This study investigates consumer experiences and word-of-mouth (WOM) intentions in luxury brand pop-up stores, including standalone and department store setups. Grounded in experience economy theory, this study examines the experiential elements based on the types of pop-up stores and the relationships among consumer experience, pop-up store image, and WOM intentions for each type. Data were collected from 300 visitors to luxury brand pop-up stores between January and July 2023 and analyzed using Smart PLS 4.0. The findings reveal several key insights. First, standalone pop-up stores offer educational and escapist experiences, while pop-ups within department stores have a single identified factor of consumer experience. Second, regardless of the store type, luxury pop-up store experiences significantly influence pop-up image perceptions. Third, luxury pop-up store image drives WOM intentions for both standalone and department store pop-ups. Notably, the unique image significantly impacts solely department store pop-ups and does not influence standalone pop-ups. Moreover, image perceptions in both pop-up store types do not significantly affect brand WOM intentions. Finally, WOM intentions for pop-up stores significantly influence WOM intentions for brands. This study contributes to the theoretical understanding of consumer experiences in luxury pop-up stores, providing practical insights for stakeholders in the luxury brand industry to enhance pop-up store image perceptions and WOM intentions.

The online shopping market is expanding, with online shopping malls now subdivided into personal computer(PC) and mobile versions. Meanwhile, various efforts to promote online sales are being carried out in a bid to improve performance, and detailed research is required to inform such strategies. The purpose of this study was to classify online shopping mall types into PC fashion malls and mobile fashion malls with the aim of assessing sales promotion satisfaction and investigating the relationship between sales promotion satisfaction and consumers’ behavioral intentions. Data were collected by a survey firm in June 2023, and 248 copies of the data were used for analysis. SPSS 28.0 was used to process the data, and frequency analysis, factor analysis, reliability analysis, and regression analysis were performed. The satisfaction factors for various sales promotions used by PC and mobile fashion shopping malls were empirically subdivided in consideration of consumer perspectives, and potentially effective marketing strategies were presented. Differences were observed in the type of satisfaction with sales promotion between PC fashion shopping malls and mobile fashion shopping malls and in the effect of sales promotion satisfaction on behavioral intention. Based on the study’s findings, effective sales promotion strategies that can increase satisfaction and enhance behavioral intention may be developed and implemented through the use of various and different sales promotion strategies in PC and mobile fashion shopping malls.

본 연구는 SNS 계정으로 화장품 브랜드를 구독하고 있는 10대에서 50대 남녀의 지각된 연령을 기준으로 소비자-브랜드 상호작용과 관계가 구매동기와 만족도에 미치는 영향력을 분석하기 위해 설문 조 사를 하였다. 수집된 자료의 통계처리는 SPSS 21.0로 빈도분석, 요인분석, 신뢰도분석, 회귀분석, 다중회귀 분석을 하였다. 조사대상자들의 지각된 연령을 타인이 지각한 연령과 스스로 지각한 연령의 차이에 따라 ‘지각된 저집단’, ‘지각된 중집단’, ‘지각된 고집단’으로 분류하였다. 세 집단은 소비자-브랜드 상호작용과 소비자-브랜드 관계는 구매동기와 유의미한 정의 관계가 나타났고, 소비자-브랜드 관계는 구매동기 중에 서도 ‘매력적’을 설명하는 주요 변수로 나타났다. 세 집단은 소비자-브랜드 상호작용과 소비자-브랜드 관 계는 만족도와 유의미한 정의 관계가 나타났고, 소비자-브랜드 관계는 만족도를 설명하는 주요 변수로 나 타났다. 그러므로, 본 연구의 결론은 지각된 연령집단별, 소비자-브랜드 상호작용과 소비자-브랜드 관계가 구매동기와 만족도에 정적 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 특히, 소비자-브랜드 관계는 화장품 구매동기 와 만족도에 주요한 변수가 된다는 것을 알 수 있었다. 본 연구는 SNS에서 지각된 연령이 화장품 브랜드 마케팅에 미치는 영향력을 실증적으로 분석함에 따라, 화장품 판매전략을 수립할 수 있는 실무적 시사점 및 마케팅에 활용될 수 있는 기초자료가 될 것으로 사료된다.

