Parental Influence on the Purchase of Luxury Brands of Infant Apparel: An Exploratory Study in Hong Kong. Gerard Prendergast1 Claire Wong2 1 2 Associate Professor, Department of Marketing, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong Research Assistant, Department of Marketing, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong 1 Author Biography Gerard Prendergast is an Associate Professor of Marketing and the Director of the MBA program at Hong Kong Baptist University. His research is in the area of marketing communications, and his publications have appeared in journals such as the Journal of Advertising, International Journal of Advertising, Journal of Marketing Communications, Journal of Promotion Management, and the European Journal of Marketing. Claire Wong is Research Associate with the Department of Marketing, Hong Kong Baptist University. Her research interests are in branding and retailing. 2 Parental Influence on the Purchase of Luxury Brands of Infant Apparel: An Exploratory Study in Hong Kong. ABSTRACT Why do some parents buy luxury brands of clothing for their infants, when in fact their infants are too young to appreciate Armani, Versace, and other such labels? Are the parents doing this to impress others? By researching the purchasing behaviour of parents buying luxury brands of infant apparel, this paper is related to the concepts of buying roles, conspicuous consumption/social consumption motivation, and materialism. A survey of 134 mothers who had purchased luxury brands of clothing for their infants found that parents are motivated by the good quality and design associated with the luxury brands. The relationship between the amount of money spent by parents on luxury brands of infant apparel and social consumption motivation was not significant. However, interviewees who spent more on luxury clothing brands for their infants were more materialistic. It is thus recommended that marketers should emphasis the good quality and design of their luxury brands of infant apparel. In addition, marketers should promote the materialistic values of purchasing luxury brands of infant apparel, showing that buying luxury brands of infant apparel may be a route to happiness, rather than being a route for impressing others. 3 INTRODUCTION The marked decline in the birth rate of the Hong Kong population is replicating the common trend in industrial countries toward smaller families (Speece and So, 1998). With higher disposable income, and with more affluent working parents having their first child in their mid 30s, the overall expenditure on children's wear and children related products has been increasing. In particular, more consumers are moving away from traditional low-cost local brands to more upmarket luxury brands (Corral, 1999; Speece and So, 1998). In fact, parents are actively purchasing well-known brand name products for their children (McNeal, 1987). In this sense, the concept of the “little emperor” is not only a Mainland China phenomenon, but exists in Hong Kong too. Darian (1998) suggests that buying luxury brands for children would reflect favourably on the financial status of the parents. This desire for parents to impress others via the appearance of their children suggests an opportunity for luxury brand marketers to develop their business in infant apparel. Corral (1999) has provided a broad overview of several retail trends for infants from the ages of 0-3. While disposable diapers remain the overwhelming top purchase for babies, the increasing popularity of brand name apparel for babies is attracting parents in their 20s and 30s into the stores, buying the same brands that they wear for their babies (such as Nike and DKNY). There is also the steady growth of extension product lines of luxury brands such as GapKids, Baby Dior and Baby Esprit reflecting the competitive market for luxury infant apparels. Marketers in this way may indulge parents’ fashion and brand consciousness for choosing infant apparel. Much research has looked at parent-child decisions when buying children’s apparel. But 4 there is a deficiency of studies relating to parents’ decision-making process for infant apparel. This area is of particular interest because, when it comes to infant apparel, the infant has no influence on the purchase decision. The purchase decision is completely in the hands of the parents. The primary objective of this research is thus to determine the motives of parents purchasing luxury brands of infant apparel. At the same time, this paper also investigates if materialism and the social consumption motivation are related to parents’ expenditure on luxury brands of infant apparel. Such issues are of interest to manufacturers of luxury brands of infant apparel, as well as manufacturers of other products where the user of the product is neither the buyer not the influencer. COSUMER BEHAVIOUR AND LUXURY BRANDS Consumption of Children's Apparel A lot of research has focussed on different perspectives of the purchase motivation for children's products. For instance, McNeal (1990) found that children aged 10 years averaged about 250 store visits a year. With greater affluence, higher consumer socialisation of children and more mothers working outside the home, the trend of children making their own decision in the purchase of apparels is increasing (Lackman and Lanasa, 1993). Shannon (1997) provided empirical evidence that children are capable of making their own choices between brands. Marketers recognise this, and the advertising efforts towards children as targets has been proliferating to such an extent that it has prompted pressure groups to highlight "child pester" labels against the aggressive firms (Grossbart et al, 1991, Marshall, 1997; Tylee, 1997). They argue that the commercial messages encourage children to harass parents into buying products and are seen to be disruptive to parent-children relationships (Martin, 1997). 