• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.1-22
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• 2013

This case focuses on Shanghai Tang, the first truly Chinese luxury brand that appeals to both Westerners and, more recently, to Chinese consumers worldwide. A visionary and wealthy businessman Sir David Tang created this company from scratch in 1994 in Hong Kong. Its story, spanned over almost two decades, has been fascinating. It went from what best a Chinese brand could be in the eyes of Westerners who love the Chinese culture, to a nearly-bankrupted company in 1998, before being acquired by Richemont, the second largest luxury group in the world. Since then, its turnaround has been spectacular with a growing appeal among Chinese luxury consumers who represent the core segment of the luxury industry today. The main objective of this case study is to formally examine how Shanghai Tang overcame its downfall and re-emerged as one the very few well- known Chinese luxury brands. More specifically, this case highlights the ways with which Shanghai Tang made a transitional change from a brand for Westerners who love the Chinese culture, to a brand for both, Westerners who love the Chinese culture and Chinese who love luxury. A close examination reveals that Shanghai Tang has followed the brand identity concept that consists of two major components: functional and emotional. The functional component for developing a luxury brand concerns all product characteristics that will make a product 'luxurious' in the eyes of the consumer, such as premium quality of cachemire from Mongolia, Chinese silk, lacquer, finest leather, porcelain, and jade in the case of Shanghai Tang. The emotional component consists of non-functional symbolic meanings of a brand. The symbolic meaning marks the major difference between a premium and a luxury brand. In the case of Shanghai Tang, its symbolic meaning refers to the Chinese culture and the brand aims to represent the best of Chinese traditions and establish itself as "the ambassador of modern Chinese style". It touches the Chinese heritage and emotions. Shanghai Tang has reinvented the modern Chinese chic by drawing back to the stylish decadence of Shanghai in the 1930s, which was then called the "Paris of the East", and this is where the brand finds inspiration to create its own myth. Once the functional and emotional components assured, Shanghai Tang has gone through a four-stage development to become the first global Chinese luxury brand: introduction, deepening, expansion, and revitalization. Introduction: David Tang discovered a market gap and had a vision to launch the first Chinese luxury brand to the world. The key success drivers for the introduction and management of a Chinese luxury brand are a solid brand identity and, above all, a creative mind, an inspired person. This was David Tang then, and this is now Raphael Le Masne de Chermont, the current Executive Chairman. Shanghai Tang combines Chinese and Western elements, which it finds to be the most sustainable platform for drawing consumers. Deepening: A major objective of the next phase is to become recognized as a luxury brand and a fashion or design authority. For this purpose, Shanghai Tang has cooperated with other well-regarded luxury and lifestyle brands such as Puma and Swarovski. It also expanded its product lines from high-end custom-made garments to music CDs and restaurant. Expansion: After the opening of his first store in Hong Kong in 1994, David Tang went on to open his second store in New York City three years later. However this New York retail operation was a financial disaster. Barely nineteen months after the opening, the store was shut down and quietly relocated to a cheaper location of Madison Avenue. Despite this failure, Shanghai Tang products found numerous followers especially among Western tourists and became "souvenir-like" must-haves. However, despite its strong brand DNA, the brand did not generate enough repeated sales and over the years the company cumulated heavy debts and became unprofitable. Revitalizing: After its purchase by Richemont in 1998, Le Masne de Chermont was appointed to lead the company, reposition the brand and undertake some major strategic changes such as revising the "Shanghai Tang" designs to appeal not only to Westerners but also to Chinese consumers, and to open new stores around the world. Since then, Shanghai Tang has become synonymous to a modern Chinese luxury lifestyle brand.