Consumers sometimes see brands as relationship partners and expect that they conform to certain expectations, or relational norms. However, there is no valid and universal operationalization of these norms for the specific context of consumer-brand relationships. We address this gap by developing and validating a new scale in four studies.

In the new digital age, the emergence of user-generated content enables consumers to enjoy greater freedom and control over their behavior on the internet and assume more active roles in sharing brand-related information with others. This research examines the role of brand engagement on consumer psychological ownership, purchase intention, electronic word of mouth (eWOM), and consumers’ willingness to defend the brand on social media. The findings provide evidence of consumer psychological process to demonstrate that companies can use social media to engage with consumers, so consumers are likely to spread positive WOM and be protective of the brand. It is important for marketing managers to assess the level of brand engagement on social media sites and develop tools and techniques to increase consumers’ participation such as using subliminal priming on brand image, with an aim to create a close consumer brand relationship.

This study analyzed the effects of fashion creators’ innovativeness and attractiveness on consumer response and orientation toward a sustainable relationship in personal media. A survey was conducted with consumers aged in their 20s and 30s who had experience in sharing video content or writing comments and participating in fashion creators’ real-time broadcasting of personal media. The results show that the innovativeness of fashion creators was classified into originality, opinion leadership, variety, and adventurous spirit, while attractiveness was classified into physical, social, and professional attractiveness. Consumer responses were classified into either emotional or cognitive responses, and sustainable relationship orientation was classified into communication, sharing, and relationship sustainability. The originality and variety of the fashion creators positively affected the emotional and cognitive responses of consumers. Adventurous spirit positively affected emotional response, whereas opinion leadership positively affected cognitive response. In addition, the social and professional attractiveness of fashion creators positively affected consumers’ emotional and cognitive responses. Emotional and cognitive responses positively affected consumers’ sustainable relationship orientation. The originality and opinion leadership of the fashion creators positively affected the three factors of sustainable relationship orientation, while variety positively affected communication and relationship sustainability. Fashion creators' social and professional attractiveness positively affected the three factors of sustainable relationship orientation, and physical attractiveness positively affected relationship sustainability. The results of this study are expected to provide useful data on the direction of fashion startups using personal media and marketing as well as distribution strategies in the fashion industry.

This study was conducted to investigate the effect of relationship and service marketing on the brand interest and behaviors among Korean and Chinese active senior consumers and whether this effect differed between the two groups. A survey was conducted by having participants complete questionnaires administered by a research firm. For empirical analysis, frequency, EFA, CFA, SEM, the metric invariance test, and multiple-group comparison analysis were performed. The analysis results revealed that relationship marketing positively affected both brand interest and consumer behavior. Although service marketing positively affected brand interest, it did not have a significant effect on consumer behavior. In other words, brand interest positively affected consumer behavior through relationship and service marketing. Multiple-group comparison analysis demonstrated that no difference existed between Korean and Chinese active consumers in terms of how relationship marketing affected their brand interest, but a difference existed in how it affected their behavior. Service marketing had a greater influence on Chinese active senior consumers’ brand interest than on Korean active senior consumers. However no difference existed between the two groups with respect to how service marketing affected their behaviors. Finally, brand interest had a positive effect only on Korean active senior consumers’ behavior through relationship and service marketing, but not on Chinese active senior consumers. In conclusion, relationship and service marketing should be used to enhance the brand interest among Korean active senior consumers, and business activities should be planned by building relationships with Chinese active senior consumers to affect their behavior.

