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Luxury brands do not glitter equally for everyone

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Abstract

Previous studies indicate that Westerners and non-Westerners vary in terms of culture and in the degree of focus on objects and the background of advertisings. In this study, the divergences in the perceptions of advertisements for luxury cars are tested by using eye-tracking technology. Going beyond previous studies that considered the time spent on the observations, we use a mixed-methods approach to complement experimental results with survey data. As expected, Europeans pay more attention to the object (i.e., luxury product) in the advertising compared to Asians. In contrast, Asians focus more on the background of the stimuli. Seizing these results, practitioners will be able to design better-targeted advertising for luxury brands based on whether the audience is Asian or Western. The study also shows how an advertiser distracts the attention of the target group from the object (product) by adding focal objects on the sides.

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Acknowledgements

Funding was provided by University of Kassel.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. SVI-Endowed Chair for International Direct Marketing, DMCC-Dialog Marketing Competence Center, University of Kassel, Mönchebergstraße 1, 34125, Kassel, Germany

    Farhad Aliyev & Ralf Wagner

  2. SolBridge International School of Business, Daejeon, South Korea

    Taylan Ürkmez

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  1. Farhad Aliyev
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  2. Taylan Ürkmez
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Correspondence to Farhad Aliyev.

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Aliyev, F., Ürkmez, T. & Wagner, R. Luxury brands do not glitter equally for everyone. J Brand Manag 25, 337–350 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41262-017-0085-x

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