Nowadays, many innovative marketers can leverage the augmented reality (AR) technology to create special experiences, offer more interactive advertising, as well as provide new ways to online shopping, especially for mobile marketing. The beauty industry occupies a large proportion in the fashion market and has become its essential part. For the fashion and beauty industry, consumers are willing to have the same level of experience online as when they are shopping offline. Accordingly, many brands develop mobile applications with AR capabilities that provide mobile AR services offering special experience. This new approach to mobile shopping eliminates the risk of shopping when consumers choose products, while indirectly changing consumer purchase behavior and lifestyles. However, relevant evidence about the AR service provided by mobile applications in the fashion and beauty industry remains to be scarce. To fill this gap in the literature, the present study seeks to explore the impact of the mobile AR technology on the consumer perception of the beauty brands and the changes in consumer’s behavior. In terms of the methodology, a semi-structured interview approach is employed. The results of the present study demonstrate that the effect of using the mobile AR technology varies according to the differences in consumers’ cognition and attention to beauty products. The playfulness provided by the mobile AR technology is a key factor for consumers to better understand and experience the brand, and consumer ROI is an important factor for consumers to purchase using the mobile AR service. At the same time, the degree to which the AR technology is mature affects consumer experience of the product. Surprisingly, our results suggest that the use of the AR technology has a certain educational effect on consumers, especially on those who are not good at make-up or have a low level of understanding of beauty products.

In recent years, maintaining transparency has become a trend among brands, and a better level of supply chain transparency has been demonstrated to positively affect consumer environmental concern and conscious behavior. Consumers may accept transparency efforts as a signal of the brand goodwill and perceive it as a visibly sustainable effort that can convert brand trust. In the information transparency trend, eco-certification plays an important role as a tool to inform consumers about sustainability. However, facing large amounts of information, consumers spend much time filtering information, so the accuracy of the obtained information can be compromised. The Higg index is a sustainable verification platform that reveals the entire activities of supply chains. However, most consumers are facing an overload of information that could confuse their processing of any information. In this context, the present study seeks to examine the effect of business transparency to conscious consumer behavior and purchase intention. Second, this study deals with the moderating effects of sustainable knowledge on the relationship between business transparency, environmental concern, and brand trust. Third, we explore the effects of high and low level of consume knowledge of sustainability on the relationship between business transparency and brand trust. In terms of the methodology used in the present study, an off-line survey of Korean consumers was conducted. SPSS 21.0 was used for data analysis aiming to test the proposed model and research hypothesis. The mains results of this study are as follows. First, business transparency has a positive effect on environmental concern, brand trust, and consumer willingness to conscious behavior. Second, consumer sustainable knowledge has a moderating effect on business transparency for environmental concern and brand trust. Taken together, the findings of the present study provide meaningful implications for marketers by highlighting the importance of transparency and introduction of a transparent eco-certification for communication with consumers. To successfully influence consumer willingness to assume conscious behavior, brands are advised to provide standardized transparency labels, rather than complicated information.

The ever-evolving fashion industry has brought forth direct and indirect effects on the environmentto the extent that environmental contamination, labor exploitation, and pirated or counterfeit products have emerged as serious social issues. The sustainability-related issues are associated with all stages of the product lifecycle, ranging from the extraction of raw materials to product disposal (Berkhout & Smith, 1999).In lifecycle management (LCM), the triple bottom line (TBL) of sustainability is seen from the perspective of the product lifecycle (Kocmanova & Nemecek, 2009). TBL refers to corporate efforts to keep a balance among financial viability, environmental soundness and social accountability (Elkington, 1997). As sustainable products are defined in the light of lifecycles, research on product lifecycle management (PLM) has drawn much attention (Gmelin & Seuring, 2014).In addition, PLM is known to exert substantial effects on new product development, which warrants the need to view new sustainable products from the perspective of PLM (Cantamessa, Montagna, & Neirotti, 2012). Therefore, the present study intends to apply a conceptual model of PLM-based new sustainable product development to the fashion industry and to take multifaceted approaches to sustainable fashion product development. To that end, case studies of 21 local and global sustainable fashion brands, 1:1 in-depth interviews with 24 experts from sustainable and non-sustainable fashion brands, and participant observation of 5 sustainable fashion brands were conducted as part of this study. The findings illuminate the management issues attributable to the lack of technology and expertise, as well as the quantification issues involving monitoring or normalized data collection, despite the presence of some process-specific sustainable items in sustainable products developed by the fashion brands. Also, the findings will serve as reference data for further discussions and provide some implications for the sustainable fashion product development of fashion brands.