Introduction Consumer ethical behaviors regarding social impact, environmental concern, and ethical practices for the buyer/seller dyad has become a vital issue. A large number of consumers have the willingness to be activists to address potentially threatening environmental problems with foresight (Atkinson & Rosenthal, 2014). Consumers with environment awareness have begun to consider the environmental claims of products, such as environmental protection certification (do Paço & Reis, 2012) and production process with environmental protection regulations (Yoon & Kim, 2016). All such information effectively spreads the environmental protection knowledge to help consumers identify the environmental features of the product (Leonidou, Leonidou, Palihawadana, & Hultman, 2011), and then to conduct consumption behaviors with ethical/moral concerns. However, the related research to examine the relationships between consumer ethical behaviors and their attitudes toward environmental information disclosure in advertising in Asian countries is few. This study’s main purpose is thus to understand how environmental information disclosure in advertising influences consumers’ attitudes toward the brand and their ethical behaviors. Literature Review Mitchell, Balabanis, Schlegelmich, and CornWell (2009) argues that all direct or indirect consumer actions that could make businesses or other stakeholders to lose money or reputation are viewed as consumer unethical behaviors. Consumers’ (un)ethical behaviors would be influenced by their moral principles and standards as they obtain, use, and dispose of goods and services (Muncy & Vitell, 1992). First, according to the equity theory, brand equity will increase the relationship intention between sellers and buyers. Those consumers with a high perception about product value or brand equity would tend to build a positive relationship with sellers, and thus their ethical behaviors would be influenced (Chang & Lu, 2017). Consumers’ ethical consumption depends on the equity of the profitability of the seller and this study proposes that brand equity has significant positive effects on consumer ethical behavior (H1). Second, environmental advertising claims refer to the classification of environmental claims in advertising with various environmental protection information about products (do Paço & Reis, 2012). Chan, Leung, and Wong (2006) state the two types of environmental advertising claims. Substantial environmental claims focus on the substantial benefits of products for the environment and the positive impacts of enterprises on the environment in order to substantially maintain or enhance consumers’ understanding of products with environmental awareness (Chan, 2000). Associated environmental claims feature advertising that do not have a direct connection with the products or production of enterprises; instead, they reveal an enterprises’ concern about environmental protection topics through environmental protection activities or topics regarding the conservation of the ecosystem, in order to indirectly trigger the consumers’ positive image and reactions to the enterprises or brands (Chan, 2000). Different environmental advertising claims would have different extents of impact on consumers’ attitude towards advertising and the product (Chan et al., 2006). Chan (2000) states that substantial environmental claims are more persuasive than associated claims, as the advertising of the former could directly publicize the specific environmentally-friendly measures in products or production process. The hypotheses are thus submitted: environmental advertising claims have significant positive effects on brand equity (H2.) and the impact power of substantial environmental claims on brand equity is stronger than those of associated environmental claims (H3). Third, eco-labels provide the information of products toward the environment influence during their life cycles (Atkinson & Rosenthal, 2014; Chekima, Wafa, Igau, Chekima, & Sondoh, 2016) and the claims regarding the eco-features, production, and constituents of the products (Atkinson & Rosenthal, 2014). Maniatis (2016) argues that eco-labels could clearly reveal the economic and ecological benefits of products and help consumers make purchase decisions. Specific claims, such as marks, pictures, or signs, could clearly convey information about the products, which make it easy for consumers to understand. Therefore, hypothesis 4 is submitted: environmental advertising with eco-labels has a significant positive effect on brand equity (H4). Method This study used the 2x2 factor experiment to create four situations through two types of environmental advertising claims (substantial and associated environmental advertising claims) and two types of eco-labels (available/unavailable). The manipulation checks with regards to the constructs of environmental advertising claims and eco-label were shown to be successful through a pilot test. On the other hand, this study selected 14-items of Muncy and Vitell’s (1992) scale to measure consumer ethical behaviors. The measuring items of brand equity were taken by Yoo and Donth’s (2001) three-dimensional scale, containing brand awareness/associations, perceived quality, and brand loyalty. Moreover, 294 valid questionnaires were retained in the formal survey via electronic questionnaire survey. Females accounted for 50.7%. Those aged less than 25 occupied a larger proportion (50%), followed by those aged from 26 to 35 (21.8%). The samples with a college education or above accounted for 92.5%. Additionally, the