis, 2007). A coding grid was thus built while data was collected, with a back and forth coding process. We also built upon the Gestalt principles to ‘judge’ whether the websites were more focused on 1) current fashion trends, 2) the brand itself or its designer(s), 3) the products offered, or 4) the past of the brand. A first researcher built the grid and filled it in, while a second one directly used the grid for coding. The two coding outcomes were confronted and discrepancies discussed until agreement was reached. Then, major trends and clusters were identified from the data, leading us to understand the various sign-systems used by the Maisons, using Peircian semiotics. We end-up our study with theoretical conclusions regarding the online communication of luxury fashion brands, and with practical recommendations for luxury brand managers.

Suppliers of luxury fashion fabrics in France have historically been working in fierce competitive ways. Usually family-owned businesses, they are working for the same clients, be it in fast fashion, premium fashion or luxury (including Haute-Couture). Calais lace-makers are no exception. However, what could have been described as same emulation in the past turns out to be a weakness in the XXIst century, with booming foreign competition from developing countries. Up to now, they’ve been unable to join their forces to collaborate on projects such as big orders from fashion brands. Created in 1952, the Dentelle de Calais® label can be used by the lace manufacturers using Leavers machines, and active members to the French Federation of Lace and Embroidment (which is the IP owner of the label). This encompasses the places of Calais (traditionally manufacturing lace for undergarments) and of Caudry (more focused on clothes). Caudresian lace has become famous as a proud supplier for the Duchess of Cambridge’s wedding dress or for the awarded costumes in The Great Gatsby. However, it appears that the label is currently dying, being unequally used by the various lace-makers and retailers / brand owners of clothes or undergarments. In January 2014, a repositioning of the label has been initiated. We’ve been asked to do it and decided to use action research to complete this task. The ultimate objective was to give a new identity to the label and DNA to the brand, which could be used by any lace-maker using Leavers machines in a way enhancing his own brand equity. In short, we aim at crafting an ingredient branding strategy. The present action research, on top of solving the client’s issues, aimed at enhancing knowledge on several key topics. First, we wanted to understand better information processes in a cluster that is bi-located, and with internal “fights”. Then, another objective was to grasp the various points that are at stake when clustering happens in-between non-aligned partners. More specifically, we wanted to uncover how decisions happened, and stimulate new ways for decision-making optimization. A last objective was to reflect upon ingredient collective-branding strategic developments, as most literature on branding concerns individual brands and not collective ones. As these become a major trend in these days, we believe academic research has a great role to play. Our research is a first step in this direction. To do this, various data collection and analysis methods have been used: • Interviews with all types stakeholders (fashion designers, purchasers, marketers, journalists, students in fashion or business schools, etc.), to understand their present vision of lace fabric in general and whether they would or would not use it (including in their sales argument). Then similar discussion on Calais lace is conducted. Open-coding and axial coding are then done to identify the values associated with lace and Calais lace, for each stakeholder-category. • Semiotic analysis of the label, to understand the Ethics and Aesthetics of this collective brand. This includes content and discourse analyses, visual (iconic and plastic) analysis of the communication tools including the logo, etc. The current label positioning is presented thanks to the greimasian semiotic square . • Non-participant observation and non-directed interviews with all lace-makers to get each one’s perspective on the label. Open coding and axial coding (Strauss & Corbin) are used to identify the relevant categories and sub-categories underlying the dicsourses. • Lexical analysis of all verbatims will help identify the proper jargon to reconcile stakeholders and manufacturers. • Market analysis on the various relevant markets: Middle East, Europe and Asia. • Structural semiotics are used to wrap-up findings and craft a new brand identity (Greimas’ semiotic square and narrative scheme). More than a simple action, this ingredient-branding collective action will help foster a collective conscience around the preservation of an endangered manufacturing sector of activity, paving the way for a future industrial cluster. Besides the managerial outcomes, this project aimed at (1) Understanding better information processes in a cluster that is bi-located, and with internal “fights”; (2) Grasping the various points that are at stake when clustering happens in-between non-aligned partners, esp. in terms of decision-making processes; and (3) Reflecting upon ingredient collective-branding strategic developments. Our paper presents all these points, providing practical and theoretical insights for the luxury community in general.

