Virtual Reality is based on three key characteristics: immersion, interactivity (Boyd & Koles, 2018). Firstly, when exposed to a virtual environment, the individual experiences the sense of immersion or presence within that environment. The user feels like being there and escaping or becoming isolated from the real world. Beside immersion, VR provides a very dynamic environment (Loureiro et al., 2019), which is important to create consumer involvement. Hence, the current study explores antecedents of emotions and purchase intention in virtual supermarket setting

본 연구는 공공구매시장에서 중소기업 기술개발제품에 대한 경쟁요인(낙찰가 격, 조달적합품질, 납품사후서비스, 납기)이 만족에 미치는 영향과 만족이 재구매 의도에 미치는 영향을 실증적으로 규명하고, 제도요인으로 정책부합성의 조절효과를 실증적으로 검증 하였다. 분석결과 경쟁요인은 만족에 모두 유의한 정(+)의 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났고, 만족은 재구매 의도에 유의한 정(+)의 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 또한, 경쟁요인과 만족 간 관계에서 정책부합성은 유의한 조절효과를 나타냈으며, 구매자 혁신성에 따라 재구매 의도에 유의한 차이가 있음을 확인하였다. 본 연구는 기술혁신형 중소기업에게 공공구매시장에서의 마케팅 전략수립에 필요한 실무적 시사점을 제공하고, 민간시장 중심의 고객만족 연구를 공공구매시장까지 확장했다는데 연구의 중요한 의의가 있다.

Cortical activity was assessed in fashion-luxury consumers with a different sustainability orientation, in order to obtain insight on implicit dynamic towards eco-luxury products. Findings highlighted a strong emotional negative impact elicited by sustainability pictures implying a high engagement in luxury consumers when exposed to specific sensitive issues.

본 연구는 매년 발생 건수가 증가하고 있는 아동학대 신고를 증진시킬 수 있는 방안을 탐색하기 위해 이루어졌다. 이를 위해 아동학대 네 가지 유형별(신체 vs. 방임 vs. 성 vs. 정서)로 4개 씩 총 16개의 아동학대 사례를 구성한 후, 각 유형별로 아동학대라고 지각하는 수준이 다른지를 확인하였다. 이어서 아동학대 유형별(신체 vs. 방임 vs. 성 vs. 정서), 성별(남 vs. 여), 그리고 아동학대 신고에 대한 해석수준(저 수준 vs. 고 수준)이 아동학대 신고의도에 미치는 효과도 검증해 보았다. 결과적으로 참가자들은 아동학대의 모든 유형을 아동학대라고 지각하였음에도 불구하고, 아동 학대 신고의도에서는 요인별로 차이를 보였다. 구체적으로 신체적 학대와 방임에 대한 아동학대 신고의도는 남녀 간 차이가 없었지만, 성적 학대와 정서적 학대에서는 여성의 신고의도가 남성의 신고의도보다 강했다. 또한 아동학대 신고를 왜 해야 하는지와 관련된 고수준 해석을 할 때보다 아동학대를 어떻게 해야 하는지와 관련된 저수준 해석을 할 때가 아동학대 신고의도가 강했다. 본 연구는 성별에 따라 강조점이 다른 아동학대 교육 콘텐츠 및 홍보물 제작, 아동학대 신고에 대한 저수준 해석을 적용한 교육에 시사점을 준다.

Although Kimchi is a Korean traditional food, domestic consumption has been decreasing steadily and the trade inversion phenomenon has reached a serious level due to the surge of Chinese Kimchi imports. Moreover, cases where foreign Kimchi is transformed illegally into Korean Kimchi are frequent, which impedes the expansion of Korean Kimchi exports. To sustain the Korean Kimchi industry in a situation where the domestic and overseas conditions are deteriorating, it is necessary to positively review the introduction of Kimchi into a geographical indication (GI) system. This study examined the intention of foreign consumers to purchase Korean Kimchi with GI and analyzed the impact on the trade balance. Approximately 42.8% of 500 Japanese consumers answered that they would purchase Korean Kimchi with GI and they were willing to pay 7.8% more than the present price. Approximately 78.7% of 300 Taiwanese consumers replied that they purchase it and would pay 25.1% more. In addition, Japanese and Taiwanese consumers reported that they expected to increase their Korean Kimchi purchases by 21.9 and 22.4%, respectively. Based on the survey results, the effects of the trade balance were measured using the methodology of a preliminary impact assessment using the KREI-KASMO model. The trade balance of Kimchi is expected to improve slightly at an annual average of 11.718.6 million US$ to as much as 27.7~35.8 million US$.

