Pekka Mattila

Fashion collaboration effects on consumer response and customer equity in global luxury and SPA brand marketing

Todays consumers tend to focus on uniqueness and on personal and intangible values when making purchase decisions. Thus, companies undertake such innovative strategies as brand collaborations, especially in the fashion industry where brands collaborate with artists, celebrities or other brands to raise awareness, build relationships and achieve competitive advantage through differentiation. However, researchers have not yet focused specifically on luxury and SPA brands to examine how certain fashion collaboration types affect consumer responses and long-term company–customer relationships. In this study, the authors consider luxury and SPA fashion brand collaboration cases and defines their impacts on consumer response and relationships in terms of customer equity drivers, customer lifetime value and customer loyalty. The paper concludes with several academic and industry-related implications to enable further growth of this profitable and innovative brand strategy.

Understanding fashion consumers’ attitude and behavioral intention toward sustainable fashion products: Focus on sustainable knowledge sources and knowledge types

Abstract Companies in the fashion industry recognize sustainability as a major issue and are placing intensive efforts to incorporate it into their marketing strategies. Yet they face a stumbling block as most fashion consumers still have limited knowledge or clarification about sustainability. In addition, there is a lack of in-depth research regarding sustainable knowledge in the fashion industry, especially considering its importance in this field. Therefore, this study, analyzes sustainable knowledge to better understand which sources and types of knowledge are effective. Thus, the purpose of this study is as follows: (1) to examine the influence of sustainable knowledge sources on different types of sustainable knowledge; and (2) to examine the impact of these types of knowledge on sustainable consumer behavior. A total of 245 responses are collected in South Korea through an online survey for the final analysis. The proposed model and research hypotheses are tested using AMOS and SPSS programs. Results indicates that fashion consumers have a positive effect on corporate marketing information. Effectiveness and social knowledge also play an important role in forming attitude toward sustainable fashion products. In conclusion, fashion brands must identify and incorporate effective sources and types of sustainable knowledge into their marketing strategies to expand their business scope. Moreover, this study stands out for examining the specific role of sustainable knowledge in the fashion industry, thus providing a direction for future research.