There is a variety of mobile beauty application specialized services providing information, such as reports on the advantages and disadvantages of a product, as well as tips and recommendations, based on consumers' comments for products that demand much consultation on the part of the consumers to critique the products. From goods purchased through mobile shopping apps, beauty-related products come right after fashion/retail and food/health-related goods, while promotions, followed by review/comments, are known as influential factors when selecting mobile shopping apps. Consumer reviews about a product are seen as important instruments for obtaining a variety of information about a product for those consumers who have not yet used it. Moreover, there is an increasing interest in authentic information instead of purely advertised narrations, while studies are actively in progress to verify the effectiveness of consumer reviews according to their nature and direction. The results vary with each researcher and since online consumer reviews differ, there is a need to research dynamically blended reviews and the forms that they take. Accordingly, this study attempts to observe and identify the factors that affect the perceived authenticity of the information, brand attitude, purchase intention and electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM). The sample consists of 110 respondents in their twenties and thirties who have purchased beauty products online. The respondents were given online and offline questionnaires, and the collected information was analyzed with SPSS 21.0 and AMOS 18.0 using factor analysis, reliability analysis, t-tests, structural equation modeling (SEM) and multi-group analysis. The results show that perceived information authenticity has a significant influence on brand attitude, purchase intention and e-WOM. Positive, negative and subjective evaluations have more significant impact on information authenticity than did only positive and negative reviews, while perceived authenticity has significant relevance to brand attitude, purchase intention and online word-of-mouth. The implications of these findings

Urban regeneration has emerged as a new paradigm of urban development today. In this situation, awareness has increased that urban regeneration should be pursued in connection with culture and art (Evans, 2009). Urban transformation has continued through internal restructuring in an expanded or reduced scale by economic and social changes (Garcia, 2004). Initially, diverse public/private parties initiated urban image improvement and strong brand creation through leading developmental strategies in order to attract floating enterprises, residents and tourists. At this time, states built culture-centered urban regeneration strategies in relation to urban development and regeneration such as large-scale culture and art facility establishment or large event hosting (Couch, 1990). However, in the modern society, with the elevated awareness on environment, the focus has shifted from development towards service industry and tourist industry in urban. In this sense, cultural policies are deemed to be responsible for the expanded idea of urban development considering diverse aspects from physical and economic aspects, to social significance, sustainability and to culture and art (Bianchini & Parkinson, 1993; Garcia, 2004).

In recent years, online video advertising through social media has become a fast-growing tendency that will continue unabated. Online video advertising has become an important and influential tool in the hands of marketers and advertisers, who are spending on average over $10 million annually on digital video, representing an 85% increase from 2 years ago (IAB, 2016). Luxury brands frequently use lifestyle advertising to sell a certain lifestyle to consumers. However, it is the storytelling content that appears to become one of the marketing trends of 2016. This study aims to explore the impact of informativeness, entertainment, and credibility of storytelling and lifestyle video advertising on advertising value and consumer attitudes. To this end, we conducted online surveys with 300 respondents. Factor analysis, correlations, t-tests, and multiple regression analysis (SPSS 21.0) were performed to analyze the data. Our results demonstrate that the advertising value dimensions – informativeness, entertainment, and credibility ̶ have positive effects on advertising value, flow experience, and attitudes towards advertising. This, in turn, positively influences consumers’ purchase intentions. However, our results show that, as compared to lifestyle video advertising, storytelling video advertising has a more significant effect on advertising value. Taken together, the results of the present study provide a theoretical foundation for the real-life applications of storytelling and lifestyle video advertising. Our results also offer meaningful implications for marketers with regard to effective social media video advertising.

In 2015, the size of China’s cross-border shopping market was 97.3 billion dollars. The market increased by 63% during the last 5 years (Mun, 2016), and is expected to rise to 220 billion dollars by the year 2020. According to the e-commerce export trends of the Korea customs administration, in August 2015, the largest exporter was China (42%) and the largest export was clothing (52%) (Song, 2016). Accordingly, Korean corporations and brands are focusing on Haitao (海淘族, who enjoy cross-border online shopping) and proceeding to build customized websites and mobile platforms. Even though China's cross-border shopping is consistently growing, insufficient information is available to Chinese consumers. Hence, this research study is based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and analyzes the factors that influence the behavior of Chinese consumers in cross-border shopping the theory of planned behavior (TPB). The objective of this research is to identify how shopping values, subjective norms, attitudes, and perceived behavior controls influence the behavioral intention of Chinese consumers toward cross-border shopping. The respondents of this study were 20 to 30-year-old Chinese who live in first and second-tier cities in China, and have experienced cross-border shopping. Samples were collected through an online survey website, Sojump (问卷星), and 205 valid questionnaire responses were received. Reliability analysis, factor analysis and SEM (Structural Equation Modeling) were used to validate the measurement model and test the hypotheses with SPSS 21.0 and AMOS 18.0. The findings reveal that the utilitarian values and perceived behavioral controls of Chinese consumers have a positive effect on their attitudes toward cross-border shopping. Furthermore, their behavioral intentions were affected by their attitudes, and their perceived behavioral controls in cross-border shopping excluded subjective norms. The results of the study have implications for Korean fashion retailers who plan to exploit Chinese markets and for the formation of a theoretical basis for cross-border shopping.

