China, with its rapid growing wealthy consumers, is increasingly becoming a major market for luxury brands and products. It is believed that the growing consumption of wildlife products in China is one of the key factors in the acceleration of global extinction of endangered species. It is certainly not an easy task to reveal consumers’ true motivations behind their purchase, but is even tougher to change their behavior. In the field of wildlife conservation, despite many efforts so far have been made to de-market the consumption, the results are not encouraging. This study is designed to fill the research gap by treating ivory purchase as a type of luxury product purchase in China. Through studying the behavior and its underlying values and motivations, this research is aimed to identify effective communication strategies to curve the ivory consumption in China. Pretest among small groups was first conducted for the purpose of scale validity evaluation. A random stratified sample was obtained from an online panel in China in January 2018. Total 600 usable samples were obtained. The data analysis showed a strong and positive relationship between power distance and materialism; power distance and negative attitude toward social media. Materialism/collectivism is found a strong predicator of positive attitude toward social media and social media usage. While ivory likely buyers associate uncertainty avoidance with materialism and positive attitude toward social network, ivory purchase rejecters demonstrate a positive relationship between long term orientation and materialism; long term orientation and positive attitude toward social media. Based on the strong relationships between materialism and social media usage we found form this study, it is recommended to design a social media campaign to dissociate ivory products from social status; and to associate social status with healthier, greener alternatives (e.g., Tesla car). Advocating desired behavior (e.g., charitable works to save elephants in Africa) in social media and de-advocating the undesired behaviors by celebrities on TV (e.g., ‘No Trading - No Killing’ campaign by YaoMing) is likely to work for likely ivory buyers.

Introduction In the contemporary business environment, fashion companies ought to cope with fundamental changes marketing communication has conventionally been performed. In response to shifting socio-demographic, environmental and market-related conditions, gradually new forms of fashion promotion have evolved (Fill, 2006). Nowadays, the global fashion industry experiences a reduced dependence on mass media advertising and an enlarged reliance on dialogic, relationship-oriented and digitally grounded communication methods (Chitty, Barker, Valos & Shimp, 2012). Against this backdrop, it is irrefutable that social media technologies have been remarkably transforming the ways in which modern-day fashion communication is practiced (Brennan & Schafer, 2010; Funk et al., 2016; Dillon, 2012; Saarinen, Tinnilä & Tseng, 2006). The competitive and widely saturated apparel market is facing an era of intensive proliferation of brands, an epoche of awe bombardment of advertisements, which makes a well-though-out communicational strategy ever more imperative, particularly in a cross-cultural context (Dillon, 2012). Yet, studies that analyze the importance of social media in relation to traditional means of fashion communication are scarce. Even though, empirical introductions start being made to this explicit issue, considerable research deficiency subsists in the realm of cross-cultural fashion communication and social media optimization. Therefore, the rationale of this paper at hand is to contribute to balance out this research gap by providing evidence from four countries.

With the increasing trend of popularity of websites and social networking sites, it is quite evident that companies need to take cautionary measures in protecting the reputations with respect to company and brands. In this process, every company should indulge in enhancing their company and brand image through websites and social networking sites that fortify the bonding nature among them. The always-on nature of websites and social networking sites has contributed to their phenomenal marketing power and altered the balance of power between consumers and firms. Websites and social networks are used by hundreds of millions of people to communicate about a huge range of topics, including personal interests, activities, social events and even public issues. The paper explores a case study of the Ritz- Carlton hotel for their marketing strategy and organizational use of their website and social media in communicating with their customers. Even for the normal luxury traveler who would not have previously used the Internet to research a hotel or make a reservation, ritzcarlton.com is making it possible for them to do so in a sense of the luxury and typical Ritz-Carlton style. It seems to be a staple of the company for years to come.