INTERNATIONAL COMPARISON OF CONSUMER ATTITUDES TOWARD LUXURY

Nadine Hennigs,Klaus-Peter Wiedmann,Christiane Klarmann,Stefan Behrens 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2014 Global Marketing Conference Vol.2014 No.4

The ongoing growth in US and European markets along with the increasing demand for luxury goods in emerging economies leads to a substantial growth in the global appetite for luxury. A necessary precondition to improve marketing strategies for luxury brands is a better understanding of the different reasons why consumers across nations buy luxury products: Do similar luxury attitudes exist across countries, or are there significant differences in luxury attitudes internationally? Drawing from prior findings in cross-national studies and based on a three-dimensional framework of consumer attitudes toward luxury, the present study analyzes this research question by using a cross-national data set. Based on the empirical study, referring to the main research question and initial hypotheses, the assessment of the measurement models and the structural relations give evidence for the existence of similar luxury attitudes across countries that can be distinguished along the three dimensions of knowledge-related, affect-related and behavior-related luxury themes. Nevertheless, there are cross-national differences in the evaluation of statements that are associated with these luxury themes and in the structural relationship between these components.

INTERNATIONAL COMPARISON OF CONSUMER ATTITUDES TOWARD LUXURY

Nadine Hennigs,Klaus-Peter Wiedmann,Christiane Klarmann,Stefan Behrens 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2014 Global Marketing Conference Vol.2014 No.7

The ongoing growth in US and European markets along with the increasing demand for luxury goods in emerging economies leads to a substantial growth in the global appetite for luxury. A necessary precondition to improve marketing strategies for luxury brands is a better understanding of the different reasons why consumers across nations buy luxury products: Do similar luxury attitudes exist across countries, or are there significant differences in luxury attitudes internationally? Drawing from prior findings in cross-national studies and based on a three-dimensional framework of consumer attitudes toward luxury, the present study analyzes this research question by using a cross-national data set. Based on the empirical study, referring to the main research question and initial hypotheses, the assessment of the measurement models and the structural relations give evidence for the existence of similar luxury attitudes across countries that can be distinguished along the three dimensions of knowledge-related, affect-related and behavior-related luxury themes. Nevertheless, there are cross-national differences in the evaluation of statements that are associated with these luxury themes and in the structural relationship between these components.

THE SPIRIT OF CRUISING THE OCEAN: CUSTOMER EXPERIENCES AND VALUE ORIENTATION IN LUXURY TOURISM

Nadine Hennigs,Steffen Schmidt,Franziska Labenz,Evmorfia Karampournioti 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2015 Global Fashion Management Conference Vol.2015 No.06

Experiences as the basis for value creation and competitive positioning are increasingly placed at the center of luxury marketing activities to create an emotional customer-brand relationship. Especially in the luxury travel and tourism market, the demand for brand experiences becomes apparent and is reflected in a wide range of services ranging from transport and accommodation to entertainment and relaxation. The cruise ship industry as the fastest growing sector in luxury tourism provides a holistic experiential package designed to meet the travelers’ expectations for pleasure and satisfaction. The aim of this paper is to empirically investigate antecedents of consumer luxury value perception and related consumption behavior with practical implications for the successful management of luxury brands. With special focus on brand experiences in luxury tourism and the cruise industry, the results of our empirical study reveal that luxury consumers have an increasing demand for personal and authentic experiences combined with a rising concern regarding ethical and environmental values. As a consequence, addressing brand experience and sustainability orientation as key elements of customer value perception is a promising way to create successful differentiation strategies in the luxury travel and tourism industry.

ONCE UPON A TIME THERE WAS A FASHION BRAND–DRIVING LUXURY VALUE PERCEPTION AND CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR VIA STORYTELLING

Janina Haase,Nadine Hennigs,Jan C. L. König,Klaus-Peter Wiedmann 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2015 Global Fashion Management Conference Vol.2015 No.06

Storytelling has become increasingly of interest for marketing and management in the last years and promises both aesthetic design and effecting consumers’ perception of fashion brands positively. Nevertheless, the complexity of story design, still being rather focussed by the humanities, and its effective adaption for luxury fashion brands regarding value perception and related behavioural consequences are still poorly understood and have not been explored so far. We seek to fill this research gap. In our study, we chose a luxury brand’s existing story and applied story concepts of narratology to rearrange plot, characters, and style first. In a second step, we examined the effect of applying the story concepts by testing the perception of three different groups (no story, original story, and rearranged story). Using PLS path modelling, we proved our hypotheses empirically. Our examination suggests that an application of narrative concepts for creating fashion brand stories has a measurable impact on consumer’s reception and behavioural outcome. On the one hand, this involves dimensions of luxury value, such as financial, functional, individual, and social consumer perceptions as well as an overall likability perception of the brand. On the other hand, this perception obviously impacts consumption habits regarding luxury fashion as much as it is related to recommendation behaviour, willingness to pay a premium price, and purchase intentions. Our findings strongly advice to consult established theories, concepts, and models of the humanities for storytelling in marketing and management. While measuring specific elements already proves their applicability, it will be a major task for theoretical and qualitative research to discuss existing material for the demands of marketing and management as well as (fashion) brands. Even for professionals in brand management, our study advices to have a closer look on traditional storytelling concepts to create effective campaigns. The particular value of our study is to present and empirically verify design elements of storytelling with respect to theoretical narrative approaches, which may have specific impact on certain luxury values and their causal effects on luxury fashion consumption. Our results reflect remarkable implications for luxury brand management as well as future research in luxury fashion, brand management, and marketing storytelling. A luxury company may stimulate purchase behaviour with a storytelling campaign. Nevertheless our study proved that a rather appropriate design, respecting research approaches of narratology, is able to increase the impact on consumers’ perception and behavioural outcome.