component reliability, convergent and discriminant validity were also confirmed (Bagozzi & Yi, 1988; Fornell & Larcker, 1981) due to the results of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) by Lisrel 8.7. Results and Conclusion Based on the ANOVA results, first, environmental advertising claims had significant effects on awareness/association, perceived value, and loyalty. The effects of substantial orientation on brand equity were significantly stronger than that of associated orientation claims. H2 and H3 were fully supported. That is to say, substantial environmental advertising claims could reveal enterprise efforts to protect the environment and inform consumers that the substantial benefits for the ecosystem are embodied in their products. If enterprises want to disclose information about their social responsibility or to convey the contribution of their products toward environmental protection, direct environmental advertising claims related to product features and production processes should be considered. Second, eco-labels significantly affected on awareness/association, perceived value, and loyalty; hence, H4 were supported. Eco-labels verified by a third-party public notary office could enhance brand equity. As eco-label information regarding environmental protection enterprises and products want to convey, consumers can comprehend and evaluate such environmental advertising through the mark of eco-labels in triggering their positive attitude and value toward the brand. Third, this study also found that the interactive effect of environmental advertising claims and eco-label on the awareness/association dimension of brand equity was significant. Consumers are more likely to receive information from the environmental advertising with a substantial claim and eco-label than other sets, and then their perceptions toward that brand awareness and brand association could be improved. Forth, each dimension of awareness/association, perceived value, and brand loyalty had a significant positive effect on consumer’s ethical behaviors by using structural equation modeling (SEM) via Lisrel 8.7; H1 therefore were supported. That is, consumers’ perceived enterprise efforts related to protecting the environment would improve consumers’ ethical behaviors. If advertising could fully and effectively convey the environmental protection information embodied in products, consumers would know that the products are beneficial for society and ecosystems, and thus they would enact ethical activities in the marketplace. Finally, future studies can use random sampling to improve the sample representative. Product type can also be included into the research model in future studies to consider the different product features how to influence the effects of environmental advertising claims and eco-labels on the consumers’ attitudes and behavior decision.

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.

The aims of this study are to understand the influence of celebrity endorsement on consumers’ word-of-mouth and decision behavior, that is: (i) understand the influence of the number of followers of the celebrity and the positive/negative valence of the messages conveyed by them in the intention to buy and their intention to generate eWoM; (ii) analyzing how the behavior of a celebrity (antisocial vs. pro-social) may affect the perception of its credibility, the intention of the consumers to relate to the celebrity in the social networks and the social identification with it; (iii) understand the impact of celebrity messages on brands and products present in social networks. To achieve this goal a quantitative methodology for the development of research was adopted, selecting the application of a survey as the information collection instrument. The sample is selected by convenience sampling method, collecting 241 responses, 122 females and 119 males. Findings show: (i) concerning the intention to purchase, female seem to be more influenced by the opinions and recommendations of celebrities, while male tend to be more likely to generate e-word-of-mouth into their contact network through social media. (ii) Regarding to antisocial versus prosocial type of celebrity, celebrities with a prosocial behavior seems to have a greater influence for both genders in the way they identify with celebrity and their willingness to relate to them. (iii) Female tends to feel higher purchase intention when exposed to an endorsement, where celebrity promotes a brand or product through its Instagram account.

While consumer culture theory (CCT) has contributed to establishing the cultural grounding of consumer experience it has not emphasized to the same extent the role of embodiment in shaping experience. Indeed culture plays a significant role in shaping bodily habits, skills, practices and our interactions with the environment, but such embodied skills do not restrict and limit the range of meaning and experiences that we can experience. Taking this perspective, the present paper attempts to argue for the creative power of this embodied dimension. More specifically, consumer experience is viewed as a body-world interplay, as affordance-responsiveness in and to a social, cultural and material environment the outcome of which cannot be defined in advance. Whereas CCT has tended to regard the body as the target of culture and discourse, an embodied approach highlights how the body is also the locus of new expressions, meaning and new experiences. The paper ends with discussions, implications and suggestions for further studies.

