Role of key demographic factors in consumer aspirations and luxury brand preference

Abstract

The desires of consumers as individuals are largely shaped by their aspirations in life, which play a crucial role in deciding their brand preference, but very few studies have focused on the demographic difference in aspirations and its relationship with brand preference, especially in the context of luxury brands, for the consumers in the emerging markets. This paper aims to empirically assess the role of key demographic factors (gender, age, and income) in influencing the aspirations of consumers in India, an emerging market, and their preference for luxury branded products. The hypotheses were developed based on the review of the extant literature and tested through t-test and ANOVA along with the moderation test using PROCESS extension in SPSS 22.0. The study included data collected from 915 Indian consumers, in Tier-1 and Tier-2 cities, with prior experience of buying luxury branded products in the fashion segment through a self-administered questionnaire. The results demonstrate that the aspirations, both intrinsic (F = 8.185; p = 0.004) and extrinsic (F = 7.14; p = 0.007) and luxury brand preferences (F = 5.762; p = 0.017) of males and females differ significantly. However, demographic factors of gender (R2 = 0.137; p > 0.05), age (R2 = 0.130; p > 0.05), and income (R2 = 0.132; p > 0.05) were not found to have any moderating effect on the relationship between luxury brand preference and aspirations. The results of the study would help luxury brand marketers to develop their strategic plans for marketing activities by providing insights into the differences in the desires and preferences of their customers.