Signaling Status with Luxury Goods: The Role of Brand Prominence
研究提出“品牌显著性”概念，将消费者按财富和地位需求分为四类，分析他们对显眼或低调奢侈品的偏好如何用于向不同群体传递身份信号，并通过实地实验和市场数据验证。
This research introduces “brand prominence,” a construct reflecting the conspicuousness of a brand's mark or logo on a product. The authors propose a taxonomy that assigns consumers to one of four groups according to their wealth and need for status, and they demonstrate how each group's preference for conspicuously or inconspicuously branded luxury goods corresponds predictably with their desire to associate or dissociate with members of their own and other groups. Wealthy consumers low in need for status want to associate with their own kind and pay a premium for quiet goods only they can recognize. Wealthy consumers high in need for status use loud luxury goods to signal to the less affluent that they are not one of them. Those who are high in need for status but cannot afford true luxury use loud counterfeits to emulate those they recognize to be wealthy. Field experiments along with analysis of market data (including counterfeits) support the proposed model of status signaling using brand prominence.