Although pricing strategies have significant effects on brand performance and have been growth drivers of the luxury industry for decades, there is only little research on luxury pricing strategies. Most academics and managers believe that there is a ‘democratization of luxury’ since the 1980’s. Today, luxury is regarded as accessible for almost anyone. On the other hand, researchers and consumers still consider ‘high prices’ as one of the most important luxury characteristics. To resolve this paradox, this paper analyzes ‘expensiveness’ as a key feature of luxury products: Is luxury expensive or has it really democratized? It outlines the different types of luxury with reference to their ‘expensiveness’. Based on a literature analysis about research on pricing in luxury marketing, the paper presents eight indicators of ‘expensiveness’. After discussing how the Veblen, Snob and Bandwagon effects break the law of demand, analyses of real data follow with some case studies about the price development of luxury products in different countries and product categories. They show that the method of price comparison by Fourastié can provide brand managers a more realistic picture about the ‘expensiveness’ of their products for their target customers. The paper concludes with some major lessons learned.

Accepting that luxury stands for timeless, my contribution sets out to address and clarify the issue by analysing three questions from the semiotic perspective of luxury branding. The first is, from where does luxury speak in Bulgarian context of so-called "Bulgarian rose" product? The second is, what is the luxury branding mechanism whereby philistine's culture change? The third is, how might we conceptualise the relationship between the timeless in production of luxury discourse and transformative role of philistine's culture? To celebrate the uniqueness of Bulgarian product in luxury, it is almost as dangerous a concept as intention. It belongs to many disciplines, including psychology, sociology, and semiotics. Drawing upon the works of standpoint Greek philosophers (Plato "The Republic", 380 BCE) and semioticians (Algirdas J. Greimas, On Meaning, 1987), the discussion of implementing luxury advertising in every corner of the business world is confronted by quite serious challenges. After an introduction to the topic, the discussion will be followed by analyses of concrete examples focusing on the cultural heritage resistance. Although the inquiry is conducted from one particular standpoint — luxury branding, the observations and suggestions it makes regarding education, cultural heritage and luxury advertising campaigns will lead us to conclusions at theoretical level of interpretation on renegotiating the future direction of acquiring knowledge in the ambiguous significance of luxury.

In response to growing instability and a perceived over-commercialization also of luxury brands, there is a trend among consumers to search for meaning and for experiences that feel genuine. The “humanization” of brands may feed the consumers growing desire for authenticity. This paper combines the brand personality concept and brand anthropomorphization and introduces the notion of personality-driven brand management especially for luxury brands and high-end cultural and creative businesses. After an introduction into the concept of brand personality, and with reference to identitydriven brand management, we explain what personality-driven brand management actually means. When the focal point of brand management shifts to the enlivened brand, the brand personality becomes the main source of inspiration for brand-building and influences all branding decisions. With personality-driven branding, managers may leverage the full potential of brand anthropomorphization. For instance, it can help to turn the brand into a strong character, which can spark the employee’s enthusiasm and thus also the customer’s passion for the brand. As a prerequisite of (internal) brand anthropomorphization, managers need to decide what kind of person they would like their brand to represent. For this purpose, they can consult a framework of brand personality dimensions for some guidance. A central part of this paper is a study about the major dimensions of luxury brand personality. Results suggest that there exist five distinct luxury personality dimensions including tradition, modesty, elitism, eccentricity, and sensuality. They help brand managers to develop distinct brand personalities by encouraging them to decide between contrasting traits. After presenting the major strategies to bring a luxury brand personality alive, the paper discusses the benefits of personality-based brand management and concludes with some major lessons learned.

