Happy Campers or Unhappy Prisoners: How Materialism Punishes Us in Lockdown Times

COVID-19 and the resulting lockdowns created an unprecedented upheaval in consumers’ daily lives and lifestyles. The purpose of this research was to understand the psychological experience of life under lockdowns and the role of individual difference variables in that experience. Using survey data from U.S. consumers, the research identified two opposite feelings, coexisting: happy camper feeling or unhappy prisoner feeling. Younger, lower income, and less educated consumers felt more like prisoners than campers. Ability to maintain life as usual, and positive pre-pandemic life conditions (health, social network, and job satisfaction) led to happy camper feelings. In contrast, pre-pandemic materialism led to a prisoner-like experience. As we enter the now reopening marketplaces, we should ask: How shall we, as consumers, live our post-COVID lives. The research findings also suggest some directions for future research

Consumer preference for status symbolism of clothing: the case of the Czech Republic

During the past three decades, consumer demand for luxury goods has been growing on a global scale. The luxury and status market base has expanded beyond the traditional affluent consumer segment to include an increasingly heterogeneous group of consumers. Despite the substantial size, greater reach, and significant growth of the luxury goods market, status consumption has been treated as an atypical and peripheral subject in consumer research. The authors develop a conceptual model of psychological determinants of status seeking through consumption. The model considers the effects of three general traits (namely, status concern, public self-consciousness, and self-esteem) and one consumption-related consumer trait (namely, susceptibility to normative social influence) on preference for status meaning, which in turn influences consumer interest in the product. The conceptual model is tested with data from a survey of 1,000+ respondents drawn from the Czech Republic, a country where the recent market liberalization has unleashed an inflow of luxury goods from marketers from the West. Face-to-face home-based structured interviews were conducted by an international market research agency. The hypothesized causal relationships are all supported. The effects of status concern, public self-consciousness, and self-esteem on susceptibility to normative social influence (SNSI) and preference for status meaning (PSM) are significant and in the expected direction. Additionally, SNSI is found to exert a significant positive influence on PSM, and these two constructs, in turn, have significant positive effects on consumer interest in clothing. The conceptual model and empirical evidence enhance the existing knowledge of the antecedents and outcomes of status consumption. The study advances a better understanding of the psychology of consumer adoption of status consumption; equally important, it also highlights the value of extending consumer theories from established to emerging market economies and back again from still-evolving to long-standing marketplaces

Nurturing urban innovation and knowledge in the ongoing COVID-19 world

Amidst the catastrophe of COVID-19, segments of the population globally experienced changes in their perspectives on life and the desire to live a more fulfilling life. The study here examines this emergent trend with secondary data available as published survey reports and personal observations using the inductive-reflective method of understanding and theorizing. The findings support the identification of five facets of this new mindset, namely, rise in altruism, growing community-mindedness, increasing focus on health and financial security, searching for work-life balance, and increasing experiences with nature. To channel this emergent mindset, this study proposes five categories of urban innovations: (1) revival of neighborhoods; (2) expansion of parks and nature; (3) investment in urban transportation and greenspaces, (4) incentivizing entrepreneurs for ecology and local “maker economy,” and (5) staging community projects for collective good. The study describes the benefits of these innovations to general population and sets an agenda for urban planners, city managers, and social agencies as citizens begin their ongoing COVID lives. The study closes by advancing ten research proposals for future social science contributions in innovation and knowledg

Measuring customer-based brand equity

Brand equity is very important to marketers of consumer goods and services. Brand equity facilitates in the effectiveness of brand extensions and brand introductions. This is because consumers who trust and display loyalty toward a brand are willing to try to adopt brand extensions. While there have been methods to measure the financial value of brand equity, measurement of customer-based brand equity has been lacking. Presents a scale to measure customer-based brand equity. The customer-based brand equity scale is developed based on the five underlying dimensions of brand equity: performance, value, social image, trustworthiness and commitment. In empirical tests, brands that scored higher on the customer-based brand equity scale generally had higher prices. Discusses the implications for managers