Understanding consumer perceptions of luxury brands

Continuing the stream of luxury brand research that seeks to identify how luxury brands differ from non-luxury brands, we test whether the brand usage and attribute prototypicality influences on consumers’ perceptual responses about non-luxury brands extend to luxury brands. Drawing on data from individuals who qualify in the top 25% income tier in their country, in the United States (n = 300) and China (n = 366), across three luxury categories of Fashion, Jewelry, and Watches, we find that brand usage and attribute prototypicality patterns drive baseline response levels for brands on luxury attributes. Furthermore, a calculation from Romaniuk and Sharp is able to accurately estimate scores (±2pp) for over 90% of luxury brands of the 580 brand–luxury attribute combinations tested. The ability to benchmark scores for brands on luxury attributes will enable practitioners to separate real differences in the positioning of luxury brands from those that simply reflect the current size of the brand’s customer base, and over time more effectively detect the effect of luxury brand marketing activities on consumers.