The paper proposes to develop a framework to help examine the factors and processes by which luxury advertising can impact consumer health across the globe. While luxury products such as Burberry and Gucci have been a source of much pride and might accentuate the need for conspicuous consumption (Veblen 1899) within a society, we seek to examine how luxury brands across categories can produce both favorable and unfavorable consequences on consumer health. The model would offer insights into essential factors and processes not only those who aspire such luxury brands, but also for those who have no such desire. With the theoretical underpinnings, the suggested model will draw its predictability powers across the fields of marketing (e.g., branding), psychology (i.e., cognitive dissonance theory, social perception theories) and network theories (social contagion theory). This suggested framework will focus on body image, specifically eating disorders (e.g., anorexia), and will exemplify how luxury brand communication can have quick detrimental effects on young adolescent females across the globe. At the same time, the model will also demonstrate how and what factors can lead the global community down a more healthy socially integrated pathway with luxury branding still being the driving force.

The study of luxury is a rapidly rising star in the firmament of business, management, the arts, media and communication studies. In the discipline of marketing alone, it informs research into corporate strategy (e.g. Mazancourt & Schwartz, 2012; Hennigs, Weidmann, Behrens & Klarmann, 2015), production and consumption in the context of national, regional, local cultures (e.g. Zhan & He, 2012; Schultz & Jain, 2015) and, of course, global brands (Mazzalovo, 2012), just to name a few. Of particular interest to this author is the theoretical challenges and opportunities of an entirely new frontier for the study of luxury and consumption: namely, how do we theorize luxury and luxury consumption in an age of space travel, habitation and tourism? Travel to Mars is fast becoming a reality and space tourism is already rapidly growing as a leisure pursuit for wealthy elites. The trajectory of space travel, and human habitation, in space is, however, evolving in ways that are still not widely reported or communicated to the public. Yet, it is almost certainly the case that the mass consumption of space travel (and future habitats on other planets) will become a reality in the foreseeable future. The anthropocentric vision that has driven the human species to flourish on Earth will also allow us to populate other planets. Guiding this paper are two primary – and hitherto foundational – premises: first, all existing work on luxury and luxury consumption by marketing scholars has taken our continued existence on planet Earth for granted. That is, luxury as we know it (and however one it is defined) occurs within spatial and temporal dimensions that are, broadly speaking, Newtonian (despite the remarkable advances in quantum theory and mechanics), linear, bounded and life-sustaining by virtue of stable sources of energy, water and fuel (at least in the world’s advanced economies). This premise alone accounts for, and explains, for example, much of the current literature on ‘luxury consumption in China’ or ‘India’ or ‘Turkey’ or any other specific locale. My contention is that this premise can no longer be taken for granted in a post-ecological age; second, I wish to develop one or more novel dimensions to the conventional, albeit provocative, literature that argues (rightly, in my view) that consumption of any kind must be central to “theorizations of space and place” (Goodman, Goodman & Redclift, 2010). At the same time, technology companies such as Tesla and Space X are effecting radical transformations in our view of what is possible for human consumption over the next five to twenty years. What is the role and likely transformations in the concept and practice of luxury in this scenario? This is the key question that faces marketing scholars in the next decade and this paper is the first attempt to interrogate the issue.Several scenarios present themselves and should be taken seriously until we devise other frameworks that can satisfactorily tackle the question I have posed. For instance, the ‘bandwagon effect’ (Kastanakis & Balabanis, 2012) helps explain how mass luxury consumption might take off after the first wave of early adopters of space technology and space-led living have indicated their preferences and as private as well as public enterprises innovate to capture the public imagination with regards to the consumption of luxury items in space (Thomas, 2007). Alternatively, we could explore further the implications and modifications in behavioural theories of luxury consumption (Yeoman, 2010) to understand how the antecedents and consequences of popular modes of adoption, use and future purchases might be modified in the Space Age. Last, but certainly not least, one can focus the theoretical lens on transformational consumer research along the lines (and limits) of the consumption of place and space (Goodman, Goodman and Redclift, 2016). This avenue, in my view, affords some intriguing advantages over alternative approaches. As Clarke, Doel and Hoisaux (2003, 80) note, ‘consumption tends to reconfigure space and place, often disrupting, undermining and displacing consumption activities that were once thought of as being related to specific places’. Thus, while we may be reluctant to discard the notion that consumption is essentially geographical, we now need to reconsider what and where those geographies are and what they will mean for us as a species in the next several decades. How will relational networks of consumption work? How can we understand the bodily enactments of consumption and the environmental and metabolic conditions that are a prerequisite for practices of luxury? The corporate implications are numerous and profound as well: the global green/sustainability movements have undoubtedly changed market forces and behavior – can they play another, even more valuable role in the next consumer revolution?