A CONCEPTUAL MODEL OF ANTECEDENTS, MODERATORS AND OUTCOMES OF CONSUMER CONFINEMENT IN AIRLINE TRAVEL

Stephanie Feiereisen,Thorsten Hennig-Thurau,Vincent-Wayne Mitchell 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2016 Global Marketing Conference Vol.2016 No.7

The passenger airline industry is worth $623 billion, transporting around 3,530 million passengers a year (IATA, 2015). Although useful, most prior research focuses only on specific situations and on a minority of passengers, and takes a producercentric view which conceptualizes consumers as the target of airline activities (Reisinger and Movondo, 2005, Wangenheim and Bayón, 2007, Folkes et al., 1987, Bejou and Palmer, 1998). Instead, we focus on a characteristic of airline travel that affects all airline consumers: confinement. Airline consumers are often confronted with restrictions in terms of space and activity which can lead to discomfort, frustration, dissatisfaction, and reduced well-being. The objectives of this study are therefore to: 1) Define the concept of consumer confinement, 2) Develop a model showing how the problems faced in confined contexts, solution strategies used to deal with these, moderators and outcomes are related, 3) Show how confined airline experiences can be managed more effectively to improve consumer and company outcomes. In understanding how companies and consumers play a role in avoiding and reducing these, we investigate how consumers become problem solvers and deal with confinement using a thematic analysis of blogs and forums. Our study shows that long-haul travellers face a wide range of problems and have developed inventive, personalized solution strategies to address these. We also develop a conceptual model which identifies the problems faced by consumers such as boredom and not looking good; moderators such as propensity to plan and claustrophobia; potential confinement solution strategies consumers and companies can action, such as talking with other passengers and watching movies; and how these may affect company and consumer outcomes such consumer emotions, satisfaction and loyalty. The paper contributes to theory development in marketing by conceptualizing confinement, which has received very limited attention in prior work (see Chen, Gerstner, and Yinghui, 2009 for an exception). Second, we build on prior work on negative service experiences, such as the effect of overbooking service capacity (Wangenheim and Bayón, 2007) and service failure (Folkes, Koletsky, and Graham, 1987) that took a more producer-centric view, conceptualizing consumers as the recipient of the company’s activities. We extend and go beyond this work by showing that consumers are actually active co-solvers of their consumption experience problems (Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004). Third, our conceptual model provides theoretical relationships between confinement and company as well as consumer outcomes such as satisfaction, emotions and loyalty to show how effective strategies are used to help consumers reduce the problems caused by confined situations. Fourthwe contribute to an understanding of the boundary conditions of when strategies work by showing that in particular, individual differences such as fear of flying could have an effect on the effectiveness of strategies. Fifth, we complement the travel medicine and the general travel literature which has researched travel risk and anxiety (Reisinger and Movondo, 2005) and physical health problems resulting from flying phobias (McIntosh et al., 1998), with a focus on the more common problems and strategies used by the large majority of long-haul flyers to occupy time and improve emotional well-being. We conclude with suggestions for further research.

THE MYTH OF A TRADITIONAL LUXURY BRAND – A SEMIOTIC APPROACH TOWARDS NO. 11 SAVILE ROW

Jan Konig,Janina Haase,Nadine Hennigs,Klaus-Peter Wiedmann 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2015 Global Fashion Management Conference Vol.2015 No.06

