۱- Introduction

۲- Literature review

۳- Methodology

۴- Findings

۵- Discussion and implications

References

Abstract

Although research on consumer-brand relationship has gained increasing interest among scholars, little is known to date about its most intense form – brand addiction. This research explores the main motives and outcomes of this phenomenon in the two brand categories: luxury and fast-fashion brands. The authors conducted 21 in-depth interviews in the U.S. to tap into the respondents’ addictive experiences with luxury and fast-fashion brands. Different themes emerged regarding the motivations for luxury and fast-fashion brand addiction. Self-expressiveness, status consumption and perceived quality are motivators for luxury fashion brand addiction while continuous update of fashion-led items, perceived value, and product assortments are motivators for fast-fashion brand addiction. As for the consequences, interpersonal relationships and financial issues emerged as common themes for addiction to certain luxury and fast-fashion brands while selectivity of style and motivation to work harder surfaced as themes for addiction to particular luxury brands. The results also show that brand addiction may cause both positive and negative effects on consumers’ well-being. This research provides important implications for consumer-brand relationships and ethical considerations for brand managers.

Introduction

In recent years, brands are shifting their focus from attracting new customers to strengthening relationships with existing ones (Grace et al., 2020). The conceptual domain of consumer-brand relationship has been extended from general attitudinal tendencies such as loyalty and commitment to concepts that describe more intense connection with brands such as brand attachment and brand love (Alvarez and Fournier, 2016), and most recently brand addiction (Mrad and Cui, 2017; Cui et al., 2018) which represents the closest or the most intense level of relationship with brands. Brand addiction refers to “consumer’s psychological state that involves mental and behavioral preoccupation with a particular brand, driven by uncontrollable urges to possess the brand’s products, and involving positive affectivity and gratification” (Cui et al., 2018, p. 124). Our review of the literature reveals an important gap. Research on brand addiction has mainly focused on its conceptualization (Mrad, 2018; Cui et al., 2018) and measurement (Mrad and Cui, 2017) in the contexts of general product types (e.g., Cui et al., 2018) and general forms of fashion products and brands (e.g., Mrad and Cui, 2017). As Lukka (2014) points out that similar behaviors may have distinct connotations and casual effects in diverse contexts, consumers engage in luxury and fast-fashion brands for different psychological motives (Ko et al., 2017). Motives for luxury brands are linked to consumers’ need for using them as symbols of social status and power (Tynan et al., 2010), and fast-fashion brands are often linked to “buy it now because it won’t be here tomorrow” (Byun and Sternquist, 2012). Moreover, luxury brands have premium prices and can inspire a deep connection with customers (Ko et al., 2017). However, there is little research on whether motives and consequences of consumers’ addiction to luxury brands are different from affordable trendy items from fast-fashion brands. According to Lukka (2014), behaviors can be examined by interpretive research that can take relevant causal relations within certain context to examine motivators of actions and causal consequences. Thus, the present research aims to fill this gap by investigating the motivations and consequences of addiction to luxury and fast-fashion brands through an exploratory qualitative study. Scholars in qualitative research have emphasized the value of examining causal explanations through interpretations of qualitative data (Lukka, 2014; Spiggle, 1994). From our data analysis different themes emerged regarding the motivations for luxury and fast-fashion brand addiction. Regarding the consequences, our findings suggest both positive and negative consequences from both luxury and fast-fashion brands. The present research is valuable because it provides a deeper understanding of how consumers feel, think, and act with their addictive luxury and fast-fashion brands, which could provide valuable guidance for retailers and marketing practitioners to develop effective strategies for branding and customer-relationship management. In the rest part of this paper, we first present a review of the literature and raise important research issues.