Marketers often attribute the premium charged on a luxury brand over a value brand to innovation in product form (Von Hippel 1986). One way of conveying this innovation is through the use of perceptual cues which use visual depiction of a product (Gregan-Paxton, Hoeffler, and Zhao 2005). Consequently, what we think of as high fashion or innovation in product form is essentially novelty in the perceptual cues of a product (Cox and Cox 2002) and it is known that moderate levels of novelty can increase complexity (or incongruity) of product design and is in general, favored by consumers (Cox and Cox 2002). However, despite the fact that novelty in form offered in high fashion or complex products is expected to bring value, we predict that novel designs are perceived as more favorable depending on their positioning as luxury (value) brands. In detail, we expect that value brands more than luxury brands benefit from novelty of form and that peripheral cues in product design informs a sense of brand authenticity which drives preferences. Past research showed that a product’s positioning in advertising moderates the effect of schema incongruence on product evaluation (Noseworthy and Trudel 2011). When products with a moderately incongruent design are positioned based on their functionality, they are evaluated more favorably. Conversely, when products are positioned based on experiential dimensions, this effect is reversed, and moderately incongruent designs are evaluated less favorably. We believe that these relationships can be explained using the perception of hedonic or utilitarian benefits offered by the product. In general, consumers are motivated by utilitarian concerns until they think that they have earned the right to indulge in hedonistic consumption (Kivetz and Simonson 2002). With congruent products, consumers may infer functionality from memory, and they are therefore liberated to indulge in hedonic pleasure. With incongruent products, however, consumers must work out the functionality of the product for themselves. Thus, we expect that brand positioning will influence the way novel designs are evaluated on functionality, such that novel designs are perceived as more functional in the value (vs. luxury) brand positioning (H1). Also, we predict that consumers of luxury brands will prefer prototypical designs to novel ones (H2). Recently, Stanton, Townsend, and Kang (2015) analyzed automobile market and showed that consumers prefer novel designs if their consideration set includes allpossible automobiles, but changed to prototypical designs, when the consideration set was entry-level automobiles. In addition, Hagtvedt and Patrick (2014) revealed that altering the form of a product has a more positive impact on product evolutions in a utilitarian context rather than a hedonic one. This is because luxury brands have a greater capacity to be extended into other product categories due to their hedonic potential, namely their ability to provide emotional benefits (Hagtvedt and Patrick 2009). Based on these findings, we postulate that brand positioning will moderate the influence of product design on functional evaluations and perceived comfort, such that only under the value (vs. luxury) brand positioning, individuals will prefer novelty over typicality. Lastly, given the consumers’ motivation of luxury brands for conspicuous consumption and desire for authenticity (Beverland and Farrelly 2010), we predict that consumers will avoid novel designs in a luxury brand. We believe this to be true because in order to convey the status which such consumers seek, the brand must be instantly and easily recognizable to others. In this case, a novel design can be a threat to this transmission of status, and may bring about less favorable evaluations of the brand. As a result, a novel design, even a moderately incongruent one, will be seen as a violation of the brand’s authenticity and the diminished authenticity will therefore explain the less favorable evaluations. Thus, we expect that for value (vs. luxury) brand positioning, brand authenticity will mediate the effect of product design on evaluations (H3). To test our hypotheses, a pilot study was conducted in advance to identify whether luxury positioning would influence the perceptions of functionality when evaluating the same novel design. Participants (N = 102; 63.7% female; Mage = 35.78) were recruited in an online panel and were randomly assigned to one of two conditions of brand positioning: a value brand positioning or a luxury brand positioning. The