Symbolic Consumption and Alternative Signals of Status The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Bellezza, Silvia. 2015. Symbolic Consumption and Alternative Signals of Status. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard Business School. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:16881889 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Symbolic Consumption and Alternative Signals of Status A dissertation presented by Silvia Bellezza to The Marketing Department at the Harvard Business School in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Business Administration in the subject of Marketing Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts March, 2015 © 2015 Silvia Bellezza All rights reserved. Anat Keinan Silvia Bellezza Symbolic Consumption and Alternative Signals of Status Abstract My dissertation is composed of three papers on symbolic consumption–how consumers use products, brands, and time to express who they are and signal status. The first paper (Brand Tourists: How Non–Core Users Enhance the Brand Image by Eliciting Pride) demonstrates the positive impact of non-core users of a prestige brand perceived as “brand tourists” into the brand community. The second paper (The Red Sneakers Effect: Inferring Status and Competence from Signals of Nonconformity) investigates the conditions under which nonconforming behaviors, such as wearing red sneakers in a professional setting, can act as a particular form of conspicuous consumption and lead to positive inferences of status and competence in the eyes of others. The third paper (Conspicuous Consumption of Time: When Busyness and Lack of Leisure Time Become a Status Symbol) further extends this line of investigation on alternative signals of status by uncovering the role of long hours of work and lack of leisure time as a status symbol. I conclude with a discussion of current working papers and future research agenda on symbolic consumption and branding. iii Contents Brand Tourists: How Non-Core Users Enhance the Brand Image by Eliciting Pride 1 The Red Sneakers Effect: Inferring Status and Competence from Signals of Nonconformity 55 Conspicuous Consumption of Time: When Busyness and Lack of Leisure Time Become a Status Symbol 104 Ongoing Research 146 The Advantage of Low-Fit Brand Extensions: Addressing the Paradox of Luxury Brands 148 Conclusion and Future Direction 151 Appendix 152 References 159 iv Acknowledgements I would like to gratefully acknowledge the contribution of my coauthors Anat, Francesca, and Neeru, to the three papers discussed in the dissertation. They deserve extensive credit for the many ideas, thoughts, and labor in this work, which would not have been made possible otherwise. I wish to thank all the members of my committee. First and foremost, I’d like to acknowledge Anat, a fantastic mentor and my daily source of inspiration throughout the last six years. Thank you for taking me on as your student and for sharing so much of your knowledge, insight, and creativity. You fulfilled my life as a doctoral student and I hope we will continue to be in touch and collaborate for the years to come. Special gratitude also goes to Francesca, one of the few people who make me proud to be Italian. Thank you for your curiosity in exploring marketing related questions and for bringing your enthusiasm and energy to all aspects of our projects. I am also extremely grateful to John, whose seemingly intimidating looks and demeanor hide tremendous generosity and intelligence. Thank you so much for patiently reading and providing thoughtful feedback on each and every single paper I have ever written and have asked you to read. Secondly, I am grateful to my family and friends. “Grazie mille” to Luca, for accompanying me throughout this journey and for enriching my research with his personal (and occasionally valuable) observations on consumption phenomena. Thank you Stefano and Grazia for being family far away from our families. A special shout out goes to my parents, who believed in me and trusted my (sometimes bizarre) life choices since my adolescence. I am grateful to all the new friendships I made and consolidated here in Boston: Albert, Alessandra, Andrea B., Andrea H., Chiara, Liza, Luciana, Mauro, Pegah, and Sue; you all made my life here v special and memorable. And thanks to all of my old friends and sister: Candida, Eleonora, Francesca, Laura, and Lavinia, who make me feel home and missed whenever I am in Europe. Thirdly, I am greatly indebted to my research community and colleagues here at HBS. Thank you to the current members of GiNorton lab, including Bhavya, Grant, Leslie, Mindi, Ovul, Pat, Ryan, Tami, Ting, my sweet office mate Kate, and, last but not least Mike, who introduced me