Abstract

This thesis focuses on how different combinations of advertisement types and program-induced mood affect customers’ purchase intentions to buy counterfeit luxury brands.
Marketing researchers have been working on containing the counterfeit luxury market and many variables were found to be indicators of counterfeit product purchases. This research mainly focuses on the advertising aspect. Empirical studies suggested that certain types of advertisements (social-adjustive types and value-expressive types) can either increase or decrease customers’ purchase intentions toward counterfeit luxury products through delivering different attitudes (Wilcox, Kim, & Sen, 2009).
It is essential to examine how the characteristics of the program influence customers’ purchase intentions toward commercial products. Program-induced mood (valence) may affect information processing of the advertisements. Negative valence may lead to more detailed information processing compared to positive valence (Shapiro, MacInnis, & Park, 2002).
Due to the different information processing levels caused by program-induced moods (positive versus no-mood versus negative), customers will have different levels of attitude function (social-adjustive and value-expressive), resulting in different purchase intentions towards counterfeit luxury products.
Theoretically, this thesis aims to find the best combination of advertisement type and program valence (positive versus no-mood versus negative) through experiments. Moreover, as previous studies focused mainly on the effect of advertisements without giving them a context (program), it adds program-induced mood effects as an additional indicator of counterfeit purchase.
Practically, marketers are able to use different types of advertisement (social-adjustive and value-expressive) under different contexts to decrease counterfeit luxury brand purchasing intentions. The findings suggest using value-expressive advertisements during negative valence programs to reduce customers’ counterfeit luxury purchase intentions.