Introduction Consumer ethical behaviors regarding social impact, environmental concern, and ethical practices for the buyer/seller dyad has become a vital issue. A large number of consumers have the willingness to be activists to address potentially threatening environmental problems with foresight (Atkinson & Rosenthal, 2014). Consumers with environment awareness have begun to consider the environmental claims of products, such as environmental protection certification (do Paço & Reis, 2012) and production process with environmental protection regulations (Yoon & Kim, 2016). All such information effectively spreads the environmental protection knowledge to help consumers identify the environmental features of the product (Leonidou, Leonidou, Palihawadana, & Hultman, 2011), and then to conduct consumption behaviors with ethical/moral concerns. However, the related research to examine the relationships between consumer ethical behaviors and their attitudes toward environmental information disclosure in advertising in Asian countries is few. This study’s main purpose is thus to understand how environmental information disclosure in advertising influences consumers’ attitudes toward the brand and their ethical behaviors. Literature Review Mitchell, Balabanis, Schlegelmich, and CornWell (2009) argues that all direct or indirect consumer actions that could make businesses or other stakeholders to lose money or reputation are viewed as consumer unethical behaviors. Consumers’ (un)ethical behaviors would be influenced by their moral principles and standards as they obtain, use, and dispose of goods and services (Muncy & Vitell, 1992). First, according to the equity theory, brand equity will increase the relationship intention between sellers and buyers. Those consumers with a high perception about product value or brand equity would tend to build a positive relationship with sellers, and thus their ethical behaviors would be influenced (Chang & Lu, 2017). Consumers’ ethical consumption depends on the equity of the profitability of the seller and this study proposes that brand equity has significant positive effects on consumer ethical behavior (H1). Second, environmental advertising claims refer to the classification of environmental claims in advertising with various environmental protection information about products (do Paço & Reis, 2012). Chan, Leung, and Wong (2006) state the two types of environmental advertising claims. Substantial environmental claims focus on the substantial benefits of products for the environment and the positive impacts of enterprises on the environment in order to substantially maintain or enhance consumers’ understanding of products with environmental awareness (Chan, 2000). Associated environmental claims feature advertising that do not have a direct connection with the products or production of enterprises; instead, they reveal an enterprises’ concern about environmental protection topics through environmental protection activities or topics regarding the conservation of the ecosystem, in order to indirectly trigger the consumers’ positive image and reactions to the enterprises or brands (Chan, 2000). Different environmental advertising claims would have different extents of impact on consumers’ attitude towards advertising and the product (Chan et al., 2006). Chan (2000) states that substantial environmental claims are more persuasive than associated claims, as the advertising of the former could directly publicize the specific environmentally-friendly measures in products or production process. The hypotheses are thus submitted: environmental advertising claims have significant positive effects on brand equity (H2.) and the impact power of substantial environmental claims on brand equity is stronger than those of associated environmental claims (H3). Third, eco-labels provide the information of products toward the environment influence during their life cycles (Atkinson & Rosenthal, 2014; Chekima, Wafa, Igau, Chekima, & Sondoh, 2016) and the claims regarding the eco-features, production, and constituents of the products (Atkinson & Rosenthal, 2014). Maniatis (2016) argues that eco-labels could clearly reveal the economic and ecological benefits of products and help consumers make purchase decisions. Specific claims, such as marks, pictures, or signs, could clearly convey information about the products, which make it easy for consumers to understand. Therefore, hypothesis 4 is submitted: environmental advertising with eco-labels has a significant positive effect on brand equity (H4). Method This study used the 2x2 factor experiment to create four situations through two types of environmental advertising claims (substantial and associated environmental advertising claims) and two types of eco-labels (available/unavailable). The manipulation checks with regards to the constructs of environmental advertising claims and eco-label were shown to be successful through a pilot test. On the other hand, this study selected 14-items of Muncy and Vitell’s (1992) scale to measure consumer ethical behaviors. The measuring items of brand equity were taken by Yoo and Donth’s (2001) three-dimensional scale, containing brand awareness/associations, perceived quality, and brand loyalty. Moreover, 294 valid questionnaires were retained in the formal survey via electronic questionnaire survey. Females accounted for 50.7%. Those aged less than 25 occupied a larger proportion (50%), followed