The study was to examine the variation and pattern of colony components of Vollenhovia emeryi. The total of 38 colonies was collected from 10 locations, including 35 colonies from 9 locations in South Korea and 3 colonies from 1 location in USA. To know colony components variation, we studied the approximate colony size, the approximate number of reproductives: queens, gyne and male, the approximate number of brood during 7 months. The observation period was from September 2012 to March 2013 over the breeding season from July to August. As a result, the study has found that colony components of the 38 colonies are not constant. This also indicates that gynes and males appear during non-breeding season at least in the laboratory condition. There are 4 types of gynes and males emergence: both(31.6%), only gynes(2.6%), only males(28.9%), absence(28.9%). The number of gynes and males of each colony also shows variance. It indicates that Vollenhovia emeryi may show colony components continuum. In this species, fertilized eggs become worker females and males; worker females are diploid but males are haplid because of maternal genomic elimination. Unfertilized eggs become queens which are diploid by clonal reproduction. Therefore, each individual of the sex can exceptionally transfer its own genes. This unique haplodiploid sex determination may create the conflict between queen and male and cause colony components continuum.

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.

Today all nations in the world focus on remaining competitive advantage by adding high values to their fashion businesses. The most typical example of such added value is fashion collection. In case of London Fashion Week, which is among the world’s top 4 most famous fashion collections where more than 5,000 journalists and buyers from 25 nations can be expected every season, it has great contribution to the economic wealth of London. It induces consumption of 20 million GBP and economic production effects of one hundred million GBP. According to Joo (2009), one of the main purposes of fashion collections can be defined as the invigoration of international marketing and the creation of consumption demand. Fashion collections lead to increased direct sales and consumption demand by developing new products based on leading fashion trends that are presented in the collection. The so-called Big four collections in Paris, Milan, New York and London have their own Country of Origin (COO) image, which represents each country, cities, brands, products and services. For example, Paris collection has been established as luxury image with hand-made and Haute Couture. Not only fashion collection but also fashion brands have applied specific country characteristics to their fashion brand’s image. This serves as a critical factor of competitiveness that communicates an integrated image of brands to the customers. Also, within the purchase decision-making process, consumers consider COO as an important element. Therefore, organizer of fashion collections as well as brands that engage in such should consider COO as a key factor. Most of the previous studies about fashion collections focused on content analyses. For example, Joo (2009) compared characteristics and current situations between four major overseas cities’ collections and Seoul collection. Additionally, there are studies about fashion style, trend, design and textile. Characteristics of color change in 1990s fashion collection (Kim & Kim, 2007) and an analysis of design of hats and fashion images in collections (Jeong & Jeong, 2008) have been conducted as well. Previous studies related to COO mainly focused on the product (Bilkey & Nes, 1982) and how the image of the producing country affects product evaluation. Thus, the purposes of this study are 1) to examine of fashion collection’s COO and fashion brand image effects on brand evaluation and purchase intention, 2) to analyze differentiation factors of COO image, brand evaluation, purchasing intention on Seoul, New York and Paris collection. We surveyed Korean, American and French who have experience in their own country’s fashion collection and used SPSS 21 for data analysis. Fashion collection’s COO and brand image has a great effect on brand evaluation and purchase intention. Moreover, it seems to increase the purchase intention by affecting brand evaluation. Therefore, the results of the study are as follows. First, we can confirm that the better the fashion collection’s COO and fashion brand image, the higher brand evaluation and purchase intention is. Second, when assessing fashion collection’s COO image and fashion brand image, brand evaluation and purchase intention differ according to Korea, US and French national stereotypes. This study goes beyond the general product-centric COO studies and introduces the fashion collection’s COO that can be valuable research in terms of contribution not only to academia, but also to the industrial field.