This study examined whether and how consumers who seek a bargain in their shopping for luxury fashion brands differ from traditional luxury consumers or non-luxury consumers on their market-related attitudes. To do so, this study compared multi-dimensional perceived values, fairness price perceptions, satisfaction with purchase, brand loyalty, and future purchase intention among luxury consumers, luxury-bargain seekers, and non-luxury consumers. Data was obtained from online surveys and the market-related attitudes were compared using an ANOVA test. The comparion of three types of consumers revealed that luxury-bargain seekers and regular luxury consumers are distinct consumer markets. Overall, luxury consumers displayed high perceived values and brand loyalty and were fairly satisfied with the purchase at full-prices. On the other hand, luxury-bargain seekers showed significantly low perceived social value, perceived fairness toward the original price of the brands, and brand loyalty. They were satisfied with the bargain purchase but not likely to purchase the luxury at full-prices in the future. Understanding these distinct types of consumers and targeting them with different product and pricing strategies are important for luxury brands and retailers to expand luxury consumer base without diluting their brands’ prestige image. Potential marketing strategies based on the findings of this study were suggested.

Recently, the textile and fashion industry has adopted 3D printing technology, through which filaments are accumulated continuously in the form of sections to produce digitalized three-dimensional fashion products. Little research has been done regarding the consumer perspectives on 3D printed fashion product. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of consumer innovativeness, uniqueness, and perception factors on consumer attitudes and purchasing intentions for 3D printed fashion products. A questionnaire was given to consumers living in Seoul and Kyunggi, South Korea. The data obtained from the 159 completed questionnaires was analyzed by regression analysis, factor analysis, and Cronbach’s alpha using SPSS 24.0. The results were as follows: First, consumer innovativeness and uniqueness, in descending order, positively affect the perceived social image. Consumer innovativeness positively affects perceived aesthetics and consumer uniqueness positively affects perceived novelty. Second, social image has a positive effect on consumer attitudes to 3D printed fashion products. Third, consumer attitude positively affects purchasing intentions towards 3D printed fashion products. Fourth, consumer innovativeness and uniqueness, in descending order, have a positive effect on consumer attitudes and purchasing intentions for 3D printed fashion products. Fifth, social image and novelty, in descending order, positively affect purchase intentions for 3D printed fashion products. Therefore fashion firms should develop their marketing strategy to focus on innovative, unique consumers as a main target and aim to enhance buyers’ social image by using 3D printed fashion products.

During the last decades, consumers have become increasingly concerned about social and environmental issues (Cone, 2009; Kleanthous, 2011) and “want the brands they use to reflect their concerns and aspirations for a better world” (Bendell and Kleanthous, 2007, p. 5). Ethical and environmental consumerism has become a mainstream phenomenon in contemporary consumer culture (Doane, 2001; Low and Davenport, 2007) and consumers either reward or punish companies that stress or ignore the importance of social and environmental excellence (Grail Research, 2010). From a firm perspective, investing in activities promoting sustainable development is increasingly recognized as an important source of competitive advantage (Porter and Kramer, 2006) and demonstrates a differentiator in most of the industries. According to a study conducted by the United Nations Global Compact and Accenture nearly 97% of the participating CEOs see sustainability as important to their company’s future success (UN and Accenture, 2016). The main reason and motivation to take action in sustainability issues is not the potential for revenue growth and cost reduction but rather the enhanced performance of the brand, trust and reputation (Lacy et al., 2010). Hence, financial rewards seem not to be the prioritized key driver for sustainability-oriented actions, since most companies are not able to explicitly quantify the benefits of their activity (UN and Accenture, 2016). But even though ethical and environmental issues have become an essential component for the evaluation and selection of brands and potential consumers may care about ethical issues, they are unlikely to compromise on traditional product attributes, such as value, quality, price, and performance (Chen and Chang, 2012). Accordingly, examining the influence of a brands sustainability orientation - as perceived by consumers - on brand related factors such as brand reputation and perceived brand value is of special importance for marketing research and practice. For that reason, the present paper examines the effect of brand sustainability on brand reputation and customer perceived value of a brand. Therefore, a measurement instrument was developed, that considers implicit and explicit pathways of human information processing and thus combines conscious and unconscious evaluations of a brands sustainability. Finally, the transfer from a positive customer evaluation to brand performance in terms of brand-related perception and brand-related behavior is examined.

