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In one of my earlier research papers, I found that due to the highly social nature of luxury
consumption, consumers try to gain social advantage following a desired group’s consumption
pattern. Moreover, in my earlier posts relating to interpersonal influences, I have suggested the
need for researchers to understand the importance of group effects on luxury consumption. To
address this, we embarked on a journey focusing on three specific questions:
(a) Do consumers consume luxury goods with a tendency to conform to others expectations
(normative interpersonal influences)?
(b) Are consumers accepting others view as reality when it comes to luxury consumption
(informational interpersonal influences)? And
(c) Is this behaviour observed in developed and emerging markets consistently or there are
differences between consumers in their susceptibility to interpersonal influences?
Using a sample of British and Indian luxury consumers we answered the questions above. The initial
study results revealed that interpersonal influences were significantly influential in both developed
and emerging markets. However, as we looked deeper, interesting similarities and differences
between consumers emerged.
Significant impact of normative interpersonal influences was observed on luxury purchase intentions
across both countries. It also demonstrates that consumers across markets use luxury consumption
to build a superior image in the eyes of significant others. This can be attributed to the emergence of
global lifestyles in the luxury industry, in which manufacturers and retailers are beginning to
standardize their messages across the world. In turn, this creates similarities in terms of consumers’
reference point to consumption. While the impact of normative interpersonal influences on luxury
purchase intentions was found to be significant across the countries, through mean difference
analysis it was observed that Indian consumers were more susceptible to normative interpersonal
influences than British consumers. This reflects the influence of collectivist psyche on consumer
purchase intentions. Indian consumers being collectivist in nature increasingly look for fitting-in
behaviour and therefore their consumption will be highly dependent on social cues and societal
acceptance.
The findings suggest that the impact of normative interpersonal influences is significant across
markets. This result has important managerial implications in terms of strategic campaign building. It
offers an opportunity to standardize the campaign across both individualist markets and collectivist
markets. Thus, when planning their promotional activities and budgets, luxury marketers working
with large luxury corporations or specialist niche players need not vary the proportion of
interpersonal and impersonal communication activities and budgets across the two groups.
Source:
Shukla, Paurav (2011), "Impact of interpersonal influences, brand origin and brand image on luxury
purchase intentions: Measuring interfunctional interactions and a cross-national comparison,"
Journal of World Business, 46 (2), Forthcoming.
Footnote:
1. Shukla, Paurav (2010), "Status Consumption in Cross-national Context: Socio-psychological,
Brand and Situational Antecedents," International Marketing Review, 27 (1), 108-29.