BRAND CONGRUITY: A STUDY OF THE TOD’S LUXURY BRAND

Abstract

This paper aims to gain an understanding of luxury brand positioning in relation to brand attributes, distribution channel and the target consumer characteristics. In so doing, we hope to get a fuller explanation of brand perceptions within the market environment in which the transactions occur.Luxury brands need to flourish in an increasingly complicated and competitive environment. In the past socio-demographic characteristics were used to position the offering, but this is becoming more difficult to apply in contemporary global markets. It is possible to broadly position luxury brands using Aaker’s (1997) 3A’s framework to show how brands are crowded and compete in the middle “aspirational” segment. There also appears to be a polarization within the market on the part of highly informed and expert consumers who do not follow traditional norms of purchasing behaviour; purchasing elite luxury and high street purchases at the same time. Such inconsistent behaviour compels us to investigate the luxury brand consumer in depth. Consumer perceptions of luxury value comprise financial, functional, individual and social components (Hennings et al. 2012), as well as changing cultural interpretations (Mo and Roux. 2009) and symbolic and human characteristics (Aaker, 1997). Examing the brand and the consumer is not sufficient and a third aspect needs to be considered relating to distribution channels (D’Astous and Levesque 2003). This is the environment where the personality of the brand is staged to reinforce tangible and intangible attributes that further influence consumer perceptions. Store personality suggests functional qualities and psychological attributes that help define the store in the consumer’s mind (D’Astous and Levesque, 2003). In order to differentiate between brands perceived with similar positioning, the symbolic qualities of the luxury brands become highly relevant and a key motivation of luxury brand purchase behaviour (Heine 2009; Liu et al 2010).What is of interest to us in this study is the congruity between consumers’ perceptions of a luxury flagship store personality, the personality of the luxury brand and consumers own personality traits. Drawing upon the foregoing we have established that there is a need to understand how consumers see themselves in relation to luxury brands. Understanding the relationships between the consumer, the brand and store personality is critical for the effective positioning and strategic management of the luxury brand in terms of product mix strategy, pricing, advertising and distribution. Our analysis draws upon Aaker’s (1997) brand personality, luxury consumer personality traits from Weidmann et. al., (2009) and store personality dimensions from D’Astous and Levesque, (2003) and we delineate luxury using the four values, financial, functional, individual and social from Weidmann et. al.,(2009). The difference in the degrees of alignment represents what we have termed “congruence distance” between each personality dimension. Misalignment may indicate that the corporate view of the luxury brand is out of sync with consumer perceptions and may impact upon strategic marketing efforts.Using a quantitative research approach we report the results of a survey of Tod’s consumers in the UK, France and Italy. Constructs are developed to measure consumers’ perceptions of a luxury flagship store personality, the personality of the luxury brand and consumers own personality traits.Our theoretical contribution hopes to enhance explanations of luxury consumption. We have taken three disparate frameworks that each look at elements of luxury brand positioning to assess levels of convergence using one case study. We add to luxury brand theory by presenting a rubric of congruence distance that draws the three frameworks together and highlights clusters within dimensions of value. Managerially, we find the importance of alignment across a variety of dimensions and clusters. Through this rubric, multiple segmentation and positioning scenarios can be assessed with implications for strategy. We find that consumer interaction with sales personnel is critical to consumers’ experience of the brand based upon an understanding and expectation of the luxury it represents.