Numerous studies have explored the influence of Airbnb on the tourism and hospitality industry. However, relatively few studies have focused on customer engagement. Considering its crucial role of boosting customer satisfaction and behavioral intentions (Harrigan, Evers, Miles, & Daly, 2017; So, King, Sparks, & Wang, 2016), there is a great need for research into Airbnb in terms of customer engagement. Therefore, this study aims to investigate customer engagement, satisfaction, and behavioral intentions among Airbnb users. This study recruited a total of 374 US Airbnb users through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk), which has been increasingly adopted to collect samples in tourism and hospitality studies. Data analysis for structural equation modeling (SEM) was conducted to determine the effects of customer engagement on satisfaction and behavioral intentions of Airbnb users. The results show that customer engagement plays a crucial role in Airbnb user experiences. This study contributes to tourism and hospitality research by applying a customer engagement scale previously developed by So et al. (2016) to examine the relationship between customer engagement and behavioral intention to use Airbnb. In addition to this relationship, satisfaction was included as a mediator to better grasp the importance of customer engagement and the role of satisfaction among U.S. Airbnb users. This research also extends the current literature of Airbnb by examining, through an empirical approach, how customer engagement with Airbnb impacts its users’ behavioral intentions.

On the basis of the protection motivation theory (PMT) research model, this study employed perceived moral obligation as a determinant to improve predictions of people’s intention to engage in energy savings and carbon reduction behavior aimed at mitigating the threat of environmental climate change through their protection motivation. The sample comprised 930 participants who completed self-reported questionnaire surveys in Taiwan. The empirical results of structural equation modeling indicated that the extended PMT model was more explanatorily powerful than the original model. The results not only confirmed that people’s perceived moral obligation plays a crucial antecedent role in predicting their intention to engage in energy savings and carbon reduction behavior but also verified the mediation effects of protection motivation in the extended PMT model.

The millennials are an important generational group of consumers who purchase luxury online and therefore to know their attitude to luxury has become a significant subject for our study. This study explores whether materialism, need for uniqueness, susceptibility to normative influence, and social media usage affect millennials’ attitudes and purchase intentions toward luxury fashion brands online. In addition, this research examines moderating effect of each dimension of national culture on the relationship between factors and millennials’ attitudes toward luxury fashion brands online. Hofstede’s framework is considered to be the most reliable measure of national culture (Yeniyurt & Townsend, 2003). We used four dimensions of Hofstede’s model of national culture: masculinity, individualism, power distance and uncertainty avoidance. In study 1, we examine millennials’ attitudes toward luxury fashion brand through Q methodology. In study 2, we examine relationships between variables using the SPSS 20.0 program for descriptive statistical analysis and the AMOS 20.0 program for structural equation model (SEM) analysis. The findings will enable marketers of luxury fashion brands to understand millennials’ attitudes toward luxury fashion brands and increase the sales among this target group.

