The Influence of Perceived Rarity and Luxuriousness on Consumers’ Brand Attitudes: Observations in Japan

When a non-luxury apparel brand attempts to raise its brand value by employing the luxury strategy, rarity management is a brand manager’s concern. This study focuses on apparel brand’s rarity as perceived by consumers and its influence on consumers’ brand attitudes depending on the extent of the brand’s luxuriousness. In this paper, a consumer survey is conducted in Japan to analyze consumers’ perceptions and attitudes toward 10 leading apparel brands. The results of principal factor analysis and regression analysis suggest that the higher a brand’s luxuriousness is, the more strongly its perceived rarity positively impacts on consumers’ brand attitudes. On the contrary, it is suggested that the lower a brand’s luxuriousness is, the more strongly its perceived rarity negatively impacts on consumers’ attitudes. This result implies the existence of the snob effect for luxury brands. Conversely, investments to raise consumers’ perceived rarity potentially might harm consumers’ attitudes towards the brand when the extent of brand’s luxuriousness is low.