“Exclusivity Dared”

While the luxury goods market has been slow to embrace and capitalise on the opportunities related to the digital era that has not been the case for their customers. Fashion luxury brands are no exception to this and some have been noted for their inability to keep up with the digital revolution. In the case of fashion luxury brands, whilst some argue that the offline-online integration has added value to the brands others suggest that it has eroded the panache associated with luxury brand. As luxury fashion brands play a significant role in shaping the fashion industry one cannot ignore the approach to digital integration and the impact it may have on the direction the fashion industry takes. As noted by Michael Porter (2001) whether one should integrate internet technology as part of their business plan is no longer questionable, but rather a matter of how it may be most effectively deployed. Based on case studies this chapter investigates how successful integration of the offline with the online environment can be achieved for such a dynamic industry.

Social Identity Matters

Fashion brands' online presence provide a platform for customers to supplement social identity based on associations with brands, and ultimately this can shape brand perceptions among customers through promised functional and symbolic benefits. Social media has matured into the prime channel for regular interactions and the development of brand-customer relationships that enrich social identity. Drawing on social identity theory, the current chapter examines how the evolving social media platforms impact on brand perceptions in the fashion apparel and accessories industries. The chapter focuses on theoretical implications and managerial implications. The concluding section offers some significant roles that social media and social identity may play in keeping up with the design and development of marketing communications programmes.

Drivers, Constraints, and Consequences of Consumer-Brand Engagement in the Luxury Fashion Sector

The purpose of this chapter is to conceptually explore the drivers and constraints of the Consumer Brand Engagement (CBE) concept in the context of the luxury fashion retail sector, along with identifying the resulting consumer behavioural outcomes for this specific industry genre. Using the theoretical lens of the CBE Scale, a consumer viewpoint is taken in order to gauge an in-depth understanding of engagement during or related to focal brand interactions, through the dimensions of Cognitive Processing, Affection and Activation. The CBE concept is gaining traction in branding academia due to its predictive qualities in determining consumer behavioural outcomes, such as loyalty, and so is considered insightful for luxury fashion management. Little research has been conducted in this discipline utilising the lens of CBE as a conceptual framework.

User-Generated Content and Consumer Purchase Intentions in the Cosmetic Industry

Online retailers within the luxury cosmetics industry have grown in popularity due to a wider and more diverse catalogue of products. Beauty e-commerce has also seen an uplift due to the increase in blogs/vlogs and online YouTube tutorials which motivate customers to click through to brands and retailer sites through links and affiliate marketing. Given the importance of computer-mediated marketing environments, particularly the burgeoning Internet tapestry along with its various social networking platforms, it is fundamental for management to foster and understand how these emerging technologies impact on their marketing strategies. Drawing on social impact theory (SIT), this paper contends that user-generated content can provide the basis for brand managers in the cosmetic industry to re-evaluate their digital marketing strategies. The paper concludes with discussions about the value of social impact theory in the development of digital marketing strategies.

The Lux Made in Case Study

The LMI Made-in-Italy (MiI) Jewelry business model which brings together the innovative concept of luxury Digital District (DD) and an e-commerce innovative platform is presented. The DD represents the shift from a traditional jewelry Industrial District of networked Micro-Enterprises (MEs), namely artisans, tied to the physical dimension of a territory to a social and intangible digital environment in the virtual space which leverages a co-petitive crowdsourcing e-commerce platform. The innovative LMI platform enables young Italian artisans throughout Italy to feature an end-to-end global export business without intermediaries. Export wouldn't be viable to MEs by means of their small organizational structure, lack of digital culture and technologies. LMI copes with this issue, taking over MEs marketing, sales and logistics processes by earning a percentage on sales. An original complex approach to the analysis of the LMI value proposition issues is performed via methodologies integrating traditional methods with participated Design Thinking techniques.

Online Service Failure and Recovery Strategies in Luxury Brands

Digital environment no longer permits marketers' self-isolated practices into offline business contours. A tighter relationship of the provider-customer is even more evident in luxury brands, where rather than the quality of the product, the perceived experience (i.e., emotion) drives the purchasing decision and plays the mediating role to customer satisfaction. The risk that online environment does not permit development of such experience subsequently that failure awakening would increase and recovery would be an unmanageable issue, seems to keep luxury brands skeptical of online environment. While other industries are already taking inclusive advantage of multidimensional features inherited in the online medium, luxury brands are situated in the very initial stage of familiarizing with digital media. Subsequently, the phenomena lack theoretical explanation, particularly in context to failure and recovery. The current chapter discusses service failure and recovery strategy in luxury brands, aiming to bring conceptual insight to it.

Organisational and Marketing Challenges in Designing and Implementing an Omnichannel Strategy for Luxury Fashion Brands

The adoption of omnichannel strategies by luxury fashion brands has a relevant impact on the whole value chain and generates many critical organizational implications for luxury companies. The reluctance of several fashion brands in adopting omnichannel initiatives might be related the uniqueness of luxury fashion value proposition, strongly related to rich storytelling and memorable experiences and on the need of large organisation redesign that involve collection design, physical retail role and functions, service design and inventory and supply chain management. There is no common approach to such topics within luxury fashion companies a present but it is possible to draw a sort of “ominchannel adoption curve or life cycle”, with the different evolutionary stages in which companies might be at present. These different stages are characterised by different goals for omnichannel, different level of integration between digital and traditional retail, information generation and sharing and function goals and competencies.

Gender Fluidity in the Age of Technologically Mediated Environments

Gender is a concept that has evolved with time, varying its meaning and relevance regularly. Today, it manifests across many facets of life. Whilst theories of gender began as a device to categorise individuals and groups, these have evolved into a broad, complex system of identification to describe the uniqueness of the individual. Central to the discussion of gender is the question of how we can understand human conduct and experience in technologically laden marketing environments. Drawing on extant theories, the current chapter examines how the technologically mediated marketing environment (TMME) is increasingly challenging fashion and luxury marketers to reconsider their marketing communications strategies, particularly with the impact of evolving Internet technologies such as social media platforms. The concluding section offers further agenda for future research.

Designing Indulgent Interaction

Electronic Commerce (e-commerce) has transformed the retail environment and has become an ever increasingly important channel of the global economy. Within this, fashion retail has been a driving force, with increasing brand growth and profit deriving through Mobile Commerce (m-commerce). While the high-street fashion retailers have been key drivers and innovators in creating engaging and persuasive m-commerce app offerings, the high end and luxury fields have to date been slow to adopt and innovate at a comparable rate. This chapter explores the history and meaning of luxury and branding, in relation to the current state of m-commerce in fashion. Specific reference is given to the current state of m-commerce design in the retail domain between luxury and high-street market levels. Key questions and leading developments in the realm of interaction and User Experience (UX) design are presented along with directions on how to design for luxury m-commerce interactions.

Mirror, Mirror @ the E-Mall

This chapter concentrates on the on-line buying behavior of gay male fashion innovators for luxury clothing. The author provides evidence that Internet shopping intent for luxury fashion items has great potential as a novel and innovative segmentation tool and that the Internet serves as an efficient platform to communicate to this target group. An empirical analysis of the data indicates that the degree of fashion innovativeness directly influences male gay's on-line buying behaviour for luxury fashion items. The chapter concludes with a number of managerial implications that luxury fashion market practitioners and researchers can adopt to develop effective on-line marketing, communication and branding strategies for gay male fashion innovators, which represent a lucrative market segment in the luxury fashion industry.