This research was conducted to examine repeat online grocery shoppers behavior based on the S-O-R paradigm (Mehrabian and Russell, 1974) for a five year time frame. Not considering any artificial intelligence, generally in the online shopping environment, the image of the store is communicated through their product and site offerings as well as their user-friendliness of the website. Childers et al. (2001) discussed hedonic aspects of an online store environment such as web atmospherics. Furthermore, with a growing importance of atmospheric cues, researchers are now paying attention to consumer characteristics (Moriuchi and Takahashi, 2018). In general, the results show that atmospherics has an impact on pleasure and satisfaction. Both pleasure and satisfaction have an effect on loyalty. Trust served as a moderator between O-R and was significant. Comparing between the 2012 and 2016 data, results show that satisfaction consumers in the 2012 sample did not see an impact on satisfaction on loyalty, and trust was not a moderating factor on satisfaction and loyalty. However, all the other hypothesized relationships were significant for the 2016 sample. The results suggest a couple of practical implications. First, the ease of navigation are important in pleasing and satisfying online grocery shoppers. Marketing practitioners should focus on how to make the overall website easily navigable. This could include having clear display of the products, reviewing of product descriptions and ease of going back to the main menu after adding items to cart. Second, marketing practitioners should focus their attention on the variety of products available and the quality of products available such as pleasure.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication is generally regarded as good and necessary to inform stakeholders of a company’s CSR deeds. However, research has recently uncovered the practice of “greenhushing” within the context of the hospitality industry (Coles, Warren, Borden, & Dinan, 2017; Font, Elgammal, & Lamond, 2017). Greenhushing means that companies de-emphasize green credentials and CSR activities. Going on holidays is an indulgent act that might result from people feeling they have earned some luxury, including behaving lavishly in terms of resource consumption and responsible behavior. Thus, curtailing this indulgent, irresponsible guest behavior without compromising a guest’s holiday experience is a key challenge for hotels. This paper explores whether the assumption that customers do not want to hear about CSR communication while on holiday is true from the customers’ side and what type of communication achieves to curtail unethical behavioral intentions. Based on 594 usable responses from an online survey, we undertake a moderation analysis with a multi-categorical antecedent variable (different communication stimuli), pro-environmental identity as a moderator and behavioral intentions for “unethical” behavior as a dependent variable using PROCESS 3.0 for SPSS (Hayes, 2018). The results provide partial support for our theoretical predictions.

Many countries have been reducing trade barriers to enhance movements of products across borders. This moderation of trade policies combined with the enormous growth in cross-border e-commerce has provided consumers with more foreign product choices than ever before. Accordingly, the attitudes toward foreign products have been of great interest to international business and consumer behaviour scholars in the last few years. Previous studies on the effect of country of origin (COO) on product evaluations show that consumers in developed countries prefer domestic over foreign goods for several reasons, ranging from a risk-reducing prejudice to a nationalistic bias against foreign products (Bilkey & Nes, 1982; Wang & Chen, 2004). However, the rising role of emerging markets as valuable demand markets calls for more insights into the psychological, socio-economic and cultural factors that may determine differences in attitudes toward foreign products (Batra, 1997). The study examines the impact of bandwagon luxury consumption behaviour on cultural dimensions - related to consumer ethnocentrism and materialism - and, at the same, verifies the influences exerted by their interactions on attitudes toward luxury goods (brand consciousness, product beliefs, intentions to buy online). It develops and empirically tests a conceptual model of bandwagon luxury consumption on a sample of Chinese consumers.

Around the world, debates about the need to regulate bloggers’ activities when they promote branded content arise. Some countries have decided to impose disclosure. Yet, disclosure by a third party and celebrities’ self-disclosure have been shown to reduce influencers’ effectiveness (Boerman, Willemsen, & Van Der Aa, 2017; Colliander & Erlandsson, 2015). Social Media Influencers (SMI) such as bloggers are therefore reluctant to disclose the sponsored nature of their posts, as in other contexts, it has been shown to reduce effectiveness (Charry & Tessitore, 2014). Furthermore, controls that would enforce compliance seems very complex to implement, particularly in a global media environment in which not all countries apply the same regulations. Through a between-subjects experiment (N=139), we explore whether self-imposed disclosure may be an effective and appropriate alternative to regulations. Interestingly, results indicate that although self-disclosure may indeed negatively impact the attitude towards the recommended brand, intentions to buy are not impacted. Followers’ perceptions of the SMI’s motivations explain these results. Self-disclosure restores trust and in turn, followers’ intentions to adopt the SMI’s recommendations. It may therefore be SMI’s most effective response and in their best interest to disclose, to maintain their influence while increasing their followers’ literacy, hence, empowerment. Beyond offering guidance for SMIs, this study therefore provides recommendations to public policy makers.

