Recently, the influence of the emotion of ‘envy’as a variable in the purchasing process is increasing. This research aimed to validate the influence of envy types, brand awareness, and regulatory focus chronic of consumers on the preference and pu...
Recently, the influence of the emotion of ‘envy’as a variable in the purchasing process is increasing. This research aimed to validate the influence of envy types, brand awareness, and regulatory focus chronic of consumers on the preference and purchase intention of luxury fashion brands.
In order to investigate the influences of envy type, brand awareness and regulatory focus chronic on consumers’purchase attitudes of luxury fashion brands, this study was designed with the mixed factorial design of 2 (envy types: benign vs. malicious) × 2( brand awareness types: high vs. low) × 2 (regulatory focus chronic types: promotion focus vs. prevention focus). The data for this research was collected from a questionnaire distributed to 302 subjects aged between 20 and 39 in the Seoul and Gyeonggi province. After the elimination of 27 incomplete responses and 22 median responses for regulatory focus, a total of 253 responses were analyzed with using frequency analysis, factor analysis, reliability analysis, t-test, 3-way ANOVA, simple interaction effect analysis, and simple main effect analysis. The results of this research were as follows.
First, envy type and brand awareness showed significant interaction for both the preference and purchase intentions of luxury fashion brands. Preference and purchase intention of luxury fashion brands were higher in situations where an acquaintance possessed a product of high brand awareness and benign envy was in play. Benign envy, arising in circumstances where one believes an acquaintance came to possess a product through their own efforts and thus having rightful possession, is considered to be a link towards positive attitude as self-effort is recognized and respected bringing about the desire for self-development and advancement. As a result, benign envy can be seen to raise product preference and thus have a positive influence on the purchase attitude of a luxury fashion brand product. To this, luxury fashion brand marketers should take advantage of the emotion of benign envy to create various marketing strategies. In particular, SNS, as a medium where personal possession of products and brands are openly viewed, can be used as a tool to encourage the emotion of envy.
Second, brand awareness and consumers’ regulatory focus chronic showed significant interaction on the purchase intention of luxury fashion brands. Consumers with prevention focus chronic showed higher levels of purchase intention for luxury fashion brands with higher brand awareness. This can be seen as a result of the tendency of consumers with prevention focus chronic to avoid negative results or losses from purchases and thus show higher levels of purchase intention for luxury fashion brands with high brand awareness. Thus, luxury fashion brand marketers should utilize marketing strategies such as, raising brand awareness through SNS, in order to target consumers with prevention focus chronic.
Third, envy type, brand awareness, and consumers’ regulatory focus chronic showed significant interaction on the preference of luxury fashion brands. As the emotion of benign envy strengthens with regards to the closeness of the relationship with the subject, in the circumstance where consumers with prevention focus chronic showed benign envy for high awareness brands, brand preference was seen to be the highest. In addition, as consumers with prevention focus chronic tend to trust information given by those with closer relationships, the higher brand awareness of the products possessed by such acquaintances the greater the preferential attitude of prevention focus chronic consumers.
Therefore, characteristics of consumers' regulatory focus in purchasing activities must be taken into consideration by luxury fashion brand marketers. Thus, in order to raise brand preferability, the use of SNS strategies to induce emotions of benign envy through the comparisons to close acquaintances is recommended.