مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

 مجله تحقیقات بازاریابی – Journal of Business Research

Teens are a very important market, both because of their current consumer spending power and their future spending as adults. U.S. teenagers alone earn over $80 billion in income, spent over $220 billion in 2012, and spend an average of $100 per week on clothing, their biggest single expenditure (Parker, Hermans, & Schaefer, 2008). European teens generally spend less (e.g., $60 per week on clothing in France), but still represent a sizable market (Moses, 2000). These findings may explain why companies design luxury fashion specifically for teens (e.g., Louboutin high tops for $700; Burberry bags for $300–۴۰۰). Despite the apparent significance of this market, attitudes toward luxury fashion brands during adolescence remains under-represented in cross-cultural consumer research.

Given the emergence of a global teen market, it is important to understand adolescent attitudes toward luxury fashion brands from a cross-cultural perspective. Global teens are thought to be similar in terms of their consumption habits, in particular with respect to fashion (Kjeldgaard & Askegaard, 2006). This presumed uniformity of teens, however, may be inaccurate. Recent research suggests that adolescent consumers adapt global consumption practices and meanings to fit local contexts (Gentina, Butori, Rose, & Bakir, 2014). Although the vast majority of research on attitudes toward luxury brands among young people has focused on the U.S. (Beaudoin, Lachance, & Robitaille, 2003), research in other cultures is emerging, including Brazil (Gil, Kwon, Good, & Johnson, 2012), Australia (Phau & Leng, 2008), and China (Zhan & He, 2012). Research has described the individual and social mechanisms underlying attitudes toward luxury brands (Zhan & He, 2012) but has not explored how these mechanisms combine in a crosscultural context. Thus, much remains unknown about cultural differences in teenage attitudes toward luxury fashion brands and the motivations that underlie these differences. Insights into the motives that affect teens’ attitudes toward luxury fashion brands can provide retailers with information they can use to reach this attractive segment more effectively.

The research presented here evaluates two social identity mechanisms underlying teenage attitudes toward luxury fashion brands in a cross-cultural context: the individual mechanism (through the need for uniqueness) and the social mechanism (through susceptibility to peer influence). More specifically, it examines the identity processes that determine teenage attitudes toward luxury fashion brands in two cultures with distinctive historical, cultural, and social settings: the U.S. and France. To specify and clarify the social identity motives underlying attitudes toward luxury brands, we focus on clothing, an area particularly relevant to teens. Because adolescence is a crucial period in the identity development process, clothing symbolizes teens’ connections with their ideal peer groups, as well as the singularity and subjectivity of individual tastes (Muzinich, Pecotich, & Putrevu, 2003).