Introduction Smartwatches are mini devices that are worn like standard watches, which allow installation and use of mobile apps enabling connectivity and interactivity (Chuah et al., 2016). Park et al. (2016) regard smartwatches as multi-category products and are considered to be the first commercialized wearable technology for consumers (Jung et al., 2016). Wearable technologies refer to high-tech devices that are integrated into clothing, accessories or the human body to provide personalized functions to users, regardless of the types of usage (Choi and Kim, 2016). Thus, the smartwatch is recognised as an important and pioneering sub-category of broader smart-fashion. Wearable technology has become more readily available and widespread in the market. A recent industry report (IDC, 2017) indicates that worldwide shipments of wearable devices are expected to increase by 132% from 102.4 million units to 237.5 million units between 2016 and 2021, driven by the proliferation of new and various types of smartwatches. In the past, high-tech and fashion were considered as two separate industries. However, recent years have witnessed a trend towards fashion and high-tech collaborations (Zimmermann, 2016). For example, “Hermès Apple watch” and “Louis Vuitton Tambour Horizon” (O‟Connor, 2017). Millennial consumers are often perceived as the first high-tech generation. This young generation is increasingly attracted by the innovativeness of smartwatches (Shotter and Bradshaw, 2014). According to PwC (2016), millennials are more likely to use smartwatches than older generations. Gartner‟s (2017) research also highlights that millennials represent the largest user group of wearable technologies. Considering the increasing magnitude of millennials‟ interest in luxury wearables, this study takes factors affecting millennial consumers‟ new technology acceptance, and luxury consumption into account. Despite increasing attention from industry, scholarly research on wearable technology has been limited to technological uses. Extant studies are focused in the fields of information systems, computers in human behaviour (Chuah et al., 2016) or electronic textiles (Berzowska, 2005). They concentrate on how these devices might be utilized for healthcare and safety monitoring, fitness or biometric purposes (Choi & Kim, 2016). Academic research to date therefore tends to be more technology rather than consumer driven (Choi and Kim, 2016). As discussed, although the fashion and technology industries are converging (Zimmermann, 2016), most existing research into smartwatch adoption (Choi & Kim, 2016; Chuah et al., 2016; Kim & Shin, 2016) utilizes standard or fitness-centric smartwatches as the research objects. Researchers generally fail to see smartwatches as a hybrid of high-tech wearable and luxury products. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) (Davis, 1986) is a frequently cited model in predicting consumers‟ intentions to adopt an emerging technology. It depicts that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are two critical variables influencing users‟ beliefs, attitudes and intentions to embrace a new information system (Legris et al., 2003). An extension of TAM, TAM 2 (Venkatesh and Davis, 2000) denotes the influence of subjective norm on behavioural intentions. In this model, technology adoption is regarded as a process of social influence. TAM has been extensively applied to explain consumer acceptance of e-commerce (Pavlou, 2003), mobile payment (Schierz et al., 2010), smart glasses (Raushnabel and Ro, 2016), mobile learning systems (Park et al., 2012) and standard smartwatches launched by IT brands (Kim and Shin, 2015; Choi an Kim, 2016). Yet, despite considerable research on the application of TAM, studies incorporating TAM 2 to explain consumers‟ perceptions, attitudes and intentions towards using luxury fashion wearables is still scarce. While Choi and Kim (2016) provide a first step towards understanding consumers‟ perceptions of smartwatches, the authors consider only the functional (perceived usefulness and ease of use) and personal (need for uniqueness and vanity) variables. The influences of other factors like emotional and social factors are neglected. Within the context of consumer behaviour, watches are consumed primarily for aesthetic appeal, as well as providing a means for constructing one‟s self-identity. Thus, psychological and social motivations may also be considered as antecedents to luxury fashion smartwatch adoption. In addition, luxury fashion wearable technology products embrace both high-tech functionality and fashionable design. These smartwatches are marketed as luxurious accessories, rather than solely functional digital devices, as self-expressive use of them has become more commonplace (Mintel, 2016). Furthermore, millennial consumers generally consume luxury for social-oriented purposes (Eastman & Liu, 2012). Hence, values that drive millennial consumers‟ luxury consumption, along with factors proposed in TAM 2, are perceived to play a critical role in affecting the adoption of these smart accessories. The premise of this paper is based on Wiedmann et al.