by those aged from 26 to 35 (21.8%). The samples with a college education or above accounted for 92.5%. Additionally, the component reliability, convergent and discriminant validity were also confirmed (Bagozzi & Yi, 1988; Fornell & Larcker, 1981) due to the results of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) by Lisrel 8.7. Results and Conclusion Based on the ANOVA results, first, environmental advertising claims had significant effects on awareness/association, perceived value, and loyalty. The effects of substantial orientation on brand equity were significantly stronger than that of associated orientation claims. H2 and H3 were fully supported. That is to say, substantial environmental advertising claims could reveal enterprise efforts to protect the environment and inform consumers that the substantial benefits for the ecosystem are embodied in their products. If enterprises want to disclose information about their social responsibility or to convey the contribution of their products toward environmental protection, direct environmental advertising claims related to product features and production processes should be considered. Second, eco-labels significantly affected on awareness/association, perceived value, and loyalty; hence, H4 were supported. Eco-labels verified by a third-party public notary office could enhance brand equity. As eco-label information regarding environmental protection enterprises and products want to convey, consumers can comprehend and evaluate such environmental advertising through the mark of eco-labels in triggering their positive attitude and value toward the brand. Third, this study also found that the interactive effect of environmental advertising claims and eco-label on the awareness/association dimension of brand equity was significant. Consumers are more likely to receive information from the environmental advertising with a substantial claim and eco-label than other sets, and then their perceptions toward that brand awareness and brand association could be improved. Forth, each dimension of awareness/association, perceived value, and brand loyalty had a significant positive effect on consumer’s ethical behaviors by using structural equation modeling (SEM) via Lisrel 8.7; H1 therefore were supported. That is, consumers’ perceived enterprise efforts related to protecting the environment would improve consumers’ ethical behaviors. If advertising could fully and effectively convey the environmental protection information embodied in products, consumers would know that the products are beneficial for society and ecosystems, and thus they would enact ethical activities in the marketplace. Finally, future studies can use random sampling to improve the sample representative. Product type can also be included into the research model in future studies to consider the different product features how to influence the effects of environmental advertising claims and eco-labels on the consumers’ attitudes and behavior decision.

Sponsored search advertising is the largest form of the Internet advertising in terms of advertising expenditure. Although researchers have studied various issues in the sponsored search advertising, they have mainly focused on managing each keyword separately without considering the relationship between different keyword queries. However, this is not consistent with the industry practice, and fails to account for the consumers’ search patterns. Online retailers carry various brands and products from competing manufacturers and their advertising strategy needs to include multiple keywords consistent to their product line. Similarly, consumers sequentially search and click on a number of different keywords at different stages of their decision journey. While it is important to understand advertisers’ bidding strategy and consumers’ search behavior in an integrated manner, the previous research in marketing has less explored the interplay between advertisers bids and consumer searches in a multiple keyword setting. We address these issues and offer practical implications on how advertisers should optimally and simultaneously bid on multiple keywords, incorporating consumers click behavior on multiple keywords. This study empirically examines the relationships between consumers’ clicks and online retailers’ bidding strategy on multiple keywords of competing manufacturer brands of 242 retailers. Our data contain daily information of the most popular keywords in a running shoes category on different search advertising metrics. Based on the consumer decision journey and purchase funnel framework, we classify the keywords into different groups following a hierarchical structure of the generic, brands, and models levels and examine the relationships between different keyword groups. Our main findings show that consumers usually click on multiple keywords of each manufacturer brand in a manner consistent with the consumer decision journey or purchase funnel framework, and that consumers are less likely to click on keywords across competing brands. However, online retailers’ bidding pattern is different from consumers’ click behavior in that they simultaneously bid on multiple keywords of competing manufacturer brands at the different hierarchy levels. In sum, our results provide online retailers useful insights to improve their keyword management practice, based on the relationship we identified on the consumer clicks and advertiser bids.