experiment was a between-subjects factorial design and from the pretest, Serafini brand was chosen as a luxury brand and New Balance brand was chosen as a value brand. Then, Participant saw an advertisement that featured the novel shoe design and indicated their perceived functional efficacy, the concept (value-luxury) of a presented product, and perceived status conferred by purchasing the product. As expected, participants saw Serafini as more of a luxury brand (M = 4.76) than New Balance (M = 3.92) and indicated that purchasing the same product by Serafini conferred more status to someone (M = 4.83) in comparison to purchasing the same product by New Balance (M = 4.22; t(100) = 2.18, p < .05). Importantly, participants viewed the novel design featured in the luxury brand advertisement of (Serafini) as less functional (M = 4.95) in comparison to the novel design featured in the value brand advertisement (New Balance; M = 5.50; t(100) = 2.19, p < .05) although the design of the two products were the same (H1 supported). Next, in Study 1, we intended to identify whether brand positioning would influence typical designs of a product in the same way that it would novel designs. Participants (N = 263; 59.7% female; Mage = 38.03) were recruited in an online panel and were randomly assigned to one of four conditions in a 2 (brand positioning: value vs. luxury) × 2 (product design: typical vs. novel) between-subjects factorial design. In this study, however, we used a fictitious watch brand (Dali) to manipulate the brand positioning. Manipulations were adopted from Hagtvedt and Patrick (2009). Like pilot test, pretestconfirmed that the manipulations worked as intended (Mvalue = 4.85; Mluxury = 5.67; t(39) = 2.19, p < .05) and participants rated Dali as having different abilities to confer status (α = .81; Mvalue = 4.43; Mluxury = 5.26; t(39) = 2.68, p < .05). After, each participant saw an advertisement that featured the new product and that corresponded to the randomized condition that they were assigned and responded to the questionnaires asking their perceived functional efficacy, overall attitudes toward the product, perceived comfort as well as the measures for the manipulation checks. As expected, result showed that in the absence of luxury brand positioning, the novel design was evaluated more favorably (M = 5.00) than the typical product design (M = 3.90; F(1, 259) = 18.74, p < .001). This effect was consistent with past studies that demonstrate the moderate incongruity effect (Noseworthy and Trudel 2011; Meyers-Levy and Tybout 1989; Mandler 1982). However, in the presence of the luxury brand positioning, this difference was not significant (Mnovel = 4.46 vs. Mtypical= 4.25; p = .41). Also, an analysis of functionality indicated that in the value brand condition, the novel design was perceived to be higher in functionality (M = 4.88) than the typical product design (M = 4.39; F(1, 259) = 4.25, p < .05). However, in the presence of the luxury brand positioning, this difference was not significant (Mnovel = 4.57 vs. Mtypical= 4.79; p = .35). Finally, analysis of comfort indicated that in the value brand condition, the novel design was perceived to have more comfort (M = 4.45) than the typical product design (M = 3.82; F(1, 259) = 6.97, p < .01). However, in the presence of the luxury brand positioning, this difference was not significant (Mnovel = 4.14 vs. Mtypical= 4.33; p = .44). Thus, the results supported H1 and H2. To replicate the observed effects and to identify the underlying mechanism, Study 2 was followed. Same recruitment method and experimental design in Study 1 was used with a fictitious camera brand OLEG. Pretest confirmed that the manipulations worked as intended. Experimental procedures were similar to Study 1. However, this time, brand authenticity was measured (Morhart et al. 2015) in addition to the measures used in Study 1. Again, result indicated that in the absence of luxury brand positioning, the novel design was evaluated more favorably (M = 4.85) than the typical product design (M = 3.92; F(1, 209) = 10.30, p < .005) and in the presence of luxury branding, this difference was not significant (Mnovel = 4.50 vs. Mtypical= 4.57; p = .80). Also, result showed that in the value brand condition, the novel design was perceived to be higher in functionality (M = 4.79) than the typical product design (M= 3.89; F (1, 209) = 11.75, p < .001) and in the presence of the luxury brand positioning, this difference was not significant (Mnovel = 4.44 vs. Mtypical= 4.51; p = .79). Regarding