• Journal of the Korea Fashion and Costume Design Association
• /
• v.24 no.3
• /
• pp.33-48
• /
• 2022

This study aimed to investigate bag purchase behaviors according to materialism value. The subjects were 443 male and female adult consumers in their 20s to 50s. The research method was a survey, and the questionnaire consisted of questions on materialism value, bag purchase behaviors, and demographic characteristics. For data analysis, descriptive statistics, Cronbach's α, χ² test, factor analysis, cluster analysis, ANOVA, and Duncan's multiple range test were performed. The results of this study were as follows. First, materialism value was derived from three factors (happiness pursuit, possession-oriented, and success judgment). Second, subjects could be divided into three groups (happiness pursuit group, success judgment pursuit group, and immaterialism group) based on the materialism value variable. Third, the derived groups showed many differences in bag purchase behaviors. The happiness pursuit group considered all bag evaluation criteria factors (practicality, aesthetics, economy, symbolism) and bag purchasing information sources factors (mass media and personal sources) more than other groups, and showed a tendency to prefer select shops and complex shopping malls as bag purchasing places. In addition, the average annual cost and frequency of purchasing bags of this group were higher than those of other groups. The success judgment pursuit group considered symbolism as a bag evaluation criteria more than other groups, and considered personal sources as bag purchasing information sources more than mass media sources, and preferred luxury stores and department stores as bag purchasing places. On the other hand, the immaterialism group considered practicality and aesthetics as bag evaluation criteria and placed less importance on all information sources than other groups, and preferred Internet shopping malls as purchasing places. This group had the lowest average annual purchase cost and frequency among the three consumer groups. This study suggested that materialism value is a useful variable to segment male and female adult consumer markets effectively, and to understand the bag purchase behaviors of consumer groups divided by materialism value.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
• /
• v.19 no.3
• /
• pp.27-42
• /
• 2016

The purposes of this study were to investigate the emotional consumption propensity and the preferences for sensibility factors of fabrics(color tone, pattern and texture image), and to analyse the differences according to demographic variables and relationships between emotional consumption propensity and preferences for sensibility factors of fabrics, focusing on male and female consumers in 20's, 30's and 40's. The emotional consumption propensity were classified into symbolic consumption propensity, individual consumption propensity, aesthetic consumption propensity and hedonic consumption propensity. The subjects attached great importance in the order of aesthetic consumption propensity, individual consumption propensity and symbolic consumption propensity. Those factors of emotional consumption propensity showed partially significant difference according to demographic variables. Female consumers preferred various color tones than men did, and preference for light color tone showed significant differences according to gender and occupation of consumers. The preferences for floral pattern showed significant difference according to gender, age, education, occupation and marital status of consumers. The factors of the texture images for the fabrics showed partially significant difference according to demographic variables except education of consumers. There were almost significant relationships between emotional consumption propensity and the preferences for sensibility factors for fabrics.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
• /
• v.20 no.1
• /
• pp.70-79
• /
• 2010