This research was conducted in order to investigate how customer experience could be built in the hospitality industry, more specifically with the aim of becoming memorable (Lindgreen et al., 2009). The hospitality industry is at the crossroad between providing simple services and selling a good to be actively consumed (the room occupation). However, studies show that consumers do expect more than before from their stay in a hotel (Williams, 2006; Zeithalm & at., 1990): a clean well-heated room with proper shower and a qualitative breakfast does not meet anymore people’s expectations and in no way drives them towards delight… Besides, the power of customers have gained importance, being the first source of information for prospects when considering a choice of hotels to stay in: Booking.com and the such are now huge challengers to their success. Hence the importance of exceeding customers’ expectations to create positive word-of-mouth and hence attraction for new clients, while building some closer relationship with the initial customer which should lead towards repeat stay, if applicable. One way found by the industry to enhance stays and stimulate customers’ delight potential focuses on providing ‘memorable customer experience’. Such experience is the fusion between tangible (sensorial) and intangible (symbolic) attributes of an offering (Kwortnick & Ross, 2007), leading towards the engraving of its unique souvenir in the consumers’ minds. It becomes some kind of engagement, of co-creation act between the experience provider and the consumer (Poulsson & Kale, 2004). Such positive, enduring and unique souvenir is a rational for relationship-building and thus positive word-of-mouth on along with loyalty towards the experience provider (Berry & Carbone, 2007). During the past years, the hospitality industry has been witnessing the increasing success of the so-called boutique-hotels that appeared in the 80’s in the USA. They are hard to define, as ontologically refusing any of the traditional marketing approach of the hospitality sector (no classification, no norms to respect, etc…). However, they could be characterized as “middle-size hotels, usually located in urban or semi-urban areas, and distinguishing itself by a personalized service and a sophisticated elegant environment” (Source: World Hotel Rating). Their exponential development and success raises questions regarding the relevance of their business model as a source of inspiration for the overall hospitality industry. In this research, we use the case study of the boutique hotels to grasp the various dimensions of a memorable customer experience in hospitality. More specifically, we aim at answering the key question on the triggers of positive emotions in such experiential offers. To reach this goal, we combine participant observation and in-depth interviews with clients in boutique-hotels (theoretical sampling, 13 interviewed equally representing men and women). Data was analyzed using content analysis (Belerson, 1952). Results confirm the fact that the experiential nature of the offer of the boutique-hotels match current consumers’ desires. It concludes with the need to retain customers through an innovative loyalty strategy that would communicate with them in an effective manner, and turn the concept into a long-term profit-raising one, turning consumers into real customers.

The purpose of this paper is to explore underlying motivations relating to the purchase of counterfeit luxury brands. Due to an increased demand for counterfeit goods in the luxury sector, understanding the motivations and determinants of counterfeit purchasing behaviour is becoming increasingly important for both academics and managers (Wee et al 1995; Perez et al 2010; Bian and Moutinho 2011). Counterfeit products rely on original brand features and leverage the brand’s evocative power and symbolic values, even if they don’t possess its intrinsic attributes and original materials. Therefore, consumers might choose a specific brand (and the associated brand values) and in the meantime compromise on the functional values of the product itself, because they are attracted more towards the symbolic features of recreating a brand experience (Gentry et al. 2001). This “brand importance” in counterfeit consumption represents for Grossman and Shapiro (1988) the possibility for consumers to “unbundle the quality and prestige attributes of branded products”, so that counterfeit consumers can “enjoy the status of displaying a prestigious label without paying for a high-quality product” (Grossman and Shapiro, 1988, p.98). Wiedmann et al (2012, p. 554) highlight the need to “examine the reasons why consumers choose the counterfeit over the authentic product,” arguing that an understanding of counterfeit purchase behaviour has to be informed by an understanding of the motivational value dimensions related to genuine luxury brands and goods. This paper uses their luxury value framework to explain the values related to counterfeit consumption. This study focuses on European consumers of luxury products, specifically Italians and Germans. Using a qualitative research approach we were able to evaluate consumers’ multidimensional luxury and counterfeit consumption decision making patterns. Since counterfeit is ultimately an illegal trend, there was a risk that consumers might not want to discuss their perspectives in front of other peers (Bryman and Bell, 2007). Hence, in order to avoid the appearance of potential bias linked to social desirability issues, this research has been structured around in-depth interviews. These semi-structured interviews were informed by existing literature (Saunders et al., 2009). Overall, the sampling frame had to exhibit different socio-demographic psychographic