The Role of Fashion in the Characters of Online Games

Abstract This research study aims to discover the relationships among the fashion of characters, storytelling, and game satisfaction in Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games(MMORPG) in order to examine the influence of the fashion of characters in games on storytelling and game satisfaction, and to identify the following constructs: fashion of characters, storytelling, and game satisfaction. The global game market has grown rapidly every year since the introduction of computer games. The size of the global game market in 2010 was 6 billion dollars, and the online game market captured 64.2% of the total market. The competition in the online game market has become increasingly fierce in South Korea. Millions of people now spend several hours per week on MMORPGs, which have several features that attract a large number of users. First, the world of MMORPGs is open and user-oriented. Many game users interact with each other in the same space and play games in their own way. MMORPGs also have continuous updates, which allow for the dissemination of sequence stories and provides new content to game users. Many MMORPGs are released each year, and each has its own story, characters, and system to attract and satisfy game users. However, due to the maturity of the game market, there are a few differences among the games (particularly in reference to game systems and services). Therefore, the fashion of characters in the game can serve as one of the important elements that provide enjoyment for users who partake in the online game industry. As is the case in the real world, game users in the virtual world prefer beautiful and chic characters to ugly characters. Good-looking people are likely to have better interpersonal interactions and thus develop more satisfying interpersonal relationships, while ugly people frequently fail in interpersonal interactions. Regardless of age, people like to make friends with others who are outwardly attractive. In online games, the characters represent all of the players, even though players are free to choose what role they want to play. In addition, many gamers spend money to purchase items in order to have unique character appearances and fashion styles. People who play games desire to express their identity and aesthetic sensibilities through their characters. The apperance of the characters is the main component that game users use to express their own personalities within the MMORPG environment. Stories and storytelling are the most efficient means by which to understand customer psychology. Using the Internet, many people upload their experiences and other useful information onto their blogs or community sites and share these information pieces with friends as well as with unknown community members. People naturally think in narratives rather than in arguments or in paradigms, and stories that include rousing incidents, experiences, and summaries/nuances of person-to-person and person-and-brand relationships within specific contexts enhance strong feelings of presence while playing a game. An existing game user’s story can influence new game users. Game users share their experiences and the pros and cons of the game with other game users through blogs or gaming community websites. Through these postings, those who were not initially interested in a particular game eventually develop an interest. Game users tend to share their useful information with other game users by using game communities and do so without any monetary profit. In visiting these gaming community websites, game users look for new and/or humorous information. An online gaming community consists of a group of users who interact with each other via the Internet, create fantasy roles, develop online relationships, share common interests, and indulge their need for entertainment by playing their own virtual roles. As new users gather more information regarding a particular game and increase their level of experience within this realm, the probability of them choosing said particular game increases. The satisfaction that customers attain from online games is an emotional reaction that occurs in response to an assessment from the experiences of playing said games. Many influential factors exist that correspond with product features and affect the satisfaction level of consumers with regard to online games. These include the connection speed, stability of server connectors, emotional experience, services, challenges presented within the games themselves and interpersonal relationships formed with other players. Online games use an international set of standards (reliability, usability, functionality, efficiency, maintainability, and portability) for their evaluation, which is suitable for a given purpose such as software quality characteristics (ISO/ICE 9126, 2001). Visual stimulation can more easily lead to immersion than other forms of stimulation, and online gaming mainly uses this visual stimulation through the gamer’s monitor so that gamers tend to be immersed in a game and feel satisfied. Data collection resulted in 235 usable responses from MMORPG users, and the accompanying demographic information included age, gender, education, employment, and time spent per day on gaming. The user age in the sample ranges from 15 to 44, and there were 178 respondents (75.7%) ages 21 to 31 (average 27) and 51 respondents over 35 years of age (10.2%). Males made up 91.1% of the sample, and females made up 8.9% (21 in total). The majority of participants reported spending approximately 2.4 hours playing games each day. The mean score of each sub-construct is calculated and used for further analysis, and the measurement model provides a satisfactory fit to the data. The fit indices are as follows: χ2 (11) = 34.151, which is statistically significant (p < .001); goodness-of-fit index (GFI) = (.958); normed fit index (NFI) = (.947); incremental fit index (IFI) = (.963); comparative fit index (CFI) = (.963); and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = (.095), indicating a high level of validity for the measures. Thus, the measures of the gaming customers’ data demonstrate adequate convergent validity. Examination of the overall model fit reveals the Chi-square standard coefficient of fashion of character on storytelling, which is found to be .805 (t=7.716) and which is significant (p < .001). The standard coefficient of fashion of character on game satisfaction is found to be .556 (t=3.111), which is significant (p < .005). The standard coefficient of storytelling on game satisfaction is found to be .516 (t = 2.997), which is significant (p < .005). Thus, all hypotheses are supported based on the results of the analyses. The fashion of character in MMORPGs is an important element for game satisfaction even though it differs from one game to another. Many games provide various options for fashioning one’s game character. However, online game companies should increase game satisfaction further by providing services such as altering a character’s appearance, clothes, and fashion. In addition, the game environment should support players’ desires to manage the fashion of their characters. In this research model, the storytelling of game users has a positive influence on game satisfaction in MMORPGs, as has been shown to be the case by many previous research studies in this field. For further research, it is necessary to conduct the same survey in several countries as well as across other online game genres.

“Managerial storytelling”: how we produce managerial and academic stories in qualitative B2B case study research

With a focus on case study research methods, this study continues the epistemological debate about qualitative research approaches in the IMP literature by reconsidering the reliance on managerial interviews as a primary empirical source in the production of knowledge claims. In this empirical approach, researchers seem to often treat the interview process and the analysis and reporting of research findings in a manner that generally gives situational credence to the veracity and factuality of the interview data. In line with several epistemological approaches that have already surfaced in IMP literature, this study further emphasizes the context-dependent, ephemeral and ultimately unstable nature of managerial “truths” imparted in the interviews. We argue that the data should be empathically and reflexively understood as the production of stories and their reporting as a form of academic storytelling of pragmatic academic and managerial value.