Traditional luxury shops seem to have a natural talent in creating an atmosphere of old luxury. From a semiotic perspective, those shops use a complex texture of different signs for both creating a traditional luxury myth and addressing specific customers who are looking for this brand identity. In our study, we compile a semiotic concept for analysing a shop design which seeks to reflect old luxury and traditional heritage. While the desire for semiotic analysis in the marketing and management domain is increasing, theoretical approaches and case study analyses too often remain superficial regarding the possibilities of semiotic approaches. Our study aims to present a complex analysing concept to fill this gap and apply it to the field of luxury brand management consequently. While semiotic research discusses many different approaches up to today, Peirce’s philosophy may be still regarded as one of the most complex concepts which allows the most precise analysis and classification of meaningful signs. On the basis of his three trichotomies and their major corresponding subcategories we analysed a traditional luxury shop design, discussing the different signs that produce simple to very complex structures of meaning with respect to approaches of creating a mythical frame. The results of our study reflect the need of a shop design using different signs with a complex texture of meaning to support the idea of traditional luxury. From the perspective of communication theories, the semiotic patterns which are presented in our findings create a narrative frame which eventually leads to a specific myth of old luxury branding. While Peirce’s philosophy offers a complex approach, contemporary studies in marketing and management only use the surface of semiotics. Our study may contribute a rather distinguished methodology, though further research will be necessary to apply semiotics more reasonably not only for fashion and luxury but for several fields of interests in marketing and management research. For brand managers in companies with a traditional heritage, creating myths and classical frames must be of core interest. Our study offers several implications of using semiotic signs to create an aesthetic and old fashioned shop atmosphere. As original values, our study compiles a complex semiotic concept to analyse mythical framing in traditional luxury stores. Our results present specific possibilities of creating specific meaning with respect to the need of representing brand identity within a shop. However, the concept may be also valid for other analyses in marketing and management such as advertising and brand semiotics in general.

Exploring Periodic Bicontinuous Cubic Network Structures with Complete Phononic Bandgaps

Hur, Kahyun,Hennig, Richard G.,Wiesner, Ulrich American Chemical Society 2017 The Journal of Physical Chemistry Part C Vol.121 No.40

<P>Controlling the phononic properties of materials provides opportunities for better thermal insulation, reduction of sound noise, and conversion of wasted heat into electricity. Phononic crystals are periodically structured media composed of two or more dissimilar materials offering a unique pathway to control the transmission of phonons, responsible for sound and heat transport. In particular, phononic crystals with cubic network structure possessing complete phononic bandgaps are highly desirable for energy applications but have not been thoroughly investigated, hampering progress in this field. Here we computationally obtained phononic band structures of 16 cubic network structures that could be made by fabrication techniques including block copolymer self-assembly and identified six structures that exhibit complete phononic bandgaps. The champion phononic bandgap structure is the so-called I-WP structure with a bandgap width of 0.41. On the basis of simulation results, design rules to tailor network structures for larger phononic bandgaps are elucidated. We expect that our results will provide guidance to develop novel materials for sonic and thermal devices.</P>

YOUR PAIN IS MY GAIN: CHARACTERISTICS AND BEHAVIOR OF CONSUMER PSYCHOPATHS

Klaus-Peter Wiedmann,Nadine Hennigs,Evmorfia Karampournioti 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2016 Global Marketing Conference Vol.2016 No.7

For decades, researchers and practitioners have focused on ethical and environmental consumerism that is regarded as a mainstream phenomenon in contemporary consumer culture (e.g., Doane, 2001; Low & Davenport, 2007). In this context, the ethical consumer is supposed to be concerned about a broad spectrum of issues ranging from the environment and animal welfare to societal concerns, including human rights. By “shopping for a better world” (Low & Davenport, 2007, p. 336), the ethical buyer demands products that meet his/her moral principles and boycotts companies involved in unethical practices (e.g., Muncy & Vitell, 1992; Barnett et al., 2005). Nevertheless, a critical perspective on the economic reality has led to the discussion if the ethical consumer is nothing more than a myth (e.g., Carrigan & Attalla, 2001; Devinney et al., 2010). A particular industry context where cruel production processes are widely discussed is the cosmetics industry. Therefore, from the multitude of ethical dilemmas related to consumption behavior and cruel business activities, the underlying study focuses on animal testing for cosmetic purposes. The main research focus of this study is built on the idea that anthropomorphic communication about cruel tactics in production processes has significant impacts on consumers’ perception and behavior. Besides the form of communication, the perception of anthropomorphic communication is largely determined by personal and individual characteristics of the recipient. In addition to the ability to emphasize – generally known as to encourage the perception of harmful conditions and foster the ability to experience and share another´s condition or state of mind and emotional context (Johnson, Cheeks & Smither, 1983; Cohen & Strayer, 1996) - there exists a “dark side” of consumer personality as well. The Dark Triad which is composed of Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy. Hence, the study additionally examines the impact of bright and dark personality traits on the perception of anthropomorphized communication and highlights the importance for the identification of diverse consumer segments.

Smart module & Pack Design for Automotive batteries

Uwe Wiedemann,Volker Hennige,Edward Yankoski 한국자동차공학회 2011 한국자동차공학회 학술대회 및 전시회 Vol.2011 No.11

Letter to the Editor : Measuring Gastrointestinal Electrical Activity With Extracellular Electrodes: Author`s Reply

( Kenton M Sanders ),( Grant Hennig ) 대한소화기기능성질환·운동학회(구 대한소화관운동학회) 2015 Journal of Neurogastroenterology and Motility (JNM Vol.21 No.4