• The Journal of Natural Sciences
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.209-216
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• 1998

The results of the study of diving the 21st century's Korea fashion market into consumer market, fashion market, and a new marketing strategy are as follows. The 21st consumer market is First, a fashion democracy phenomenon. As many people try to leave unconditional fashion following, consumer show a phenomenon to choose and create their own fashion by subjective judgements. Second, a phenomenon of total fashion pursuit. Consumer in the future are likely to put their goals not in differentiating small item products, but considering various fashion elements based on their individuality and sense of value. Third, world quality-oriented. With the improvement of life level, it accomplishes to emphasize consumers' fashion mind on the world wide popular use of materials, quality, design and brand image. Fourth, with the entrance of neo-rationalism, consumers show increasing trends to emphasize wisdom, solidity in goods strategy pursuing high quality fashion and to demand resonable prices. Fifth, concept-oriented. Consumers are changing into pursuing concept appropriate to individual life scene. Prospecting the composition of the 21st century's fashion market, First, sportive casual zone will draw attention more than any other zone. This is because interest in sports will grow according to the increase of leisure time and the expasion of time and space in the 21st century, and also ecology will become the important issue of sports sense because of human beings's natural habit toward nature. Second, the down aging phenomenon will accelerate its speed as a big trend. Third, a retro phenomenon, a concept contrary to digital and high-tech, will become another big trend for its remake, antique, and classic concept in fashion market with ecology trend. New marketing strategy to cope with changing fashion market is as follows. First, with the trend of borderless concept, borders between apparels are becoming vague, for example, they offer custom-made products to consumers. Second, as more enterprises take the way of gorilla and guerrilla where guerrillas who aim at niche market show up will develop. Basically, they think highly of individual creative study, and pursue the scene adherence with high sensitiveness. However this polarization becomes mutually-supplementing relationship showing gorilla's guerilla movement, and guerilla's gorilla high-tech. Third with the development of value retailing, enterprises pursuing mass merchandising of groups called category killers are expanded and amplified to new product fields, and expand business' share. Fourth, using outsourcing, the trend to use exterior function leaving each enterprise's strength by inspecting its own work is gradually strong. Fifth, with the expansion of none store sale, the entrance of the internet and the CD-ROM sales added to communication sales such as catalogues are specified. An eminent American think tank expect that 5-5% of the total sale of clothes and home goods in 2010 will be done by none store sale. Accordingly, to overcome the problems, First international, global level marketing, Second, the improvement of technology, Third, knowledge-creating marketing are needed.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.239-248
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• 2010