comfort, in the value brand condition, using the camera with the novel design was perceived to be more comfortable (M = 4.49) than the typical product design (M= 3.82; F(1, 209) = 6.34, p < .01). However, in the presence of the luxury brand positioning, this difference was not significant (Mnovel = 4.06 vs. Mtypical= 4.25; p = .46). Lastly, mediated moderation analysis (Hayes 2012; Model 8; bootstrapped with 10,000 draws) found that only when design presented was typical, was there mediation through authenticity (95% confidence interval [CI]: .07, .86), but not when presented with the novel design (95% CI: -.60, .24) and thus, provided support to H3.Overall, three studies showed that while product evaluations and functional inferences with novel designs are higher for value brands, they are not for luxury brands. Also, we provided perceived authenticity as an underlying mechanism. From our findings, we provide four theoretical contributions. First, by showing that only value, not luxury brands benefit from novel product design, we demonstrated that brand positioning is another moderator to the effect of schema incongruity that consumers prefer a moderately incongruent product design over a congruent design or an extremely incongruent design (Noseworthy and Trudel 2011; Meyers-Levy and Tybout 1989; Mandler 1982). Second, although the research in product design and innovation has shown that the novelty in perceptual cues may signal innovativeness to consumers and thus engender favorable product evaluations (Gregan-Paxton, Hoeffler, and Zhao 2005; Cox and Cox 2002), we found that such novelty in perceptual cues in product design may not work in certain circumstances – when the product is positioned as luxury. Third, this research contributes to the understanding of luxury branding by offering evidence that prototypical designs benefit luxury brands because they increase perceived authenticity. Fourth, we broaden the research on authenticity in the aspect that merely having a novel or fashion forward design may impair authenticity and cause unexpected results. Managerially, we provide guidelines in that although brands benefit from novel designs in general, the manager of a luxury brand should be cautious when changing the design of a luxury good, especially ones in which functionality and comfort are important attributes. In other words, a luxury brand manager should adopt fashion and design in a way that is beneficial to the consumer. Some luxury brands, such as Porsche, are well-respected for their innovation, while other luxury brands, such as Louis Vuitton create value through promotion of a particular lifestyle (Reddy and Terblanche 2005). For brands that are particularly sought for their functional benefits, like Porsche, the importance of the impact of novel designs on perceptions of authenticity is particularly important. In addition, managers must be aware that novelty is not always perceived the same way. Consumer inferences on functionality and comfort can be elicited for fashion forward designs for value brands, where the novelty of design is used as a strategic tool. Nevertheless, when it comes to the luxury products, this effect might not appear and impairs brand authenticity. To extend our research, potential future research may examine the effect of novel designs on inconspicuous luxury goods. When conspicuous consumption is decoupled from the luxury brand, it is doubtful that prototypical designs would still be favored among consumers of luxury brands. Also, future research could examine the effect of other kinds of innovation. In our research, we mainly examined the product form and design as a method of innovation. However, it is possible that other kinds of innovation method can be used (i.e., change in product concept) and thus, can be potential future research topics. Finally, we believe that how other kinds of positioning might influence the relationship that we revealed could be studied further. For example, there are instances where value brands try to create a luxury line. In such instances, the effect of authenticity may differ from what we observed.

This paper examines the phenomenon of co-branding in the context of luxury lifestyle co-brands. Specifically, it seeks to understand the viability of co-branding as a market strategy for prototypical luxury brands launching co-branded lifestyle products with other luxury brands. This study contributes to the co-branding literature by providing a perspective on the use of co-branding as a brand strategy for prototypical luxury brands.