• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.245-276
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• 2008

Brand equity is one of the most important concepts in business practice as well as in academic research. Successful brands can allow marketers to gain competitive advantage (Lassar et al.,1995), including the opportunity for successful extensions, resilience against competitors' promotional pressures, and the ability to create barriers to competitive entry (Farquhar, 1989). Branding plays a special role in service firms because strong brands increase trust in intangible products (Berry, 2000), enabling customers to better visualize and understand them. They reduce customers' perceived monetary, social, and safety risks in buying services, which are obstacles to evaluating a service correctly before purchase. Also, a high level of brand equity increases consumer satisfaction, repurchasing intent, and degree of loyalty. Brand equity can be considered as a mixture that includes both financial assets and relationships. Actually, brand equity can be viewed as the value added to the product (Keller, 1993), or the perceived value of the product in consumers' minds. Mahajan et al. (1990) claim that customer-based brand equity can be measured by the level of consumers' perceptions. Several researchers discuss brand equity based on two dimensions: consumer perception and consumer behavior. Aaker (1991) suggests measuring brand equity through price premium, loyalty, perceived quality, and brand associations. Viewing brand equity as the consumer's behavior toward a brand, Keller (1993) proposes similar dimensions: brand awareness and brand knowledge. Thus, past studies tend to identify brand equity as a multidimensional construct consisted of brand loyalty, brand awareness, brand knowledge, customer satisfaction, perceived equity, brand associations, and other proprietary assets (Aaker, 1991, 1996; Blackston, 1995; Cobb-Walgren et al., 1995; Na, 1995). Other studies tend to regard brand equity and other brand assets, such as brand knowledge, brand awareness, brand image, brand loyalty, perceived quality, and so on, as independent but related constructs (Keller, 1993; Kirmani and Zeithaml, 1993). Walters(1978) defined information search as, "A psychological or physical action a consumer takes in order to acquire information about a product or store." But, each consumer has different methods for informationsearch. There are two methods of information search, internal and external search. Internal search is, "Search of information already saved in the memory of the individual consumer"(Engel, Blackwell, 1982) which is, "memory of a previous purchase experience or information from a previous search."(Beales, Mazis, Salop, and Staelin, 1981). External search is "A completely voluntary decision made in order to obtain new information"(Engel & Blackwell, 1982) which is, "Actions of a consumer to acquire necessary information by such methods as intentionally exposing oneself to advertisements, taking to friends or family or visiting a store."(Beales, Mazis, Salop, and Staelin, 1981). There are many sources for consumers' information search including advertisement sources such as the internet, radio, television, newspapers and magazines, information supplied by businesses such as sales people, packaging and in-store information, consumer sources such as family, friends and colleagues, and mass media sources such as consumer protection agencies, government agencies and mass media sources. Understanding consumers' purchasing behavior is a key factor of a firm to attract and retain customers and improving the firm's prospects for survival and growth, and enhancing shareholder's value. Therefore, marketers should understand consumer as individual and market segment. One theory of consumer behavior supports the belief that individuals are rational. Individuals think and move through stages when making a purchase decision. This means that rational thinkers have led to the identification of a consumer buying decision process. This decision process with its different levels of involvement and influencing factors has been widely accepted and is fundamental to the understanding purchase intention represent to what consumers think they will buy. Brand equity is not only companies but also very important asset more than product itself. This paper studies brand equity model and influencing factors including information process such as information searching and information resources in the fashion market in Asia and Europe. Information searching and information resources are influencing brand knowledge that influences consumers purchase decision. Nine research hypotheses are drawn to test the relationships among antecedents of brand equity and purchase intention and relationships among brand knowledge, brand value, brand attitude, and brand loyalty. H1. Information searching influences brand knowledge positively. H2. Information sources influence brand knowledge positively. H3. Brand knowledge influences brand attitude. H4. Brand knowledge influences brand value. H5. Brand attitude influences brand loyalty. H6. Brand attitude influences brand value. H7. Brand loyalty influences purchase intention. H8. Brand value influence purchase intention. H9. There will be the same research model in Asia and Europe. We performed structural equation model analysis in order to test hypotheses suggested in this study. The model fitting index of the research model in Asia was $X^2$=195.19(p=0.0), NFI=0.90, NNFI=0.87, CFI=0.90, GFI=0.90, RMR=0.083, AGFI=0.85, which means the model fitting of the model is good enough. In Europe, it was $X^2$=133.25(p=0.0), NFI=0.81, NNFI=0.85, CFI=0.89, GFI=0.90, RMR=0.073, AGFI=0.85, which means the model fitting of the model is good enough. From the test results, hypotheses were accepted. All of these hypotheses except one are supported. In Europe, information search is not an antecedent of brand knowledge. This means that sales of global fashion brands like jeans in Europe are not expanding as rapidly as in Asian markets such as China, Japan, and South Korea. Young consumers in European countries are not more brand and fashion conscious than their counter partners in Asia. The results have theoretical, practical meaning and contributions. In the fashion jeans industry, relatively few studies examining the viability of cross-national brand equity has been studied. This study provides insight on building global brand equity and suggests information process elements like information search and information resources are working differently in Asia and Europe for fashion jean market.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.59-69
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• 2010