This paper describes a collaborative project between academia and industry which focused on improving the marketing and product development strategies for two private label apparel brands of a large regional department store chain in the southeastern United States. The goal of the project was to revitalize product lines of the two brands by incorporating student ideas for new solutions, thereby giving the students practical experience with a real-life industry situation. There were a number of key players involved in the project. A privately-owned department store chain based in the southeastern United States which was seeking an academic partner had recognized a need to update two existing private label brands. They targeted middle-aged consumers looking for casual, moderately priced merchandise. The company was seeking to change direction with both packaging and presentation, and possibly product design. The branding and product development divisions of the company contacted professors in an academic department of a large southeastern state university. Two of the professors agreed that the task would be a good fit for their classes - one was a junior-level Intermediate Brand Management class; the other was a senior-level Fashion Product Development class. The professors felt that by working collaboratively on the project, students would be exposed to a real world scenario, within the security of an academic learning environment. Collaboration within an interdisciplinary team has the advantage of providing experiences and resources beyond the capabilities of a single student and adds "brainpower" to problem-solving processes (Lowman 2000). This goal of improving the capabilities of students directed the instructors in each class to form interdisciplinary teams between the Branding and Product Development classes. In addition, many universities are employing industry partnerships in research and teaching, where collaboration within temporal (semester) and physical (classroom/lab) constraints help to increase students' knowledge and experience of a real-world situation. At the University of Tennessee, the Center of Industrial Services and UT-Knoxville's College of Engineering worked with a company to develop design improvements in its U.S. operations. In this study, Because should be lower case b with a private label retail brand, Wickett, Gaskill and Damhorst's (1999) revised Retail Apparel Product Development Model was used by the product development and brand management teams. This framework was chosen because it addresses apparel product development from the concept to the retail stage. Two classes were involved in this project: a junior level Brand Management class and a senior level Fashion Product Development class. Seven teams were formed which included four students from Brand Management and two students from Product Development. The classes were taught the same semester, but not at the same time. At the beginning of the semester, each class was introduced to the industry partner and given the problem. Half the teams were assigned to the men's brand and half to the women's brand. The teams were responsible for devising approaches to the problem, formulating a timeline for their work, staying in touch with industry representatives and making sure that each member of the team contributed in a positive way. The objective for the teams was to plan, develop, and present a product line using merchandising processes (following the Wickett, Gaskill and Damhorst model) and develop new branding strategies for the proposed lines. The teams performed trend, color, fabrication and target market research; developed sketches for a line; edited the sketches and presented their line plans; wrote specifications; fitted prototypes on fit models, and developed final production samples for presentation to industry. The branding students developed a SWOT analysis, a Brand Measurement report, a mind-map for the brands and a fully integrated Marketing Report which was presented alongside the ideas for the new lines. In future if the opportunity arises to work in this collaborative way with an existing company who wishes to look both at branding and product development strategies, classes will be scheduled at the same time so that students have more time to meet and discuss timelines and assigned tasks. As it was, student groups had to meet outside of each class time and this proved to be a challenging though not uncommon part of teamwork (Pfaff and Huddleston, 2003). Although the logistics of this exercise were time-consuming to set up and administer, professors felt that the benefits to students were multiple. The most important benefit, according to student feedback from both classes, was the opportunity to work with industry professionals, follow their process, and see the results of their work evaluated by the people who made the decisions at the company level. Faculty members were grateful to have a "real-world" case to work with in the classroom to provide focus. Creative ideas and strategies were traded as plans were made, extending and strengthening the departmental links be tween the branding and product development areas. By working not only with students coming from a different knowledge base, but also having to keep in contact with the industry partner and follow the framework and timeline of industry practice, student teams were challenged to produce excellent and innovative work under new circumstances. Working on the product development and branding for "real-life" brands that are struggling gave students an opportunity to see how closely their coursework ties in with the real-world and how creativity, collaboration and flexibility are necessary components of both the design and business aspects of company operations. Industry personnel were impressed by (a) the level and depth of knowledge and execution in the student projects, and (b) the creativity of new ideas for the brands.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.160-174
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• 2005

Despite the decrease in the number of children due to low birth rate, the domestic children's apparel market has been achieving steady growth as family income is rising thanks to more opportunities for working women, parents spend more on their children, and they prefer brand products that make their children look special. In addition, the market is suffering from hard competition as large enterprises have joined the race. The present study purposed to survey the children's apparel market in Korea, which is in a transitional period, and to contribute to the development of the market with Korean brands. For this purpose, we analyzed the characteristics of children's apparel brands in the 21st century based on the current state of the domestic children's apparel market and, based on the findings, forecasted the future trend of children's apparel brands, suggested improvements for expected problems, proposed standards for coping with changes such as diversification, high quality and differentiation in the children's apparel market, and provided consumers with information on how to purchase products. According to the result of analyzing the characteristics of children's apparel brands in the 21st century, brands are categorized largely into four types - life cultural brands, functional product brands, character brands and brands advancing to China. Life cultural brands equipped with all necessities for children are expanding, and with the deepening social problems of environmental pollution and the reduction of the child population, functional products made of environment-friendly materials are spreading widely, targeting infants and children. Furthermore, for extending age targets and diversifying products, children's apparel is using characters. The use of characters is expected to have a considerable effect on the growth of brands because children are more subjective as consumers than before and they are more easily persuaded with characters. Domestic children's apparel brands advancing to China have a high expectation of success in overcoming the limitation of the local market that has reached its peak and growing into global brands. Korean apparel makers are struggling to overcome the depressed domestic market, to recover consumers' consumption, to cope with market opening, to pursue high value of sensibility and to expand the seniors' market, etc. In this situation, future trends of children's apparel brands will be the expansion of family brands, brand totalization, quality price, niche market (pre-teen market), etc. In response to these trends, we made the following suggestions for improvement. 1. Children's apparel brands are evolving into family brands as well as into total brands through voluming. Today, however, apparel makers are advancing to the children's apparel market with the concept of adults' apparel and, as a result, children's apparel is merely adults' apparel of reduced size, having problems in design, color and materials. Thus, apparel makers must develop design considering the wide range of size and the characteristics of children's apparel, strengthen sourcing abilities to create revenues, and make thorough survey of customers to find common denominators between adults' apparel and children's apparel considering that characteristic that the target class is different from the buyer class. Furthermore, they must make active investments in human resources, develop outstanding products through advanced planning and design, and support marketing techniques and management systems to stores. 2. As the declining birth rate will continue to have a negative effect on the market, it may be difficult to expand the market size but there is still a margin for growth through high-sensibility and high-quality products. The competitiveness of brands is determined by their market shares. Accordingly, concepts should be specialized according to lifestyle, customers' diverse needs should be satisfied, and cross-coordination should be achieved within a brand. 3. Considering Korean parents who do not spare investment in their children despite shrinking consumption, functional products must be high value-added goods that can enhance efficiency. However, in the current situation of the infants' apparel industry where a textile manufacturer supply its products to multiple brands, it is difficult to develop unique products only based on materials. Thus, it is considered urgent to appeal to consumers not by relying on materials only but by finding methods of applying their own characters to children's dress.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.51-75
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• 2007