5 However, children, especially those who are very young, may not always influence the purchase of products destined for their use. Rowley (1997) suggested five main roles in the decision making process. They are namely: (1) users, who actually use the product or service; (2) influencers, particularly those with previous experience of the service; (3) deciders, the actual decision makers in the use/purchase decision, such as parents for children, or children for parents; (4) approvers, who finally authorise the decision within an organisation and (5) buyers, those with the formal authority to buy and act as gatekeepers for purchasing. Users, in the case of infants/babies, are not capable of making their choice of apparel. They have no direct influence on the decision process of the decision-makers, that is, the parents. That means the decision process totally lies with the parents. Studies have shown that the relative influence that a husband and wife have on a particular consumer decision depends in part on the product and service category (Schiffman and Kanuk, 1997). For children’s apparels, the wife is seen to play a dominant role from information search to final decision (Martez and Polo, 1999), yet children may still influence the purchase process. What previous research does not reveal, however, is parent’s purchasing behaviour in circumstances where the child (in this case an infant) has no influence on the purchase of products destined for themselves. Social Consumption Motivation Clothing is often used for its symbolic value reflecting the wearer's status (Solomon, 1983). In the situation whereby the clothing is of a luxury brand, it may be perceived as an ostentatious display of wealth. Consumers are motivated by a desire to impress others with their ability to pay particularity high prices for prestigious products (Mason, 1981). What constitutes a luxury brand? Vigneron and Johnson (1999) define it as the highest level of a prestigious brand encompassing several physical and psychological values such as perceived conspicuous value, perceived unique value, perceived social value, 6 perceived hedonic value and perceived quality value. While there are no direct studies of luxury brands of children or infant products, related studies on luxury brand names are widely reported. Dubois and Paternault (1995), for instance, found that there is positive relationship between brand awareness and desire to own the brands. Luxury brands are perceived to be competing on their ability to evoke exclusivity, brand identity, increase brand awareness and perceived quality, and finally retain sales and customers’ loyalty. In other words, to maintain prestige, luxury brands must sustain high levels of awareness. Since different marketing initiatives for luxury brands have to be adapted to different markets with different cultures, a number of replications with extensions have been conducted (for example, Chung and Zaichkowsky (1999) in Hong Kong and Phau and Prendergast (2001) in Singapore). A new direction was introduced in these studies - consumers’ dislike for high awareness luxury brands. It was found that a luxury brand enjoying high brand awareness does not necessarily indicate high likeability. Research reflects that Asians are extremely conspicuous consumers (Asian Business, July 1994, Dubois and Duquesne, 1993; Fortune 1/16/95; Tai and Tam, 1997) and therefore it is likely that this will transcend to infant apparel as well. Darian (1998) suggested that children wearing luxury brands is a form of status symbol reflecting the wealth of the parents. Parents thus enjoy consuming vicariously through their children. Their study compared the in-store behaviour of children (above five-years of age) and their parents while shopping for children’s apparel. Results indicated that a purchase was more likely where both parties were highly involved in the search. At the same time, parents had positive evaluations of quality, price, practicality and style, while children had positive evaluations of price, style and colour. Moreover, results found that 92% of the parents were mothers, indicating that the consumption of children apparel is 7 mother-dominated consumer behaviour. This finding is further supported by Martez and Polo's (1999) study. Materialism The concept of materialism suggests that possessions and money are a route to personal happiness and social progress (Moschis and Churchill, 1978). Belk (1985) argues that materialism can be thought of as a cluster of related traits, attitudes, and values focussing on possessions and guiding the selection of events and things. For instance, more materialistic individuals are prone to be acquisitive (a trait), to have positive effects related to acquisition (an attitude), and to place high priorities on ownership (a value). Richins (1987) describes materialism in terms of its role in consumer culture as “the idea that goods are a means to happiness; that satisfaction in life is not achieved by religious contemplation or social interaction, or simple life, but by possession and interaction with goods". Highly materialistic individuals find possessions to be generally involving and devote more energy to activities involving products and brands (Browne & Kaldenberg, 1997). Under high-involvement purchasing conditions, buyer decision processes are thought to proceed through extended decision-making, a series of sequential stages involving information search and the evaluation of criteria. The extent that information is processed and the importance of attributes, such as product appearance, functionality, quality, and prestige, in determining a decision is affected by the personal characteristics of the buyer. Integrating Darian's (1998) findings with the concept of materialism, it is logical to imply that more materialistic parents are likely to spend more on luxury brands for their children (infants). Further, the motivation for purchase may be a function of the materialistic traits of their personality. 