How Consumers’ Political Ideology and Status-Maintenance Goals Interact to Shape Their Desire for Luxury Goods

Abstract

This research distinguishes between the goal of maintaining status and advancing status and investigates how consumers’ political ideology triggers sensitivity to a status-maintenance (vs. status-advancement) goal, subsequently altering luxury consumption. Because conservative political ideology increases the preference for social stability, the authors propose that conservatives (vs. liberals) are more sensitive to status maintenance (but not status advancement) and thus exhibit a greater desire for luxury goods when the status-maintenance goal is activated. Six studies assessing status maintenance using sociodemographic characteristics (Studies 1, 2, and 3a) and controlled manipulations, including ad framing (Study 3b) and semantic priming (Studies 4 and 5), provide support for this proposition. The studies show that the effect is specific to status maintenance and does not occur (1) in the absence of a status goal or (2) when the status-advancement goal (a focus on increasing status) is activated. Overall, the findings reveal that conservatives’ desire for luxury goods stems from the goal of maintaining status and offer insights into how luxury brands can effectively tailor their communications to audiences with a conservative ideology.

Turning Complaining Customers into Loyal Customers: Moderators of the Complaint Handling–Customer Loyalty Relationship

“…The reason for this positive moderation is due to the fact that economic growth is typically accompanied by a variety of features that result in more powerful consumers (e.g., lower unemployment, stronger income growth, more consumer spending, stronger consumer confidence). This increased consumer power (e.g., Dubois, Rucker, and Galinsky 2012;Kim, Park, and Dubois 2018) lead consumers to perceive the market as having lower switching costs and more viable alternative suppliers, easing defection and disloyalty. As such, during these faster-growing economic periods firms will be even more determined to overcome customer complaints effectively and keep customers loyal.…”

“…Finally, while it is reasonable to anticipate an effect on the recovery-loyalty relationship across regions within the United States (cf. Kim, Park, and Dubois 2018), given the prevalence of geography-specific marketing strategies ("geo-marketing") deployed by national firms such as mobile-service providers ("geo-fencing"), no theory or research offers strong predictions for moderation of the recovery-loyalty relationship based on customers' regions of residence.…”

“…We examined a set of critical moderating factors on this relationship, but the dynamics of the marketplace keep evolving and so will the influencers of the recovery-loyalty relationship. For example, some indications exist that political ideology and partisanship may influence customers' complaining behavior, consumption experience, and loyalty (e.g., Jung, Garbarino, Briley, and Wynhausen 2017;Kim, Park, and DuBois 2018).…”

Foreword: Researching luxury consumption in a global and digital age

“…With more mobile social boundaries, signaling one's status has become an increasingly central function of luxury purchases. Status signaling can take several forms, including but not limited to conspicuous versus inconspicuous signaling by varying the signal's visibility and explicitness (for example, by using large versus small logos) (Berger and Ward 2010; Dubois et al 2012); status-maintenance versus status advancement signaling, reflecting how one's social rank affects the desire for luxury goods (Kim et al 2018); and horizontal versus vertical signaling, expressing one's differentiation strategy vis-à-vis others in the social strata (Ordabayeva and Fernandes 2018).…”

“…The social functions of luxury consumption revolve around one's desire and behavior associated with one's rank in society, both resulting from and triggering group dynamics (for example, the decision to purchase a new luxury car after concluding that ownership of this car will confer higher status versus one's decision to buy a new luxury car triggering others to engage in similar purchases). At its core, the desire for luxury goods stems from the desire to protect or improve one's social standing (Anderson et al 2015;Dubois and Ordabayeva 2015;Frank 1985;Kim et al 2018;Podolny 2005). As such, the following questions are central to how social dynamics shape luxury consumption: Who has status and who does not at a given moment in a given society?…”