Advances in Economics, Business and Management Research (AEBMR): Questing for brand authenticity of luxury products consumer goal contingent process as self-image conformation online

This paper draws attention to the question of brand authenticity of luxury products when
consumers shopping online. Illustrations from most of the luxury brands show that
marketers control the ways and timing of the marketing information dissemination process.
Attributes of a luxury product, for example, material, craftsmanship, innovation, and design,
are experienced by consumers under the strict control of marketers through the offline sales
and marketing channels (Uche Okonkwo, 2007). However consumers are questing for
authentic product through the use of Internet and mobile technology nowadays. The self
authentication process which is a goal-contingent process is important to marketers to
understand the consumers’ questing behavior, but how the goals are generated is still
unknown to us despite a lot of social-research are carried out. This paper presents an
exploratory study, on a pilot case study basis, from psychological perspective, the role and
function of the self-image conformation concept of consumers in their questing process of the
authenticity of luxury brands that with the goals and associate benefit pursuance in their mind.

JEL Code: D24