There has been some research conducted that addressed immoral consumer behaviors in Korea; however, most of this research focused on purchasing counterfeits or shoplifting. High return rates of apparel and used apparel returns have been acknowledged as problem areas within the fashion industry. However, very few researchers have addressed this issue. Therefore, the goal of this research was to explore consumer's retail borrowing experience using a mixed methods approach. In study 1 Korean consumer's retail borrowing experiences was explored through focus group interviews. Findings informed study 2 an examination of apparel consumers' attitudes toward retail borrowing behavior via an online survey. Findings assist both researchers' and practitioners' understanding of retail borrowing behaviors and provide insight into retail borrowing issues in the apparel retail industry. For study 1, five focus-group interviews were conducted with seven panels of individuals that had retail borrowing experience within the past year. Thirty-five Korean consumers who lived in a metropolitan area participated in the focus group interviews. Most of consumers were in their 20's (n=21) and were women (n=24). Most participants purchased apparel items from a retail store and returned the worn items for either a full refund or exchanged the worn item for another item. Motives underlying retail borrowing behavior included social needs, job-related needs, fashion needs, and "smart shopping." Similar to existing research findings from other countries, social needs were the most frequently mentioned cause of retail borrowing in fashion stores. Consumers' moral values, attitude toward large corporations, and prior retail borrowing experience were mentioned as possible factors affecting consumers' retail borrowing behavior. For study 2, the questionnaire used to gather the data was developed based on the findings of part I and existing research. Questions concerning consumers' moral beliefs, sensation seeking tendencies, self-worth, past retail job experience, retail borrowing experience, and some demographic characteristics were included in the questionnaire. The data were collected via an online survey using an online panel provided by a commercial online research company located in Seoul, Korea. In order to obtain various consumers, a quota sample was (male: female=1:1, 20's:30's:40's=1:1:1, retail experience: no retail experience=1:3) obtained from the company. A total of 401 consumers who had shopped for apparel items during the prior 6 months participated in the online survey. The results indicated that 19.7% of the respondents reported they had experience borrowing fashion merchandise. Among these individuals, male borrowers (57%) outnumbered female borrowers. In terms of age distribution, x2 revealed that there was a statistical difference between respondents with and without retail borrowing experiences: 41.8% of the respondents with retail borrowing experience were in their 40's, while respondents without retail borrowing experience were evenly distributed between their 20's to 40's. There was also a significant difference between respondents with and without retail borrowing experience in terms of income: respondents with retail borrowing experience tended to have higher incomes than those without retail borrowing experience. T-tests were performed to compare respondents' fashion shopping behavior, moral beliefs, sensation-seeking tendencies, and attitudes toward retail borrowing behavior between participants with and without retail borrowing experience. As compared to those with no borrowing experience, respondents with experience tended to shop for fashion items more frequently and spent more on shopping for fashion items. Consumers with experience borrowing tended to have higher sensation-seeking tendencies than consumers without retail borrowing experience. A regression analysis revealed that attitudes toward fashion retail borrowing were negatively related to consumers' moral beliefs, but positively related to monthly fashion shopping frequency, sensation-seeking tendencies, and past fashion retail borrowing experience. Among these variables, past retail borrowing experience was the most significant predictor, followed by moral beliefs. This research serves as an initial attempt to address the motives that underlie retail borrowing behaviors and the factors affecting those behaviors. The findings of this study may facilitate an understanding of the consumer's retail borrowing, which will provide a basis for approaches that may help decrease retail borrowing and inappropriate returns at fashion retail stores. The findings may also provide materials for consumer education over the long term. In order to better understand fashion retail borrowing behavior, more research is needed in the future.