International fashion trade shows as knowledge creation platforms for microenterprises

In this study, the organizational knowledge creation process of microenterprises exhibiting in trade shows is explored. Specifically, this article examines how knowledge processes are manifested through different trade show activities. The data was collected through semi-structured interviews and ethnographic observation at international B2B fashion trade shows. The study shows that knowledge is created through observing and interpreting the trade show environment and other actors within it. Moreover, knowledge processes are embedded in the informal social interaction that takes place at trade shows. In this way, the participants absorb and adopt industry-specific practices and routines through their physical proximity to other industry actors.

Using Live Cases for Teaching, Industry Collaboration, and Research

The use of live cases in marketing teaching has been suggested as a way to provide students with interesting and relevant course work while collaborating on live case exercises also provides industry partners with valuable new ideas for innovation and development. When properly conducted, live cases can also be used for conducting research by the course instructors. Our study shows how these three distinct levels of teaching, industry collaboration, and research can be managed simultaneously to produce benefits for all parties by introducing and testing a novel framework to be used by marketing instructors in their course work.

Brand Management of ‘New Luxury’: Case Saga Furs

Abstract This study addresses brand management in the context of raw material for the luxury fashion industry. The research is conducted in the form of a case study of Saga Furs, which is an auction company whose operations range from co-operation with-local fur breeders supplying the raw materialto marketing and sellingto globally prestigious fashion houses and clothing manufacturers. In this inquiry, changes in the stakeholder relations of Saga Furs Ltd are investigated and their implications for brand management are presented with regard to customer-based brand equity. In conclusion, this case study illustrates the benefits of branding in a controversial material industry and provides best practices for carrying out brand communications.

Affective motives to play online games

Abstract Most previous studies on online games have investigated the effects of cognitive motives, and thus neglected investigating affective motives. Using two studies (an experiment and a field study), the present research based on mood management theory aims to fill this void by investigating affective motives such as stress, pleasure, and arousal on intention to play online games. The present study demonstrates that the stress people experience in their life could be an initiator of online games play (Study 1), and both pleasure and arousal could be two important motives which make people stick with online games playing they have previously experienced (Study 2). We also showed that people with low self-esteem are more inclined to re-play online games when they experience more pleasure from playing games. Implications, limitations, and future research directions are discussed in conclusion.

Building bridges between professionals – expectations and outcomes of participation in professional communities

This study illustrates the individual motivations and outcomes of professional community participation. The data for the study were collected using an online questionnaire, which was distributed among highly educated commercial professionals in various business areas. The questionnaire was composed of questions mapping attitudes and behaviors in professional communities. These data were analyzed using factor analysis and cluster analysis in order to define the underlying dimensions of professional communality and to form a typology of participants attending communal events and contributing to the knowledge of these communities. On the basis of factor analysis of the data, 11 factors influencing community participation emerged. These were: identification, employers attitude, social interaction ties, trust, altruism, knowledge power, time and effort, reciprocity, brand image versus identity, reputation and status, and knowledge self-efficacy. Furthermore, when applying cluster analysis to the data, four different participation profiles could be extracted based on these factors. These were named communal altruists, information brokers, strongly committed professionals, and social capital hoarders. These groups differ significantly due to their expectations of outcomes as well as their behaviors within professional communities.

Exploring SNS as a consumer tool for retail therapy: explicating semantic networks of “shopping makes me happy (unhappy)” as a new product development method

Marketing and advertising researchers are turning attention to the impact of social network services such as Twitter. Researchers are calling for more useful gathering and interpretation of massive amounts of SNS data. This study applies semantic network analysis to examine the effects of shopping on mood alleviation via tweets – effects known as retail therapy. To conduct a semantic network analysis, the study analyzes 152 messages containing shopping-related keywords in naturally occurring tweets and finds the 24 most frequently used nodes (keywords). Centrality analysis reveals that nodes most frequently connecting keywords of mood, stress, depression, happiness, clothes, consumption and shoes have higher degrees of centrality. Moods associate with 22 keywords and highly co-occur with the keywords change, clothes, stress, consumption and depression. The results indicate that tweets about sentiments expressed before and after fashion item purchases show that retail therapy is occurring. By analyzing SNS messages, this study enhances the theory–method diversification of consumer studies and provides practical guidelines for further study of shopping behaviors and future new product development initiatives.