Green luxury: new divide in positioning strategies needed?
Fachartikel 712
Fachbereich
Betriebswirtschaftslehre
Fachrichtung
Marketing/Absatz
Artikel
2017
Sprache
englisch
Beschreibung
a basic and commonly shared implicit definition of luxury is "something superfluous". onsuming such products and services contradits the modern paradigm of
sustainable consumption. However, luxury vendors are frequently introducing new
technologies and better working conditions on a large scale, including natural colors and
fair treatment of labor in the fashion industry, as well as fully electric-fueled cars, which
Tesla has been producing. Previous research suggests that luxury and sustainability are
incompatible. The values underlying sustainability are altruism, restraint, and
moderation, whereas the main components of luxury are hedonism, aestheticism,
uniqueness, affluence, and surplus. The motives of luxury consumers are likely to vary
with their cultural framing. Compared with individualists, members of collectivistic
cultures have been known to behave more prosocially. However, they are also more prone
to buying luxury goods to enhance their status. This study examines whether the motives
of dominance or prestige status encourage individuals from collectivistic societies to
choose more luxurious or sustainable products, respectively. This study provides evidence
from more than 200 experiments with collectivists and individualists, and it introduces
distinctiveness between dominance- and prestige-seeking behaviors via underlying status
motives in prosocial or luxury-product choices that previous research has not
differentiated. Our results underline the association of status motives with individualistic
and collectivistic cultures. Previous research shows that ethical issues are not considered
in luxury-buying decisions, even though many luxury companies have developed
corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs and offer new sustainable luxury
products. Additionally, they increasingly inform the public about their prosocial activities.
This is most likely the result of the positioning of conspicuousness that negatively
influences purchase intentions of sustainable luxury products. Therefore, avoiding
conspicuous strategies in marketing is one of the managerial implications of this study
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