Dongdaemun fashion market has been successfully positioned as a main hub for non-brand fashion product distribution in Korea. One of important competitive advantages of Dongdaemun market often quoted by retail researchers is an efficiently managed network system among supply chain members. This study aimed to examine the importance of buyer-supplier relationship elements and supplier properties from buyers' perspectives (small & very small-sized fashion stores in Dongdaemun market), and to identify the determinants of the relationship length between suppliers and buyers. Survey responses of 233 stores were analyzed using EQS 6.1 for Window and SPSSWIN 10.0. The findings could be summarized as follows: First, fashion stores perceived that right delivery as the most important factor, and geographically closeness, design capability, quality, and lower price followed in order. Second, the characteristics of stores such as location, wholesaling versus retailing focusing, monthly sales, and total business length all affected the perceived importance of buyer-supplier relationship. Third, design capacity, communication, power was identified as determinants of actual relationship length with a supplier, while communication and trust were found to be determinants of future expected relationship length.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.878-885
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• 2009

The Y generation born between 1981 and 1995 is the largest consumer group in the United States. This study is to provide an insight of understanding Y generation's decision factors of purchasing Jeans and the fit issues. This study investigated their purchasing decisions factors, including fit, cost, brand, color, and the media/internet influences. It is revealed that the Y generation might have access to the internet, but they still rely more on their peers and savvy skills to decide what they purchase. They preferred to shop from the land based retail stores rather than the internet. The fit was the most important factor of their purchasing decision, but less concerns of the brand. In this study, 87% of them chose "fit" as the reason to buy a pair of jeans. Fit problems were related to the price category. This study suggests apparel manufacturers should understand Y generation's fit issues in the global market.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.303-309
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• 2021

This study examined how consumers in their 20s and 30s perceive luxury goods, masstige brands, and counterfeits, which have high social value, and whether the propensity for conspicuous consumption and conformity can explain them. Consumers were classified based on the similarity of attitudes toward these brands and purchase intentions. The groups were compared on the sub-dimensions of conspicuous consumption and conformity. Clustering analysis identified four groups, and the MANOVA result confirmed the differences among the groups. Personality (F=4.282, p=.006) and brand orientation (F=23.178, p=.000) were positively related to luxury and masstige brands. Fashion orientation (F=8.376, p=.000) was high for both groups, which likes luxury and masstige brands very much, and which likes counterfeits. High-price orientation did not make any significant difference among the groups. Conformity (F=3.537, p=.015) was high for all the groups, except for the group that liked luxury and masstige brands and did not like counterfeits. This study comprehensively examined the attitudes and purchase intentions of luxury and masstige brands and their counterfeits and can be the groundwork for further research on brand categorization.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.32
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• pp.283-292
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• 1997