8 RESEARCH QUESTION AND HYPOTHESES Although the preceding literature highlights some of the influences on consumers buying luxury brands of children’s apparel, no previous research has attempted to provide a clear picture on the influence on parents’ decision to buy luxury brands for their infants. This paper serves to fill this gap. From a consumer behaviour perspective this is intriguing because it represents a situation where the user is neither the buyer nor the influencer. The focus in this study is based on a research question and two hypotheses. The research question is detailed as: RQ1: what are the parent's motives behind consuming luxury brands of clothing for their infants? The study also evaluates if the need to conform to social pressure or materialism are related to parents’ levels of expenditure on luxury brands of clothing for their infants. Building on the prior literature, the following hypotheses are presented: H1: There is a positive association between the interviewees’ level of social consumption motivation and their expenditure on luxury brands for their infants. H2: There is a positive association between the interviewees’ level of materialism and their expenditure on luxury brands for their infants. METHODOLOGY In-depth interviews were conducted initially to identify the motives behind parents buying luxury brands for their children. Seven parents known to be affluent were chosen for the interviews. Their responses were coded and formed the main options for the 9 section on purchase motives in the main survey instrument. Mall intercepts at various locations in Hong Kong was used as the survey method for the main research. Malls on both Hong Kong Island and Kowloon were chosen because they are known to have retailers handling luxury brands of infant apparel. The interviewees were briefed about the research and then screening questions were asked to identify the target interviewees. After screening out interviewees not qualified for the study (i.e. those without an infant under years of age and/or those who had not purchased a luxury brand of apparel for their infant), 134 valid questionnaires were received. Survey Instrument The questionnaire was comprised of four parts. Part one contained two screening questions, asking interviewees if a) they had a child aged less than four years old, and b) they had purchased at least one of a list of luxury brands for their child aged less than four years old. The list of luxury brands was those defined by Chung and Zaichkowsky (1999), which have infants’ clothing available in Hong Kong. The list included: Burberrys Christian Dior Donna Karen Emporio Armani by Georgio Armani Gianni Versace Moschino Paul Smith Ralph Lauren 10 Part two of the questionnaire was designed to investigate the motives for buying luxury brands of infant apparel. Eight motives were listed, based on the earlier in-depth interviews with parents. Interviewees had to tick those motives that applied to them. Part three of the questionnaire included two scales for the measurements of Social Consumption Motivation and Materialism. The Social Consumption Motivation scale developed by Moschis (1981, 1978) was adopted to measure the importance consumers place on what others think or are doing before buying a product. The scale is a four- item, five point Likert-type summated ratings scale. The question, and its items, was as follows: Before purchasing a product, it is important to know: 1. What others think of different brands or products. 1 2 3 4 5 2. What kinds of people buy certain brands or products. 1 2 3 4 5 3. What others think of people who use certain brands or products. 1 2 3 4 5 4. What brands or products to buy to make good impressions on others. 1 2 3 4 5 The total score is calculated by adding the score for each statement. A high total score on the scale indicates a high sensitivity to the social visibility of their consumption. The Materialism scale was adopted from Richins (1987) “Media, Materialism, and Human Happiness” to measure the materialism of the interviewees. The scale is a six-item, two-factor measure and is scored on a 7-point Likert-type format from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree". The items are as follows: 11 1. It is important to me to have really nice things. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 2. I would like to be rich enough to buy anything I want. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 3. I’d be happier if I could afford to buy more things. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 4. It sometimes bothers me quite a bit that I can’t afford to buy all the things I want. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 5. People place too much emphasis on material things* 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 6. It’s really true that money can buy happiness. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 * denotes reverse scoring The level of materialism is measured by summing the score for each statement. The higher the score, the more materialistic the interviewees are. Part four of the questionnaire included the demographic information of the interviewees. Before administering to the full sample, the questionnaire was pretested, translated into Chinese (and back-translated to check accuracy), and any deficiencies identified were corrected accordingly. 12 The results were analysed using the Independent T-test for comparison of the mean score of materialism between interviewees with different consumption motives and those without specific motives in buying luxury brands for their infants. Bivariate correlation analysis was adopted for testing 1) the association between specific motives for buying luxury brands of infant apparel and social consumption motivation, and 2) the association between specific motives for buying luxury brands of infant apparel and materialism. The 0.05 probability level was used as the cut-off level for significance. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS Demographics Table 1 presents the profile of the interviewees. All the interviewees were mothers with infants from new-borns to age below four. A little more than half the interviewees fell between 30-34 years of age. About 46% of the interviewees were housewives. 43.3% of interviewees had a household income level of $70,000 or above while another 30% of the interviewees were evenly distributed in the level of $40,000, $50,000 and $60,000 in household income. Insert Table 1 Scales for Social Consumption Motivation and Materialism The scales for evaluating interviewees' a) social consumption motivation and b) materialism were assessed for reliability by calculating the coefficient alpha for each scale. The alpha values of 0.7364 and 0.6535 reported respectively are considered to be satisfactory for exploratory research (Hair et al, 1998). The mean score for the materialism scale was 26.17 (maximum possible score is 42). The mean score for the social consumption motivation scale was 9.59 (maximum possible score is 20). 13 Parent's motives behind consuming luxury brands of clothing for their infants Table 2 presents the means for motives of parents buying luxury brands for their infants. The table also presents a comparison of the means of the materialism and social consumption motivation scales, with the means of those who had chosen and those who had not chosen the options for motives of purchase. Insert Table 2 The main motive for buying luxury brands of infant apparel was “good quality” (86.6% of interviewees). Nearly 80% of the interviewees perceived that luxury brands have good design and 62.1% of them perceived that luxury brands make their children look nice. 55.2% of the interviewees were driven by the satisfaction of dressing their children nicely in luxury brands. Only a small number of the interviewees (19.4%) reported "The luxury brands indicate to other people my ability to consume luxury brands”. The materialism score of those interviewees who had specific motives for purchasing branded infant apparel and those who did not is next compared. All the p-values are higher than 0.05 except for the items of “The luxury brands have good design” and “Specific luxury brands can show my children’s character”. This suggests that other than for these two items, there are no significant differences between the two groups. Those who bought luxury brands of infant apparels because “The luxury brands have good designs” or “Specific luxury brands can show my children’s character” have a significantly higher score on the materialism scale than those who did not. Also shown in Table 2, there is no significant difference between specific motives for purchasing luxury brands of infant apparel and social consumption motivation since all 14 the p-values are larger than 0.05. The lack of significant difference shows that specific motives for buying luxury brands of infant apparel are not related to the parent’s materialism score. Relationship between Expenditure and Social Consumption Motivation and Materialism Bivariate correlation was used to examine the correlation between the two scales (i.e. "Social consumption motivation " and "Materialism") and the expenditure on luxury brands for infants. For the first scale, the p- value is found to be 0.462 (> 0.05). Thus it can be concluded that there is no relationship between social consumption motivation and expenditure on luxury brands for infants. This result does not support H1: “There is a positive association between the interviewees’ level of social consumption motivation and their expenditure on luxury brands for their infants”. For the second scale (materialism) the p-value is 0.00 (< 0.01) suggesting that there is a relationship between the expenditure on infant apparels and materialism. The correlation coefficient of 0.295 shows that the two are positively related. While the coefficient is not large, it could be classified as a medium strength correlation. Thus H2: "There is a positive association between the interviewees’ level of materialism and their expenditure on luxury brands for their infants" is accepted. The higher the spending on luxury brands of infant apparel, the more materialistic the parents are. 15 DISCUSSION AND MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS The findings in this study show that parents buy luxury brands for their infants because of the good quality and design. In this sense, a brand name offers a guarantee, and perhaps exp lains why generic branding has been limited, mainly, to commodity products whose quality is predictable (Prendergast and Marr, 1997). The findings also suggest that mothers tend to rank "quality" as the most important criterion in buying luxury brands for their infants, because it offers the best to the ones they love and care for. Further, results show that mothers with a higher materialism score regard the motives “The luxury brands have good designs” and “Specific luxury brands can show my children's character" as more important criteria for them to buy luxury brands for their infants. There is no relationship between parents’ expenditure on luxury brands for infants and their social motivation score. Mothers buying luxury brands for their infants are not motivated by the social visibility factor. This contrasts with Darian's (1998) suggestion that children with brand name products reflect favourably on their parents' financial status and parents enjoy vicarious consumption through their children. It is surprising that social consumption motivation was not related to expenditure on luxury brands of infant apparel. Asia, especially Hong Kong, is known as the home of conspicuous consumption, and therefore one would