characteristics, so to give a more widespread overview on the response type. Therefore, the sample consisted of consumers with a differentiated educational and employment background and different lifestyles. All respondents were domiciled in larger cities, which increased the possibility for previous interaction with the counterfeit market. Analysis focused on the key themes and patterns that that emerged throughout the interview process (Yin, 2011). Findings have shown how there are major differences in how German and Italian respondents value and engage with counterfeit consumption. Indeed, the research has underlined the presence of varied counterfeit value dimensions that are linked to a consumer’s own luxury values (Wiedmann et al., 2012). Moreover, while luxury consumption is motivated by a consumer’s intrinsically and extrinsically driven desires, counterfeit consumption has been assessed to be motivated more by the values attached to the financial or functional dimensions of a counterfeit product, which complies with past researches on consumer’s value consciousness and on the possibility to engage with short-term trends without the economic investment of purchasing a genuine product (Geiger-Oneto et al., 2012). The research outcome emphasises how consumers from both countries are stimulated to engage with counterfeit goods according to the values they attach to. Since the evaluated consumers are mainly also active luxury goods purchasers, who therefore are aware of and can recognise the difference between a genuine and non-genuine good, it appears as restrictive and ineffective to highlight differences between luxury and counterfeit goods. Additionally, as highlighted by Hieke (2010) and Hart et al. (2004), the more consumers grow familiar with purchasing counterfeit goods, the more they reduce dramatically the consideration they have for the illicitness of this purchase behaviour. The contribution of this study is twofold; theoretical and managerial. Using Wiedmann et al’s (2012) framework we develop theory by delineating motivations of counterfeit buying behaviour. We present practical suggestions to managers for mitigating against the negative impact of counterfeiting on legitimate luxury brands.

The Chinese market has played an important role for the luxury industry in the past years, with double-digit yearly growth (except for last year). Luxury brands have tried to design strategies to meet the local requirements, be it in terms of retail formats or communication strategies. However, Chinese luxury consumers are evolving in terms of consumption habits and materialistic value: observations from the field show that there is less and less emphasis on logo display among certain consumers (Dubois & Laurent, 1994; Lin & Wang, 2010). Such changes might affect also young consumers, which already stand for a great share of luxury consumers (Source: Red Luxury,2012). Besides, past studies on Chinese consumers’ attitudes toward luxury and values behind luxury consumption have often relied on student-samples, acknowledging the potential limitation to their results due to a potential lack of representativeness of the population interviewed. Few studies have provided analyses of the causes of the values and behaviours of young Chinese customers towards luxury product consumption, focused on them as ‘young people’ (Wang et al., 2012; Xue & Wang, 2012). Besides, most of those that tried to do so relied upon student samples of Chinese students studying abroad (in the USA or Europe) (Chen & Kim, 2013). This paper attempts to investigate the contemporary young Chinese consumers’ behaviour towards luxury consumption, segmenting them into two groups : the international student group and mainland Chinese young consumer group. A quantitative survey collected data from 104 respondents within a month where the snowball sampling method was applied to broadcast both online and offline questionnaires. Qualitative data was analyzed through lexical analyzis, while quantitative data was analyzed with the help of SPSS (Levene-test and T-tests). This study mainly focuses on four features: Chinese culture, materialism, young Chinese generation culture and buying motivation. The results of the study mainly indicate that there have been some changes between generations. One such change is that Chinese youths are more individualistic than what was found in previous studies, and another change is that young Chinese consumers hold different points of view towards the values of luxury consumption. As far as differences between international students and local young people from Mainland China are concerned, we found the following differences: • Finding 1: International students purchase luxury products to fit-in with their friends & because they want others to view them as a member of the upper class & as a successful person more than their local fellows. • Finding 2: International students’ income is more able to support them purchase luxury products than for young locals, and they are more inclined to save money to buy luxury products that their local fellows. • Finding 3: Mainland Chinese young people usually go luxury shopping with their parents more than international students do and claim they will still purchase luxury products even if prices increase more than them as well. • Find 4: Purchasing luxury products make local young people happier than international students, and they care more about the style (as opposed to price) of luxury products than these lasts.  We believe such findings will help luxury companies refine their strategies for the coming generations and help researchers notice on which dimensions of luxury consumption using expatriated Chinese students might have an impact and lead towards biased results.