Green or an environmental consciousness has been a major issue for businesses and government offices, as well as consumers, worldwide. In response to this movement, the Korean government announced, in the early 2000s, the era of "Green Growth" as a way to encourage green-related business activities. The Korean fashion industry, in various levels of involvement, presents diverse eco-friendly products as a part of the green movement. These apparel products include organic products and recycled clothing. For these companies to be successful, they need information about who are the consumers who consider green issues (e.g., environmental sustainability) as part of their personal values when making a decision for product purchase, use, and disposal. These consumers can be considered as eco-sumers. Previous studies have examined consumers' purchase intention for or with eco-friendly products. In addition, studies have examined influential factors used to identify the eco-sumers or green consumers. However, limited attention was paid to eco-sumers' disposal or recycling behavior of clothes in comparison with their green product purchases. Clothing disposal behaviors are ways that consumer can get rid of unused clothing and in clue temporarily lending the item or permanently eliminating the item by "handing down" (e.g., giving it to a younger sibling), donating, exchanging, selling, or simply throwing it away. Accordingly, examining purchasing behaviors of eco-friendly fashion items in conjunction with clothing disposal behaviors should improve understanding of a consumer's clothing consumption behavior from the environmental perspective. The purpose of this exploratory study is to provide descriptive information about Korean eco-sumers who have ecologically-favorable lifestyles and behaviors when buying and disposing of clothes. The objectives of this study are to (a) categorize Koreans on the basis of clothing disposal behaviors; (b) investigate the differences in demographics, lifestyles, and clothing consumption values among segments; and (c) compare the purchase intention of eco-friendly fashion items and influential factors among segments. A self-administered questionnaire was developed based on previous studies. The questionnaire included 10 items of clothing disposal behavior, 22 items of LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) characteristics, and 19 items of consumption values, measured by five-point Likert-type scales. In addition, the purchase intention of two eco-friendly fashion items and 11 attributes of each item were measured by seven-point Likert type scales. Two polyester fleece pullovers, made from fabric created from recycled bottles with the PET identification code, were selected from one Korean brand and one US imported brand among outdoor sportswear brands. A brief description of each product with a color picture was provided in the survey. Demographic variables (i.e., gender, age, marital status, education level, income, occupation) were also included. The data were collected through a professional web survey agency during May 2009. A total of 600 final usable questionnaires were analyzed. The age of respondents ranged from 20 to 49 years old with a mean age of 34 years. Fifty percent of the respondents were males and about 58% were married, and 62% reported having earned university degrees. Principal components factor analysis with varimax rotation was used to identify the underlying dimensions of the clothing disposal behavior scale, and three factors were generated (i.e., reselling behavior, donating behavior, non-recycling behavior). To categorize the respondents on the basis of clothing disposal behaviors, k-mean cluster analysis was used, and three segments were obtained. These consumer segments were labeled as 'Resale Group', 'Donation Group', and 'Non-Recycling Group.' The classification results indicated approximately 98 percent of the original cases were correctly classified. With respect to demographic characteristics among the three segments, significant differences were found in gender, marital status, occupation, and age. LOHAS characteristics were reduced into the following five factors: self-satisfaction, family orientation, health concern, environmental concern, and voluntary service. Significant differences were found in the LOHAS factors among the three clusters. Resale Group and Donation Group showed a similar predisposition to LOHAS issues while the Non-Recycling Group presented the lowest mean scores on the LOHAS factors compared to the other segments. The Resale and Donation Groups described themselves as enjoying or being satisfied with their lives and spending spare-time with family. In addition, these two groups cared about health and organic foods, and tried to conserve energy and resources. Principal components factor analysis generated clothing consumption values into the following three factors: personal values, social value, and practical value. The ANOVA test with the factors showed differences primarily between the Resale Group and the other two groups. The Resale Group was more concerned about personal value and social value than the other segments. In contrast, the Non-Recycling Group presented the higher level of social value than did Donation Group. In a comparison of the intention to purchase eco-friendly products, the Resale Group showed the highest mean score on intent to purchase Product A. On the other hand, the Donation Group presented the highest intention to purchase for Product B among segments. In addition, the mean scores indicated that the Korean product (Product B) was more preferable for purchase than the U.S. product (Product A). Stepwise regression analysis was used to identify the influence of product attributes on the purchase intention of eco product. With respect to Product A, design, price and contribution to environmental preservation were significant to predict purchase intention for the Resale Group, while price and compatibility with my image factors were significant for the Donation Group. For the Non-Recycling Group, design, price compatibility with the factors of my image, participation to eco campaign, and contribution to environmental preservation were significant. Price appropriateness was significant for each of the three clusters. With respect to Product B, design, price and compatibility with my image factors were important, but different attributes were associated significantly with purchase intention for each of the three groups. The influence of LOHAS characteristics and clothing consumption values on intention to purchase Products A and B were also examined. The LOHAS factor of health concern and the personal value factor were significant in the relationships with the purchase intention; however, the explanatory powers were low in the three segments. Findings showed that each group as classified by clothing disposal behaviors showed differences in the attributes of a product, personal values, and the LOHAS characteristics that influenced their purchase intention of eco-friendly products. Findings would enable organizations to understand eco-friendly behavior and to design appropriate strategic decisions to appeal eco-sumers.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.43-52
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• 2013