expect buying behaviour for luxury brands to be driven by a desire to display one’s wealth to others. Other findings from this study however show that there is a positive relationship between expenditure on luxury brands for infants and materialism. That is, the higher the expenditure on luxury brands for infants, the more materialistic the parents are. This 16 seemingly contradicting phenomenon, where social consumption motivation is not related to expenditure but materialism is, seems to suggest that "materialistic" parents pay less emphasis on the possessions of luxury brands for infants as a way to show off their wealth. Building on the findings, several implications are inherent for brand management, strategy formulation, and product and promotion campaign tactics. Good quality and design of the luxury brands are critical for luxury brands to succeed. For retailers of luxury brands of infant apparel, these two product attributes should be the focus. Those luxury brands without a product line for infants, but having a favourable image regarding quality, may benefit by launching infant apparel (with emphasis on excellent quality and good design). Successful launching of the infant apparel may strengthen its good-quality awareness in consumers' perception and generate profit by extension of the existing brand image. Parents' interest in quality as the number one criteria for consuming luxury brands for their infants should be highly emphasised in promotion initiatives. Marketers can develop promotional themes using emotional appeals to create an image for luxury brands. The materialistic nature of the target market means that it regards possession of luxury items as an important component in quality living. This may be exploited to promote the product’s appeal to mothers. Marketers could promote the materialistic values of purchasing luxury brands of infant apparel, showing that buying luxury brands of infant apparel can in fact buy happiness. Studies show that materialistic people are those who commit high involvement in the purchase process and extend the information search in product attributes such as quality and design (Browne and Kaldenberg, 1997). Marketers can provide consumers with informative catalogues on the product attributes, such as 17 quality and design, which enhance the value of the luxury brands for infants. Since parents buying luxury brands for their infants are those not motivated by social visibility considerations (as indicated by the low average score on Social Consumption Motivation Scale), emphasis on the social factors in luxury brands for infants are less important. The overall implication for managers of luxury brands of infant apparel is that they should incorporate messages about the pleasure of possession, and allow more resources to promote the excellence in quality and design of the products and better image management. LIMITATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS Other than the small sample size and sampling methods that may limit the findings, another limitation should be highlighted. This research involved the concepts of social consumption motivation, materialism and the motives for buying luxury brands for infants. As materialism can be viewed as a negative characteristic connected to possessiveness (Richins, 1994), interviewees may distort their answer. Although corrective actions were imposed, the social desirability response bias may still exist. As a pioneer study on the influence of parents on buying luxury brands of infant apparel, there are many areas that may be worthy of further study. First, this study could be replicated in different geographical areas to see whether the results from different cultures are the same. Second, this research could be extended to investigate if the self-concept of parents could be a factor in the choice of branded infant products. In summary, parents tend to regard good quality and design as being associated with luxury brands. 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(1999), "A Review and a Conceptual Framework of Prestige-Seeking Consumer Behavior", Journal of Consumer and Marketing Research. http://www.jcmr.org/~jcmr/academic/vigneron01-99/vigneron01-99.html 23 Table 1 Profile of Respondents Profile Age Occupation Household Income N % Below 25 7 5.2 25-29 11 8.2 30-34 70 52.2 35-39 29 21.6 40 or above 17 12.7 Housewife 62 46.3 Office/Clerical 17 12.7 Administration/Management 25 18.7 Professional 12 9.0 Others 18 13.4 Below $20,000 9 6.7 $20,000-$29,999 5 3.7 $30,000-$39,999 9 6.7 $40,000-$49,999 14 10.4 $50,000-$59,999 17 12.7 $60,000-$69,999 19 14.2 70,000 or above 58 43.3 134 100 Total 24 Table 2 Relationship Between Specific Motives for buying Luxury Brands of Infant Apparel and 1) Materialism 2) Social Consumption Motivation Specific Number of Motive interviewees Materialism Score Social Consumption Motivation Score selecting this motive # Motive for Not Motive Purchase for P Motive for Not Motive for Purchase purchase P purchase The luxury brands have 116 (86.6) 25.99 27.33 .341 9.71 8.83 .202 102 (76.1) 27.02 23.47 *.001 9.31 10.47 .084 83 (62.0) 26.35 25.88 .638 9.83 9.20 .186 74 (55.2) 25.23 26.40 .337 9.77 9.55 .706 41 (30.6) 27.92 25.48 *.021 9.61 9.58 .966 38 (28.4) 27.15 25.74 .177 9.44 9.66 .669 37 (27.6) 26.11 26.25 .883 9.50 9.70 .680 26 (19.4) 25.68 26.36 .524 9.86 9.48 .467 good quality The luxury brands have good design The luxury brands make my children look nice I am satisfied when dressing my children nicely in luxury brands For specific use, such as parties and social gatherings Specific luxury brands can show my children’s character I am satisfied by someone praising my children when they wear luxury brands of clothing The luxury brands indicate to other people my ability to consume luxury items # = percentages in parenthesis * = significant at p < 0.05 25
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