• Asia Marketing Journal
• /
• v.15 no.4
• /
• pp.103-129
• /
• 2014

Differentiated positioning becomes increasingly difficult when brand salience weakens. Also, the daily increase in new media use and information load has led to a social climate that regards advertising stimuli as spamming. For these reasons, the focus of advertisement-related communication is shifting from persuading consumers through the direct delivery of information to an emphasis on appealing to their emotions using matching stimuli to enhance persuasion effects. Recently, both academia and industry have increasingly shown an interest in storytelling methods that can generate positive emotional responses and attitude changes by arousing consumers' narrative processing. The purpose of storytelling is to elicit consumers' emotional experience to meet the objectives of advertisement producers. Therefore, the most important requirement for storytelling in advertising is that it evokes consumers' sympathy for the main character in the advertisement. This does not involve advertisements directly persuading consumers, but rather, consumers themselves finding an answer through the advertisement's story. Thus, consumers have an indirect experience regarding the product features and usage through empathy with the advertisement's main character. In this study, we took the results of a precedent study as the starting point, according to which consumers' emotional response can be altered depending on the storytelling methods adopted for storytelling ads. Previous studies have reported that drama-type and vignette-type storytelling methods have a considerably different impact on the emotional responses of advertising audiences, due to their different structural characteristics. Thus, this study aims to verify that emotional response aroused by different types of advertisement storytelling (drama ads vs. vignette ads) can be controlled by the socio-psychological gender difference of advertising audiences and that the interaction effects between the socio-psychological gender differences of the audience and the gender stereotype of emotions to which advertisements appeal can exert an influence on emotional responses to types of storytelling in advertising. To achieve this, an experiment was conducted employing a between-group design consisting of 2 (storytelling type: drama ads vs. vignette ads) × 2 (socio-psychological gender of the audience: masculinity vs. femininity) × 2 (advertising appeal emotion type: male stereotype emotion vs. female stereotype emotion). The experiment revealed that the femininity group displayed a strong and consistent empathy for drama ads regardless of whether the ads appealed to masculine or feminine emotions, whereas the masculinity group displayed a stronger empathy for drama ads appealing to the emotional types matching its own gender as well as for vignette ads. The theoretical contribution of this study is significant in that it sheds light on the controllability of the audiences' emotional responses to advertisement storytelling depending on their socio-psychological gender and gender stereotype of emotions appealed to through advertising. Specifically, its considerable practical contribution consists in easing unnecessary creative constraints by comprehensively analyzing essential advertising strategic factors such as the target consumers' gender and the objective of the advertisement, in contrast to the oversimplified view of previous studies that considered emotional responses to storytelling ads were determined by the different types of production techniques used. This study revealed that emotional response to advertisement storytelling varies depending on the target gender of and emotion type appealed to by the advertisement. This suggests that an understanding of the targeted gender is necessary prior to producing an advertisement and that in deciding on an advertisement storytelling type, strategic attention should be directed to the advertisement's appeal concept or emotion type. Thus, it is safe to use drama-type storytelling that expresses masculine emotions (ex. fun, happy, encouraged) when the advertisement target, like Bacchus, includes both men and women. For brands and advertisements targeting only women (ex. female clothes), it is more effective to use a drama-type storytelling method that expresses feminine emotions (lovely, romantic, sad). The drama method can be still more effective than the vignette when women are the main target and a masculine concept-based creative is to be produced. However, when male consumers are targeted and the brand concept or advertisement concept is focused on feminine emotions (ex. romantic), vignette ads can more effectively induce empathy than drama ads.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
• /
• v.12 no.6 s.53
• /
• pp.1031-1044
• /
• 2004

The purpose of this study were to investigate the relationships between consumer's value and sportswear's benefit sought/attribute evaluation, and to examine how sportswear's benefit sought were influenced by consumers' value and demographic variables. Subjects were 468 males and females in their teens to 30's in Seoul. Consumer's value was classified into four dimensions by using factors analysis: materialism, achievement orientation, traditionalism, and other consciousness. The value of materialism and achievement orientation had positive relations with brand orientation, fashion, appearance attraction, enterprise image, and brand advertisement of sportswear in both male and female. Achievement orientation had, in case of the male, positive relations with economics, practicality, fabrics, and quality of sportswear. In case of the female, traditionalism had positive relations with economics and practicality, and other consciousness value had positive relations with brand advertisement. Materialism was the most important in predicting brand orientation, followed by social class in both male and female. Age was the most important in predicting practicality, followed by achievement orientation in case of the male. Materialism(-) was, in case of the female, the most important in predicting practicality, followed by traditionalism, achievement orientation, and age.

• International Journal of Human Ecology
• /
• v.7 no.1
• /
• pp.25-36
• /
• 2006

The purpose of this study was to investigate and compare visiting intentions by positive and negative Word-of-Mouth (WOM) and/or information of beauty shop between female college students and adult women. Data were collected from 500 consumers (250 from female students and 250 adult women) and was analyzed by using frequencies, factor analysis, t-tests and multiple regression utilizing SPSS/PC+. The findings revealed positive experience factors to prudent service, time saving/consideration for customer's position, kindness/operating system in waiting time, added services, employees' attitudes, excellent beauty and response skill, rational price and recall system/remind for customer. The negative experiences were inconsistent service, operators' convenient service, irrational price/poor skill/non-recall, non-customer central service, inappropriate face-to-face management to customer. Also, the results showed that the positive WOM information such as prudent service, time saving/consideration for customer's position, excellent beauty and response skill and rational price had influence on the visiting intention in case of female college students. The negative WOM information like non-customer central service, had influence on the visiting intention in cases of adult women.