"Time versus money effect" refers to a favorable shift in consumers' responses activated by time(vs. money). In general, how people spend their time or money could reflect one's personal identity. Previous research indicates that drawing individuals' attention to time makes more effective in product satisfaction rather than money. Also, whereas because time is experienced as an experience, time activates more positive product satisfaction for experiential product rather than materialistic product, money has the reverse effect because money relates with possessions. Present study examined the effect of time and money on consumers' attitudes and decisions and the role of product type including smartphone. In experiment 1, participants evaluated their experiences or their own products(family restaurant, smartphone, premium jean). They satisfied more with their smartphones when activated by time than by money. In experiment 2, 3 image ads, a promotion image ad for each product(family restaurant, smartphone, premium jean), were offered to find the effect of time and money in promotion ads. The interaction effects between activating condition and product type were revealed on the product attitudes, product satisfaction, purchase intent, and personal connection reflecting the consistent time effect on smartphone. In addition, the main effect of the activating condition was significant which meant time activating ads were more effective than money activating ads.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.519-530
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• 2009

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of the prior knowledge, the market position and negative information of the alliance apparel product on consumer attitude including preference, purchase intent and utility. Smart wear with MP3 was selected for the alliance apparel product. Negative information was manipulated into two types-product related and brand related negative information. 251 subjects participated for the study. For the data analysis, reliability test and three way analysis of variance were conducted. The results showed that when the partner brand has the higher market position, subjects with high prior knowledge revealed preference for the alliance apparel product more. When the partner brand has the higher market position, the subjects who were given the negative information on the alliance apparel product reported preference and utility more than the ones who were given the negative information on the company. The findings of the study imply that apparel industries should make an effort to establish the positive corporate image as well as to produce high quality apparel product. Also marketers should provide consumers with the knowledge about brand new alliance apparel product.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Systems Engineering
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.52-62
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• 2018

A software support system, called procurement engineering management support system (PeMSS), is currently under development through a joint research project. The procurement-related scenarios considered in this research is as follow: an EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) company receives an EPC project contract and starts the project to deliver the agreed system to the acquirer. In order to acquire the required equipments that the EPC company does not produce by itself, it eventually interacts with subcontractors, also called vendors. The EPC company responsibilities during the procurement activities are twofold. First, the EPC company has to guarantee that it has ordered the equipment, through issuing Purchase Order (PO), based on the requirements stated in the contract. Second, the EPC company has to verify that the received equipment designs, called Vendor Print (VP), meet the specifications in the PO, before finally acquiring the equipments. During our survey study, we discovered that EPC company takes a lot of time and effort to create PO and verify VP, mainly because these activities are performed manually by the responsible engineers. Therefore, we intent to support the above activities by developing a support system to the legacy procurement system that can trace the requirements from the contract to the PO and VP, among other functionalities. At the time of the writing of this paper, PeMMS is still under-development, thus, in this paper we focus on presenting the development steps of PeMMS using systems engineering theory and introducing the PO creation function. Wholly, PeMSS attempts to reduce the time and effort of engineers on the procurements activities while also increasing the quality of the procurement outcomes.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.31 no.12
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• pp.1793-1802
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• 2007

