Virginie De Barnier

Brand heritage: The past in the service of brand management

Researchers and practitioners talk about brand heritage even though its meaning and its difference from related concepts are not entirely clear. Through a review of the multidisciplinary literature, this article distinguishes brand heritage from the concepts of inheritance, retro, nostalgia, and authenticity. This article defines brand heritage as a dynamic construct based on an inherited or borrowed past, with a view to supporting brand identity and being transmitted. A total of 11 research propositions are presented within an inclusive framework that paves the way for future research and contributes to research on brand management and the role of consumers in creating value.

Toward a Larger Framework of the Generation Concept in Marketing

The aim of this paper is to clarify the concept of generation in marketing that gave rise to fruitful research, albeit very heterogeneous. Our approach consists in a presentation of these various explorations against the integrative framework offered by sociology in order to assess their ability to take into account the different dimensions that characterize the generation concept. This analysis contributes to the identification of new research areas that could add significantly to the literature on the generation concept.

Negative Emotions Toward Luxury Goods: An International Comparison of very Wealthy Consumers

This paper explores the previously unstudied emotions, especially of a negative variety, that very wealthy customers experience when they consume luxury goods and services. We conducted an interpretative, qualitative study in China and Brazil that focused on very affluent consumer’s group. We carried out 29 in-depth interviews with 14 wealthy Brazilian and 15 Chinese consumers. We compared the Brazilian and Chinese samples with a classification that distinguishes between the primary emotions of anger, fear, and sadness as well as secondary emotions such as guilt and shame, also considered as selfconscious emotions. Our results show that wealthy Brazilian and Chinese consumers experience negative emotions that are similar in many respects, but differ in others. “Gaining face” is a very important issue in Chinese culture and, therefore, stands out for Chinese wealthy people. In contrast, being born in an already rich family or “having a cradle” as expressed by Brazilians interviewees, is a source of pride for Brazilian consumers. Wealthy consumers in both cultures fear violence and being envied. However, the Chinese participants more specifically expressed a fear of being different in a collective culture and a fear of losing face. We only observed a concern for the devaluation of luxury products among the Chinese participants. The phenomenon of new rich consumers’ improper behavior and consumption provoked two different reactions between the samples: the Brazilians reported anger, and the Chinese reported sadness. Finally, Brazilian informants tended to slightly express more guilt and no shame, whereas Chinese informants expressed more shame.

Does intensity of personally felt emotions matter more than nature of emotions to influence attitude toward the ad (Aad) and attitude toward the brand(Ab)

This study examines the effects in the persuasion process of the intensity of personally felt emotions combined with the nature of these emotions according to their three dimensions (Pleasure, Arousal and Domination). More specifically effects on both attitude toward the ad (Aad) and attitude toward the brand (Ab) have been examined dividing the population in two groups : those feeling no or low affective responses and those feeling intense affective responses while watching TV ads. Path analyses suggested that emotions matter in assessing the effectiveness of advertising since they are strong predictors of attitude toward the ad (Aad) and attitude toward the brand (Ab). It has been found that the three dimensions of emotions do lead to significant differences on Aad and Ab. In addition, the intensity level of personally felt emotions has been found as a strong determinant of Aad and Ab. Among the group feeling low or no affective responses only Arousal emotions have an effect on both Aad and Ab. Among the group feeling intense affective responses, the three dimensions of emotions were found effective on both Aad and Ab. Finally, limitations of this study are underlined and issues for further research are discussed.