The study is aimed to find out the influencing factors when consumers decide to choose products with low quality. The result indicates that major considered factors should be short life cycle, low quality, design, price and purchase intention, while price be considered as the one which has significant effect on consumers’ choices of accepting low quality, as well as product design. Most companies put the market share at the vital position, in traditional commercial thinking, high quality always means that products will be accepted by most customers; but now it is totally different. We take fast fashion industry and mobile phone industry as examples and choose fsQCA as the methodology to analyses the relationship between variable and result. Most of the customers are pursuing for high quality with low price (Dodds et al., 1991; Alfred, 2013; Shirai, 2015). But the companies are difficult to make the high quality products have low price. The companies can have the high quality advantage. However, quality is not the only factor to make the products with high price, design, corporate culture and brand can also be the factors (Homburg et al., 2015). How to make the consumers accept the low quality in short lifecycle product (e.g. fast fashion or high-tech industry), which means consumers may purchase new product to replace the old one before it has problems. In our study, we collect these data from customers via questionnaire. And use fsQCA to analyze the relationship between price, design and short lifecycle, all these influencing factors and customer purchase intention on low quality product. And we have some findings. Sometimes, low quality products can help companies achieve success by bringing income and satisfy consumers’ needs of goods and services in affordable price. From company’s aspect, low quality products are more affordable than those of high quality, so these products will win larger market share and promote fast fashion items to sell fast. While customers sometimes demand more products with good design, at the same time, they cannot bear the expensive items, low quality products can achieve balanced between demands and consuming ability. This means both companies and customers can get win-win situation.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between retort food characteristics and consumers’ perceptions and to survey 295 consumers from December 10 to December 20 as the center of consumers who purchase retort food. As a result, most of the consumers who purchase retort food were women and the age were under 25 and 26 to 30 years old. There were many housewives and students in the occupation group and 2 to 3 in the family members. In addition, many graduated from college and many places of purchase were convenience stores and large discount stores. Consumer retort food purchase rate were high by 30-40% in meat products. Fish meat products were high by 30-40% and sauces were high by 20-30%. Instant foods were high by 20-30%, Tang (탕) / Guk (국) / Jigae (찌개) were high by 30-40% and canned food were high by lower than 10%. As a result of the influence of retort food characteristics on positive perceptions only convenience were influential. The effects of the characteristics of retort food on negative perceptions were influenced only by hygiene and standardization.

This study aims to investigate the role of luxury brand attachment on consumer brand relationship by examining the relationship with trust, commitment, satisfaction and loyalty. This also examines the interrelationships among trust, commitment, satisfaction and loyalty from luxury branding context which provides a good number of theoretical and practical implications. Introduction The global luxury market exceeded $1 trillion in the year 2015 with a 5% annual growth (Bain & Co., 2015). However, industry experts predict that the luxury industry will face challenges in upcoming year primarily due to the economic instability and turmoil in the global foreign exchange market (Robert, 2015). Therefore, the luxury brand executives should carefully target their future consumer segment to sustain the current growth (Luxury Society, 2015). Earlier studies demonstrate that consumers seek various types of emotional benefits from luxury brands such as status seeking (Nelissen & Meijers, 2011), hedonic pleasure (Tsai, 2005), feeling good (Aaker, 1999), pleasurable experience (Atwal & Williams, 2009), mental peace (Silverstein & Fiske, 2003), and impressing others (Wiedmann, Hennigs, & Siebels, 2009). Moreover, these emotional benefits create a comprehensive and memorable experience in terms of ownership and consumption of luxury brands (Choo et al., 2012). Therefore, luxury brand marketers should emphasize more on emotional attachment for building a long term and sustainable customer relationship (Orth et al., 2010). Research Gap Existing literature on consumer-brand relationship mostly considers cross-cultural issues (Chang & Chieng, 2006), reviving brand loyalty (Fournier, 1997), consumer attitude (Aggarwal, 2004), satisfaction (Sung & Choi, 2006), self-brand connection (Cheng et al., 2012), trust-based commitment (Hess & Story, 1995) and such other dimensions on brand