• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.82-100
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• 2015

Mobile fashion apps present much opportunity for marketers to engage consumers, however not all apps provide enough functions for their targeted audience. This study aims to determine how mobile fashion apps can be used to build brand community with consumer engagement. Qualitative data on fashion mobile apps were collected from the Apple app store and Android market during the spring and summer of 2015. A total of 110 fashion mobile apps were collected;, 50 apps were identified as apparel brands that either manufacture or sell apparel to consumers, which we categorized as "brand" fashion apps, and the remaining 60 were categorized as "non-brand" fashion apps. The result of the study can be summarized as below. The 60 non-brand fashion apps were grouped into 5 app types: shopping, searching, sharing, organizational, and informational. The main functions are for informational use and shopping needs, since at least half (31 apps) are used for either retrieving information or for shopping. However, in contrast, social networking and location were infrequent and not commonly utilized by these apps. The most common type of non-brand fashion apps available were shopping apps;, many shopping apps enable users to shop from several different websites and save their items into one universal shopping cart so that they only check out once. Most of these apps are informational and help consumers make more informed decisions on purchases;, in addition many offer location services to help consumers find these items in store. While these apps perform several functions, they do not link to social media. The 50 brand apps were grouped into 5 brand types: athletic, casual, fast fashion, luxury, and retailer. These apps were also checked for attributes to determine their functionality. The result shows that the main functions of brand fashion apps are for information (82% of the 50 apps) as well as location searching (72% of 50 apps). Conversely, these apps do not offer any photo sharing, and very few have organizational or community functions. Fashion mobile apps and m-marketing elements: To build brand community, mobile apps can be designed to motivate consumer's engagement with brands. The motivations of fashion mobile apps are useful in developing fashion mobile apps. Entertainment motives can be fulfilled with multimedia attributes, functionality motives are satisfied with organizational and location-based features, information motives with informational service, socialization with community and social network, learning and intellectual stimulation from informational attributes, and trend following through photo sharing. The 8 key attributes of mobile apps can correspond to the 4 m-marketing elements (i.e., Informative content, multimedia, interactions, and product promotions) that are further intertwined with m-branding elements. App Attributes and M-Marketing aim to Build Brand Community;, the eight key attributes can impact on 4 m-branding elements, which further contribute to building brand community by affecting consumers' perceptions of brands preference and advocacy, and their likelihood to be loyal.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.65-86
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• 2012

The $20^{th}$ century was the era of manufacturer brands which built higher brand equity for consumers. Consumers moved from generic products of inconsistent quality produced by local factories in the $19^{th}$ century to branded products from global manufacturers and manufacturer brands reached consumers through distributors and retailers. Retailers were relatively small compared to their largest suppliers. However, sometime in the 1970s, things began to slowly change as retailers started to develop their own national chains and began international expansion, and consolidation of the retail industry from mom-and-pop stores to global players was well under way (Kumar and Steenkamp 2007, p.2) In South Korea, since the middle of the 1990s, the bulking up of retailers that started then has changed the balance of power between manufacturers and retailers. Retailer private labels, generally referred to as own labels, store brands, distributors own private-label, home brand or own label brand have also been performing strongly in every single local market (Bushman 1993; De Wulf et al. 2005). Private labels now account for one out of every five items sold every day in U.S. supermarkets, drug chains, and mass merchandisers (Kumar and Steenkamp 2007), and the market share in Western Europe is even larger (Euromonitor 2007). In the UK, grocery market share of private labels grew from 39% of sales in 2008 to 41% in 2010 (Marian 2010). Planet Retail (2007, p.1) recently concluded that "[PLs] are set for accelerated growth, with the majority of the world's leading grocers increasing their own label penetration." Private labels have gained wide attention both in the academic literature and popular business press and there is a glowing academic research to the perspective of manufacturers and retailers. Empirical research on private labels has mainly studies the factors explaining private labels market shares across product categories and/or retail chains (Dahr and Hoch 1997; Hoch and Banerji, 1993), factors influencing the private labels proneness of consumers (Baltas and Doyle 1998; Burton et al. 1998; Richardson et al. 1996) and factors how to react brand manufacturers towards PLs (Dunne and Narasimhan 1999; Hoch 1996; Quelch and Harding 1996; Verhoef et al. 2000). Nevertheless, empirical research on factors influencing the production in terms of a manufacturer-retailer is rather anecdotal than theory-based. The objective of this paper is to bridge the gap in these two types of research and explore the factors which influence on manufacturer's private label production based on two competing theories: S-C-P (Structure - Conduct - Performance) paradigm and resource-based theory. In order to do so, the authors used in-depth interview with marketing managers, reviewed retail press and research and presents the conceptual framework that integrates the major determinants of private labels production. From a manufacturer's perspective, supplying private labels often starts on a strategic basis. When a manufacturer engages in private labels, the manufacturer does not have to spend on advertising, retailer promotions or maintain a dedicated sales force. Moreover, if a manufacturer has weak marketing capabilities, the manufacturer can make use of retailer's marketing capability to produce private labels and lessen its marketing cost and increases its profit margin. Figure 1. is the theoretical framework based on a strategic market management perspective, integrated concept of both S-C-P paradigm and resource-based theory. The model includes one mediate variable, marketing capabilities, and the other moderate variable, competitive intensity. Manufacturer's national brand reputation, firm's marketing investment, and product portfolio, which are hypothesized to positively affected manufacturer's marketing capabilities. Then, marketing capabilities has negatively effected on private label production. Moderating effects of competitive intensity are hypothesized on the relationship between marketing capabilities and private label production. To verify the proposed research model and hypotheses, data were collected from 192 manufacturers (212 responses) who are producing private labels in South Korea. Cronbach's alpha test, explanatory / comfirmatory factor analysis, and correlation analysis were employed to validate hypotheses. The following results were drawing using structural equation modeling and all hypotheses are supported. Findings indicate that manufacturer's private label production is strongly related to its marketing capabilities. Consumer marketing capabilities, in turn, is directly connected with the 3 strategic factors (e.g., marketing investment, manufacturer's national brand reputation, and product portfolio). It is moderated by competitive intensity between marketing capabilities and private label production. In conclusion, this research may be the first study to investigate the reasons manufacturers engage in private labels based on two competing theoretic views, S-C-P paradigm and resource-based theory. The private label phenomenon has received growing attention by marketing scholars. In many industries, private labels represent formidable competition to manufacturer brands and manufacturers have a dilemma with selling to as well as competing with their retailers. The current study suggests key factors when manufacturers consider engaging in private label production.