This study examined the relationship between consumers' ethical ideologies and consumers' perceptions of fashion counterfeits. Forsyth's Ethics Position Questionnaire(EPQ) measuring consumers' ethical ideologies-- idealism and relativism -- was used. College students enrolled at a large university in a metropolitan area participated(N=314). There were no significant differences between counterfeit purchasers and non-purchasers on their ethical ideologies, while there were significant differences between these two groups on their perceptions toward two of the perceptions toward counterfeit factors: economic and psychological uncertainty. Idealism was not significantly related to participants' perceptions toward fashion counterfeit, while relativism was positively related only to participants' perceptions concerning the return-related uncertainty of fashion counterfeits. The results of a multiple regression revealed that consumers' economic, psychological, and return-related uncertainty were significant predictors of intent to buy counterfeit goods.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.87-98
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• 2015

As SPA brands are growing in Korean apparel markets, they are extending their well-established brands into new markets (i.e., SPA brand extensions). To investigate psychological mechanism underlying SPA brand extensions, this study conceptually proposed such consumer information processing of SPA brand extensions as (1) perception of similarity between SPA brand extensions and their original brands and (2) evaluations on the SPA brand extensions (i.e., attitude and purchase intent). For hypothetical SPA brand extensions (high, moderate and low similarity conditions), perceived similarity was measured by using a eye-tracker and evaluations were assessed by using a self-reported questionnaire. The results reveal that the amount of external information searching for SPA brand extensions was larger in the following order: moderate, low and high similarity conditions. The depth of SPA brand information processing was also deeper in the same order. Evaluations on SPA brand extensions were higher in high and moderate similarity conditions than in low similarity condition. The findings suggest that the evaluations are affected by perceived similarity and the amount of cognitive efforts in processing SPA brand extensions.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.25 no.8
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• pp.189-196
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• 2020

In this paper, we propose a study on the purchasing intent of the new e-commerce consumer, the coronavirus may once again drive the structural change of China's economy, and the new online marketing model will be noticed during the epidemic. Through 438 questionnaires collected on the Internet, frequency analysis, element analysis, reliability analysis and structural equation analysis were performed using SPSS V22.0 and AMOS V22.0 methods. Study the validation of hypotheses in the model to reveal the reasons why consumers in the new e-business are exposed. The results show that e-commerce features of Internet celebrities and individual characteristics of Internet celebrities can only enhance consumers' satisfaction. Quasi social relationships only increase consumer satisfaction without generating the will to purchase directly. Consumer satisfaction is the core foundation that dominates long-term consumption. E-commerce should focus on the ability of online celebrities to sell their expertise and the adaptability of value and product characteristics when conducting online celebrity marketing.

• Food Science and Preservation
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.376-380
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• 2003

This aims is to estimate the consumers' preference on the brand rice using factor analysis, completed research on the consumption of brand rice revealed that the household supply in the Seoul area is increasing. An analysis whether housewives' preference in chosing the brand of rice was developed through the consumption experience and re-purchase intention investigation for the brand rice. Also the paper analyzed the consumers' preference using the logit and probit model. Number of respondents who participated in the study(95 ％) totaled 1000 and the sampling method utilized was the multistage stratification and assignment abstraction. Results showed that the preference of housewives' depends on age, education and level of income. Such that as age, education, income level increase so thus their preference for brand rices also increase. Also the re-purchasing of brand rice is high when housewives have a higher educational attainment and prefers to go to work. Conclusively, the long-term sale view for brand rice is closely related to the economic conditions of a household. Hence, with the economic growth, there is a possibility that consumption of brand rice would increase compared to the ordinary rice. We can propose the following political intent from analysis of these results. First, There is a need for continuous public information as reinforcement for brand rice. Second, Marketing operation reinforcement could also be done for customer class security etc.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.203-213
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• 2014

In Korea, a cooperation charge on conservation of ecosystem is imposed to prevent indiscriminate development. The total amount of this charge is determined by multiplying the size of the destroyed area by a value per unit area and the area index within 5 billion won. Since 2001, the charge per unit area has been determined to be $250won/m^2$. In this study, we estimated the unit value of ecosystem services per year using benefit transfer method, with a focus on forest resources. According to our results, forest resources have a value of about $3,500won/m^2$ per year. When the non-use value is subtracted, that figure becomes approximately $1,300won/m^2$. If this value incorporates the unit value of the cooperation charge on conservation of ecosystem, it will increase. To comply with the original intent of the cooperation charge on conservation of ecosystem, the fund must be used to improve ecosystem services, including the restoration of a destroyed area or the purchase of new land.