Do you Still Love your Favorite Luxury Brand? The Impact of Consumer Characteristics and Purchase Type on Luxury Divergence

Given the unprecedented growth of luxury industry in the past decade, gaining a deeper understanding of differences between luxury goods and luxury experiential services, as well as luxury consumers’ buying behaviors based on their need for status, has become increasingly important. To that end, this study examines the joint effects of product type (luxury experiential services vs. luxury goods) and need for status (low vs. high) on consumers’ attitude change toward their favorite luxury brands. Less affluent consumers were used to trigger potential out-group influences. Based on the differences between experiential services and tangible goods as well as the differences between Patricians (low in need for status) and Parvenus (high in need for status), we demonstrate that when the less affluent start mimicking Parvenus’ brand preferences, the impact is more detrimental when the consumption object is a luxury goods rather than an experiential service. Conversely, Patricians exhibit similar levels of attitude change across the two types of luxury products.