‟s (2007) model of luxury values, employing individual values (self-identity and perceived hedonism), social value (perceived conspicuousness) and functional values (perceived usefulness and perceived quality) to investigate the key factors affecting luxury fashion smartwatch adoption. The Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1975) provides a framework for understanding consciously intended consumer behaviour (Yousafzai et al., 2010). It posits that the impact of consumer attitudes and subjective norms on actual behaviour are mediated by behavioural intentions, which is considered the most powerful predictor of human behaviour (Ajzen and Fishbein, 2005). In TRA, the roles of personal and social factors in forming behavioural intentions are considered. This attitude-intention-behaviour association has been extensively validated in various contexts like ethical consumption (Paul et al., 2016), Green Information Technology (Mishra et al., 2014) and online banking (Yousafzai et al., 2010). Yet, nascent research exists on the attitude-intention link in luxury fashion smartwatch adoption. Purpose In order to address the research gaps elucidated, this study aims to examine the relationships between key value propositions of luxury fashion smartwatches, consumer attitudes and their purchase intentions, and to explore millennial consumers‟ overall perceptions of using these luxury wearable technologies. Specifically, this study critically reviews and links the theories of technology adoption and luxury consumer behaviour to investigate and explore consumer behaviour towards luxury fashion smartwatches in order to offer compelling academic and managerial implications. Design/Methodology/Approach A conceptual framework (see Figure 1) was developed grounded in luxury consumption, technology acceptance and consumer behaviour literature, from which 9 research hypotheses and 3 research questions ensued. The model posits that millennial consumers develop attitudes and purchase intentions towards luxury fashion smartwatches in 3 stages. In line with the tri-component attitude model (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975), consumers learn about luxury fashion smartwatches at the first phase (cognition). The second phase (affective) involves the formation of consumers‟ attitudes towards using luxury fashion smartwatches. At the final phase (conation), consumers develop intentions to buy consistent with their overall evaluations. Drawing on the TRA, relationship between consumer attitudes and purchase behaviour in terms of learning, feeling and doing (Solomon et al., 2010) is depicted. To offer a detailed understanding, mixed methods were employed (Creswell, 2014). An online self-administrated questionnaire was conducted and 230 valid samples were collected. The sample profile were millennial consumers, born between 1980 and 2000 (Young and Hinesly, 2012), who have seen or tried any luxury fashion smartwatch. This study recognizes millennial consumers as the research subject because this generation is described as the next prominent consumers of global luxury and are the largest user group of wearable devices (Higgins et al., 2016; Gartners, 2017). The proposed hypotheses were tested using SPSS 23.0 and subject to 5- statistical tests: reliability, descriptive statistics, factor analysis, correlation analysis and multiple linear regression. In addition, two face-to-face semi-structured focus-group discussions with 10 participants were conducted aiming to better understand the millennial consumer perceptions of using luxury fashion smartwatches. Quantitative content analysis and thematic analysis were employed to produce a more organized and comprehensive summary of the qualitative data. << Insert Figure 1 about here >> Findings The findings indicate that functional, individual and social factors influence millennial consumers‟ adoption intention of luxury fashion smartwatches. Empirical results reveal that perceived hedonism and usefulness are the most important factors that motivate adoption intentions, followed by subjective norm and perceived conspicuousness, indicating luxury fashion smartwatches are perceived as both an IT device and luxury fashion accessory. Other factors that might affect adoption are also discussed. A positive association between attitudes towards using luxury fashion smartwatches and purchase intentions is identified. Implications This study addresses a scholarly research gap by examining factors affecting attitudes and intentions towards using luxury fashion smartwatches, from millennial consumers‟ perspectives. It also offers strategic recommendations for luxury fashion brands in launching and growing luxury wearable opportunities specifically aimed at millennial consumers – a substantial and strategic segment for luxury brands. Research limitations and directions for future research are further elucidated. Originality and Value Given extant research on luxury fashion smartwatches is limited, this study contributes to this unique research stream by exploring millennial consumers‟ perceptions towards using these new generation smartwatches. To the authors‟ knowledge, this study is the first to investigate the application of TAM 2 in examining luxury fashion smartwatch adoption, and subjective norms has been proven as one of the most important factors.