evaluation (e.g. Swaminathan et al., 2007). Few studies have considered luxury products (Hodge et al., 2015) and the role of emotional aspects (Hwang & Kandampully, 2012) in the consumer-brand relationship. Still, there is a lack of empirical support for understanding the role of luxury brand attachment into the construct. This research will attempt to fulfil these research gaps. Conceptual Model and Hypotheses Psychological theories explain attachment as the tie between a person and an object or any other components (Bowlby, 1979; Hazan & Shaver, 1994). Brand attachment is defined as a long-term and commitment oriented tie between the consumer and the brand (Esch et al., 2006). The conceptualization of luxury brand demonstrates that the inherent traits of luxury brands are distinctiveness, high transaction value, superior quality, inimitability, and craftsmanship; and luxury brand consumption is mostly emotion laden (Nueno & Quelch, 1998). Based on the existing attachment concepts and theories, we define luxury brand attachment as the emotional bond that connects a consumer with a specific brand and develops deep feelings toward the brand. Several past studies have found that brand attachment reinforces brand trust and there is a positive relationship between brand attachment and trust (e.g. Belaid & Behi, 2011). In addition, Esch et al. (2006) argue that brand satisfaction and brand attachment are interrelated and satisfaction results long-term consumer-brand relationships (Gladstein, 1984). Moreover, strong commitment from the consumers has been identified as a critical factor of long lasting brand relationship (Li et al., 2014; Sung and Choi, 2010). Further, Thomson et al. (2005) find that brand attachment creates behavioural loyalty for which consumers are also willing to pay higher prices. Expecting similar relationship from luxury branding context, we propose that H1: The higher the luxury brand attachment, the greater the consumers trust in that brand. H2: The higher the luxury brand attachment, the greater the consumer satisfaction for that brand. H3: The higher the luxury brand attachment, the greater the consumer commitment to that brand. H4: Higher luxury brand attachment leads to higher behavioural loyalty to that brand. Scholars explain that satisfaction is an essential element of brand loyalty and both the constructs are positively related (e.g. Agustin and Singh, 2005). Past researches find that highly satisfied consumers demonstrate repeat purchases (e.g. Bennett et al, 2005). Past studies also show that trust toward the brand results brand loyalty and strengthen the relationship (Bansal et al., 2014; Belaid & Behi, 2011). Fournier (1997) identify brand trust as the key determinant of brand loyalty. Thus, we propose that H5: Higher satisfaction to the luxury brand leads to higher behavioural loyalty to that brand. H6: Higher trust to the luxury brand leads to higher behavioural loyalty to that brand. Ganesan (1994) argue that a satisfied customer develop trust toward a specific brand. In support of this, Belaid & Behi (2011) state that if a brand becomes successful in fulfilling the promise with consistence performance, the consumer will have satisfaction and positive feeling about the brand. In addition, the authors find a positive relationship between brand commitment and behavioural loyalty. Expecting similar relationship from luxury branding context, we propose that H7: The higher the trust in luxury brand, the more customer satisfaction in that brand. H8: Higher commitment to the luxury brand leads to higher behavioural loyalty to that brand. Summary of the hypothesised relationships are illustrated in Figure 1. Methodology The simple random sampling will ensure proper representation of the target population and eliminate the sampling bias (Cook & Campbell, 1979; Zikmund, 2002). The sample population will be 300 young Australian consumers aged between 20-30 years. Previous studies have found that there is a growth in luxury brand purchase by individuals in younger age groups e.g. 20 – 30 (Hung et al., 2011). Therefore, this is representative of the possible drift in the ages of consumers in the market for luxury brand purchase (Han et al., 2010). A consumer panel from Qualtrics database will be used and the sample frame consists of consumers who have higher brand likeability (Martin & Stewart, 2001). Established scales will be used to measure the constructs. All items will be measured on a seven-point Likert scale with 1 representing “strongly disagree” and 7 representing “strongly agree”. Research Significance This would be the very first study to investigate the role of luxury brand attachment in consumer brand relationship. This research will provide meaningful insights for the brand managers, brand strategists and advertising managers. This research will assist luxury brand managers in allocation of resources for the action plans that will ensure a stronger tie with the consumers in a cost efficient way. For brand managers luxury brand attachment may help them with segmentation process and well as providing direction on improving attachment to the consumers to influence trust, commitment, satisfaction, and loyalty.