to the art of mediation analysis (it is true!) and whose fashion style and nonconformist behaviors inspired several experiments. Lab meetings have enriched my life, taught me about research, and tremendously improved my work. My sincere gratitude to the honorary members of GiNorton: Lalin, Lisa, Neeru, and Zoe; you all make me look forward to the next conference hoping I will meet you there! I also want to acknowledge my other collaborators: Manel, Josh, and Jonah, thank you for all your thoughts and work, which hopefully will see the light at some point! Lastly, thank you Natalie and Katja for patiently proofreading all my work and thank you Kathy for impeccably managing the department. Finally, I wish to thank John, Jen, and the entire Doctoral Office for their support and flexibility. My overall experience as a doctoral student at HBS has been truly fantastic. vi Brand Tourists: How Non-Core Users Enhance the Brand Image by Eliciting Pride SILVIA BELLEZZA ANAT KEINAN Abstract This research examines how core consumers of selective brands react when non-core users obtain access to the brand. Contrary to the view that non-core users and downward brand extensions pose a threat to the brand, this work investigates the conditions under which these non-core users enhance rather than dilute the brand image. A distinction between two types of non-core users based on how they are perceived by current users of core products is introduced: “brand immigrants” who claim to be part of the in-group of core users of the brand and “brand tourists” who do not claim any membership status to the brand community. A series of studies shows that core consumers respond positively to non-core users when they are perceived as brand tourists. The brand tourism effect is mediated by core users’ pride and moderated by brand patriotism and selectiveness of the brand. 1 There is an inherent trade-off in managing symbolic and exclusive brands. Brand managers need to generate growth by extending the customer base to new segments and new markets; yet, this increased popularity and prevalence can paradoxically hurt the brand and threaten its symbolic value. For instance, the popularity of Tiffany’s highly profitable and fast growing line of cheaper silver jewelry threatened to alienate the brand’s older and wealthier clients and to damage its reputation for luxury. Burberry displayed its iconic tan plaid on multiple products and brand extensions, and struggled with the resulting overexposure (Byron 2007). Other notorious examples of brands that stumbled while trying to satisfy both investors’ clamor for sales growth and customers’ demand for exclusivity include Pierre Cardin, who became too common for many high-fashion customers (Andrews 2004), and Gucci, whose product line grew to 22,000 items, but eventually managed to re-focus the brand (Galloni 2005). Indeed, consumer research warns managers of brand dilution risks (for a review see Loken and Roedder John 2009). Consumers of exclusive brands, as members of a selective in- group, want to limit the number and type of consumers who have access to the brand and also want to maintain the brand’s distinctiveness (Amaldoss and Jain 2005; Han, Nunes, and Dreze 2010). The value of brands can be diluted when firms engage in aggressive brand extension strategies (Keller 2009; Kirmani, Sood and Bridges 1999) and when undesired outsiders start using the brand (Berger and Heath 2008; White and Dahl 2007). Contrary to the shared view that downward brand extensions and non-core users are by definition a threat to exclusive brands and that the prestige of the brand community decreases with the number of users, we investigate the conditions under which non-core consumers can enhance rather than dilute the prestige image of the brand. Our conceptualization integrates several research streams in psychology and marketing and establishes an analogy between countries and brands. Building on this analogy, we introduce a distinction between two types of 2 users of non-core products based on how they are perceived by current users of the core offering of the brand. We define “brand immigrants” as those who claim to be part of the in-group of core users of the brand and “brand tourists” as those who buy the non-core branded products but do not claim any in-group membership (i.e., do not claim to be part of the brand core users’ in- group). We argue that non-core consumers perceived as brand tourists rather than brand immigrants can prevent brand dilution and positively impact the image of the brand in the eyes of the core users of the brand. Non-core users who are perceived by the current core users as claiming in-group status (i.e., brand immigrants) pose a threat to the brand and dilute the brand image.