Innovation in technology has led to the growth of hybrid products, which demonstrate features of more than one product category (Rajagopal & Burnkrant, 2009). This trend is evident in the luxury market (e.g., the Tag Heuer Connected wearable, a hybrid of a luxury watch and a computing device. The combination of technology and luxury can pose challenges in the design and marketing of such devices. This could be a problem for new hybrid luxury products, which consumers typically evaluate in terms of symbolic meanings rather than functional utility. In this research we build on and contribute to the product design literature as we propose a model in which the characteristics of aesthetics, symbolism, functionality, monofunctionality (how many different tasks a product delivers on), and ergonomics are antecedents that drive usage intention for luxury hybrids, specifically wearables. First, we find that perceived ergonomics and perceived multi-functionality influence perceived overall functionality of wearables, which then has a positive effect on intention to use those products. Perceived aesthetics appears as an important characteristic for wearables, as mediation analysis shows it has an indirect effect on use intention, both through perceived symbolism and overall functionality of those hybrids. Such order of effects within product design characteristics has not been explored before and our findings yield implications for academics and practitioners.

This study aims to demonstrate the effectiveness of social media marketing as a tool in communicating a “populist” (Scott, 2015) luxury fashion brand’s good intentions toward ordinary people; it also seeks to identify whether luxury fashion brands frequently perceived as exclusive and “envied” could become approachable and “admired” brands, simply by expressing “warm” intentions on their social media sites. Ultimately, we aim to investigate whether positive relational outcomes can be derived from the brand repositioning process, from envy to admiration. This study builds on the brands as intentional agents framework (Kervyn, Fiske, & Malone, 2012), which categorizes brands in terms of their “intentions” and “ability”: “able/ill-intentioned” luxury brands are categorized as “envied brands,” while “able/well-intentioned” brands elicit the general public’s admiration. Our pre-test results confirmed that consumers can sense a brand’s good intentions and ability via its social media site. We then conducted an online selfreported survey among 488 US women aged 18–49 years who were following or “liking” at least one luxury fashion brand’s official social media site. Using structural equation modeling, we found that intentions have a negative impact on consumer envy, and that they have a positive impact on consumer admiration. Ability was found to have a positive impact on consumer admiration of the brands, while it has a negative impact on consumer envy. Although we confirmed negative directions, consumer envy of the brands had nonsignificant impacts on both emotional brand attachment and brand forgiveness. However, consumer admiration of the brands had a positive impact on both kinds of brand responses. In conclusion, while most luxury fashion brands have stuck to exclusivity, the findings of this study imply that by continually showing good intentions towards ordinary people, luxury fashion brands could reposition themselves as admired brands, which would in turn enhance emotional brand attachment. In this way, these brands could cultivate affectionate and passionate consumer–brand relationships making consumers feel more connected to them. In doing so, luxury fashion brands can acquire through social media powerful consumer allies (Phan, Thomas, & Heine, 2011), who are willing to forgive their failures.