Resistance to counterfeiting and purchase of luxury brands: Any Role of Brand Experience?
(A2019-9734)

AUTHORS

Siham Mourad, ISCAE Group; Pierre VALETTE-FLORENCE, Grenoble IAE

KEYWORDS

counterfeiting resistance; brand experience; attitude toward counterfeits

ABSTRACT

Attempting to combat counterfeiting appears useless, particularly in the luxury market, where the consumer is aware that the product being bought is an imitation (Wilcox et al., 2009). In the other side, some consumers of genuine products continue in the normal trend of behavior despite the presence of counterfeiting. To deepen the comprehension of this behavior, we have conducted a study in Morocco with a sample of 643 luxury consumer products aiming to provide answers by developing a PLS model with counterfeiting resistance, attitude toward counterfeits, brand experience and buying intention. First, we have developed a new concept called counterfeiting resistance, which is a reaction toward the luxury brand consumption in the case of the presence of counterfeiting. Second, the study has demonstrated clear positive effects of counterfeiting resistance on purchase intention of luxury brand, the attitude toward counterfeiting has a negative effect, whereas brand experience has no effect on purchase intention. These results should gain ground with luxury brand managers, who in fact need to reinforce counterfeiting resistance instead of working on brand experience.