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UM E-Theses Collection (澳門大學電子學位論文庫)

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Title

Does experiential marketing affect the behavior of luxury product consumers in the Macau market?

English Abstract

In today’s market, it has become difficult for marketers to differentiate their luxury brands from other similar products. Finding a new way to achieve a level of differentiation in order for it to become an advantage is not an easy task. Traditional marketing strategies have focused on price or quality, and are no longer effective long-term sources of competitive advantage. In a region with a burgeoning retail industry, retaining the loyalty of customers could be impossibility. This study examined the city of Macau as a budding luxury market, full of new products with a consumer base that has recently gained the purchasing power to afford such products. The study sought several methods for differentiating luxury products, and discovered that experiential marketing is the most effective. This marketing strategy focuses much more on the consumer, creating “experiences” for them to participate in emotionally, thus creating lasting impressions of the product and producing the desired differentiation. Experiential marketing has been proven to be an extremely effective differentiation strategy for selling utilitarian products for everyday living. However, aesthetic products such as art or luxury products that were created uniquely by the genius of artists and couturiers create emotions by themselves. Moreover, some people are more sensitive to emotions and aesthetic than others. Retailers of luxury brands have shown considerable interest in experiential marketing as an effective tool for differentiating the products they sell. This thesis attempts to shed light on the actual value of experiential marketing on luxury brands by studying and comparing two Louis Vuitton (shortened to LV for the purpose of concision) stores located in Macau. One of these stores employs a traditional retail format for selling their products, and the other uses experiential marketing to attract its customers. Preliminary research included reading scientific articles on the subject, along with books and previous studies on emotions and experiential marketing. The researcher then developed three hypotheses which aided in conducting further research and drawing conclusions. These hypotheses are discussed using a mixed research method; in other words, the researcher combined a qualitative research with a quantitative one. In the quantitative research, the study compared the emotions felt by research subjects and their purchase intentions between the different LV stores to determine whether or not the store using experiential marketing achieves better results. The purpose of the qualitative research was to determine why LV developed this new concept of store. The quantitative research was conducted by administering questionnaires to customers of the two LV stores. The qualitative research, based on a descriptive approach, was carried out by structured interviews. The results obtained from this data produced several conclusions directly pertinent to the research.

Issue date

2014.

Author

Wong, Chio U

Faculty

Faculty of Business Administration

Degree

M.B.A.

Subject

Consumer behavior -- Macau

Branding (Marketing)

Supervisor

Sy-Changco, Joseph Adea

Files In This Item

Full-text (Internet)

Location
1/F Zone C
Library URL
991008718559706306