• International Journal of Human Ecology
• /
• v.8 no.1
• /
• pp.39-51
• /
• 2007

This study compares the buying patterns of American and Korean female college students in relation to their self-concept. It was implemented through self-administered questionnaires which were back translated for validity. Respondents comprised 730 female students majoring in fields related to clothing and textiles: 307 U.S. students were located in the Northeast, West, and Southwest, and 423 Korean students were at four universities in Seoul. Likert scales were used for most measures, with 1 = never or very unimportant, and 5 = always or very important. Personal self-concept was measured on the basis of Won-Shik Jung's Standardized Self-concept the Test and Tennessee Self Concept Scale. Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics and t-tests. Some clear differences between the two countries emerged. Marketers targeting American consumers should pay more attention to practicality and service, and for Koreans, more symbolic meaning of products and store displays, since these are important to them. Self-concept was somewhat related to purchasing behavior, but more study should be done before applying findings to marketing concepts.

• Journal of the Korea Fashion and Costume Design Association
• /
• v.19 no.1
• /
• pp.147-162
• /
• 2017

The purposes of this study were to investigate objectified body consciousness and appearance management behaviors, and to analysis the differences on this two variables between Korean and Chinese consumers. The subjects were 700 Korean and Chinese female university students. The research method was a survey and the measuring instruments consisted of objectified body consciousness scale, appearance management behaviors items, and subjects' demographics attributions. The data were analyzed by frequency analysis, cross tabs analysis, $x^2$ test, Cronbach' ${\alpha}$, factor analysis, t-test, and regression analysis, using SPSS statistical program. The results were as follows. First, three factors(body surveillance, body shame, and control belief) were emerged on objectified body consciousness, and Korean students showed the higher level of objectified body consciousness than Chinese students. Second, Korean students had much more experience and a higher intention to perform various appearance management behaviors than Chinese students. Third, body shame and control belief factors had important effects on appearance management behaviors of both country students. However, body surveillance was an important factor on only Korean students' appearance management behaviors. This study showed that objectified body consciousness is an important variable to affect appearance management behaviors, and there are many differences on objectified body consciousness and appearance management behaviors by cultural environments.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
• /
• v.43 no.2
• /
• pp.167-183
• /
• 2019

This study examines the dimensions of brand experience and brand commitment within mass cosmetic brand stores that target female high school students and analyzes the effect of multi-dimension brand experience and brand commitment on brand loyalty. A model linking brand experience to brand commitment and loyalty was tested, using structural equation modeling analysis. A total of 175 female high school students completed the online questionnaire. The current study extended the understandings of the construct of brand commitment by adopting a broadened five-component consumer commitment. The results confirmed that developing brand experience in domestic mass cosmetics brand stores influences consumer loyalty through various types of brand commitment. This study can be beneficial for brand managers by providing guidelines on how to establish consumer loyalty affected by brand experience through brand commitment. Especially, brand managers should consider the negative impacts of forced commitment on consumer loyalty despite brand experience within the stores not influencing teenage consumers' forced commitment toward mass cosmetic brands. The importance of habitual commitment in the relationship between brand experience and loyalty was also revealed. The results can provide a realistic blueprint for consumer brand experience and commitment strategy.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
• /
• v.36 no.10
• /
• pp.1040-1049
• /
• 2012

This study examines the effects of pursued benefits and satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) on repurchase intentions. The research was comprised of a 2 (satisfaction after purchase: satisfaction versus dissatisfaction) ${\times}2$ (product benefit type: utilitarian benefit versus hedonic benefit) ${\times}2$ (hyperopic disposition: high versus low) model, designed with three mixed elements. The subject participants of this study were 168 female university students aged 20 to 29 from the Seoul, Gyeong-gi do, and Chung-cheong do areas. We performed a reliability analysis, T-test, and ANOVA using the SPSS statistic package. The results of this study are summarized as follows. In terms of product benefit that influences repurchase intention based on whether a consumer has experienced satisfaction after purchasing a fashion product, repurchase intention was high for hedonic benefits regardless of the level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction after a purchase. However, we found a significant difference in preference when the hyperopic disposition of a consumer was taken into account. When dissatisfied with a purchase, consumers with low levels of hyperopic disposition displayed higher repurchase intentions for the products of hedonic benefit than those of utilitarian benefits. However, when dissatisfied with a purchase, consumers with high levels of hyperopic disposition displayed low levels of repurchase intention regardless of the type of product benefit. When consumers are satisfied with a purchase, they are more likely to repurchase hedonic products than utilitarian products.