The country-of-origin may be used as surro-gate indicator when the consumers do not have confidence on quality evaluation. Since the global sourcing is getting popular in inter-national textile and apparel production the ef-fect of country-of-origin should be examined. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of country-of-origin on product evaluation and its relation to the consumer characteristics. A questionnaire was distribu-ted to 524 respondents aged 18 through 35. The results indicated that the country-of-ori-gin had significant influence on quality evalu-ation. Furthermore product components such as design price fabric and workmanship were also influenced by the country-of-origin. Price was perceived as more affected variable by country-of-origin than design fabric and work-manship. The interest in country-of-origin was different according to the consumer charac-teristics. Among demographics age and in-come turned out to be significant variables to determine the interest in country-of-origin. Shopping habits of respondents such as pur-chasing price of polo-style knit shirt the place to purchase that shirt the number of shirts they have were significantly different accord-ing to the interest in country=-of-origin. The re-spondent had higher interest in country-of-ori-gin were more fashion-conscious more confi-dent on clothing purchase more brand loyal and more sensitive to price of clothin.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.131-140
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• 2020

In this study, we analyzed the effect of consumer's cognitive response, emotional response and behavioral response on online shopping stockouts (ISRI: Individual Stockout Response Index). And we try to show the heterogeneity of the degree of consumer response by subdivision market based on the regularity of distribution. The ISRI was developed by Kim and Lee in 2016 and 2018, which were based on the items and factors of cognitive, emotional and behavioral responses. The exponential stockouts response of consumers in this study will give an accurate picture of what consumers want when stockouts. further research should be done on how consumers' reactions are influenced by situational characteristics, consumer characteristics, store characteristics and brand / product characteristics. Especially, the price level of the product will affect the consumer 's response in the case of online fashion goods shopping.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.27-34
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• 2010

During the past 10 years, sales of luxury goods increased significantly to more than US$ 130 billion in 2007. In this industry, more than half of the revenue comes from Asia where the average income has risen significantly, and the demand for luxury products is forecast to grow rapidly. Purchasing luxury brands appears to be an intriguing social phenomenon that is profitable for companies in this region. As a newly developed country, Korea is one of the most attractive luxury markets in Asia. Currently, a total of 120 luxury fashion brands have entered the Korean market, primarily in luxury districts in Seoul where the competition is fierce. The purposes of this study are to: (1) identify antecedents of attitude toward luxury brands, (2) examine the effect of attitudes toward luxury brands on customer equity, (3) determine the impact of attitudes toward luxury brands on customer lifetime value, and (4) investigate the influence of customer equity on customer life time value. Previous studies have examined materialism, social need, experiential need, need for uniqueness, conformity, and fashion involvement as antecedents of attitude toward luxury brands. Richins and Dowson (1992) suggested that that materialism influences consumption behavior relative to quantity of goods purchased. Nueno and Quelch (1998) reported that the ownership of luxury brands conveys information related to the owner's social status, communicates an image of success and prestige, and is a determinant of purchase behavior. Experiential need is recognized as an important aspect of consumption, especially for new products developed to meet consumer demand. Since luxury goods, by definition are relatively scarce, ownership of these types of products may fulfill consumers' need for uniqueness. In this study, value equity, relationship equity, and brand equity are examined as drivers of customer equity. The sample (n = 114) was undergraduate and graduate students at two private women's universities in Seoul, Korea. Data collection was conducted using a self-administered questionnaire survey in March, 2009. Data analysis included descriptive statistics, factor analysis, reliability analysis, and regression analysis using SPSS 15.0 software. Data analysis resulted in a number of conclusions. First, experiential need and fashion involvement positively influence participants' attitude toward luxury brands. Second, attitude toward luxury brands positively influences brand equity, followed by value equity and relationship equity. However, there is no significant relationship between attitude toward luxury brand and customer lifetime value. Finally, relationship equity positively influences customer lifetime value. In conclusion, young consumers are an important potential consumer group that tries different brands to discover the ones most suitable for them. Luxury marketers that use effective marketing strategies to attract and engender loyalty among this potentially lucrative consumer group may increase customer equity and lifetime value.