Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management

Brand luxury index: a reconsideration and revision

Jieun Kim Kim K. Johnson
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Jieun Kim Kim K. Johnson , (2015),"Brand luxury index: a reconsideration and revision", Journal of
Fashion Marketing and Management, Vol. 19 Iss 4 pp. 430 - 444
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JFMM
19,4
430
Received 28 May 2015
Revised 28 May 2015
Accepted 10 June 2015
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Journal of Fashion Marketing and
Management
Vol. 19 No. 4, 2015
pp. 430-444
© Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1361-2026
DOI 10.1108/JFMM-05-2015-0043
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1361-2026.htm
Brand luxury index:
a reconsideration and revision
Jieun Kim
Fashion Business Department, Sejong Cyber University,
Seoul, Republic of Korea, and
Kim K. Johnson
Department of Design, Housing, and Apparel,
University of Minnesota, St Paul, Minnesota, USA
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to improve the original Brand Luxury Index (BLI) developed
by Vigneron and Johnson to provide a practical tool for assessing consumer’s perception of the
luxurious of a brand.
Design/methodology/approach – The original BLI was revised through three stages: an initial
scale-item generation employing a qualitative method (i.e. focus group interviews), scale purification
process using statistical techniques (i.e. exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis
(CFA)), and scale verification process using CFA. Data (249 for scale purification, 253 for scale
validation) were collected with the help of E-rewards, a marketing research company.
Findings – The modified BLI contains five dimensions (i.e. quality, extended-self, hedonism,
accessibility, and tradition). The number of the dimensions remained the same as the original
conceptualization (i.e. conspicuousness, uniqueness, quality, hedonism, extended-self), however, the
contents of those dimensions differed.
Practical implications – The modified BLI can be used to monitor and manage a prestige brand in the
market place. Not only can marketers of prestige brands use the index to assess consumers’ perception of
the luxuriousness of their brands but also to position their brand along the desired dimension of
luxuriousness.
Originality/value – The modified BLI can be used to measure marketing performance of luxury brands.
Keywords Luxury, Brands, Brand luxuriousness index, Scale modification
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
A prestige brand is a brand that represents the highest high quality and performance
within a product category (Dubois and Czellar, 2002). Consumer preference for,
purchase of, and use of prestige brands is frequently motivated by their perceptions of
its extravagance and lavishness (Dubois and Duquesne, 1993; Kim et al., 2009). This
perceived “luxuriousness” of a brand (Lichtenstein et al., 1993; Roux, 1991) provides
psychological benefits (e.g. enhancing self-image, providing status) that contribute to
satisfying important desires. Consumers must believe that a prestige brand embodies
luxuriousness because it is the psychological benefits that compensate for the high
prices characterizing prestige brands, particularly in recessionary times.
In this competitive market environment, it is important for a company to manage
customers’ perceptions or valuation of a brand to assist customers in their ability to
differentiate brands and to make their brand distinct among competitors. Even though
many brands may be regarded as prestige brands, previous researchers (Vigneron
and Johnson, 2004) noted that the “luxuriousness” of prestige brands is not equal.
For example, Cadillac and Rolls-Royce are both categorized as prestige car makers,
however, consumers recognize that one is easily more luxurious than the other.
 In addition, factors such as where the parent company of a luxury brand is located Brand luxury
(e.g. France vs South Korea) may exert an impact on the perceived luxuriousness of a index
brand (Chung et al., 2014).
Vigneron and Johnson (2004) suggested that the amount of perceived luxuriousness
of a brand can be managed if it can be measured. They developed the Brand Luxury
Index (BLI) to provide a tool to estimate the amount of perceived luxuriousness
consumers’ associated with a brand. Their measure contained five components: 431
conspicuousness, uniqueness, quality, extended-self, and hedonism. These researchers
posited that the overall perception of the luxuriousness of a brand was a combination of
different evaluations of these five dimensions. For example, although the car brands of
Cadillac and Lincoln may have the same general level of perceived luxuriousness, each
brand may represent different degrees of each component.
The existence of distinct dimensions of luxuriousness provide brand managers
with opportunities to set up specific goals for marketing to diverse consumer groups
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as well as to differentiate their brands by emphasizing particular dimensions. Given

that dimensions of perceived luxuriousness could serve as criterion that marketers can
manage, luxury brand marketers may desire to pay attention to the perceived
luxuriousness of their brands.
The original BLI (Vigneron and Johnson, 2004) was developed with business students.
As business students may not represent a large segment of luxury consumers, it received
considerable criticism including it applicability beyond business students and problems
with discriminant and convergent validity (Christodoulides et al., 2009). Therefore, our
research goal was to revise the scale to provide a valid and reliable measure of perceived
luxuriousness with wide research applicability.

Literature review
Development of BLI
The dimensions of perceived luxuriousness included in the original BLI were believed
to reflect characteristics of luxury identified by several researchers (e.g. Dubois et al.,
2001; Vickers and Renand, 2003; Vigneron and Johnson, 1999). As noted earlier, those
dimensions included perceived conspicuousness, uniqueness, quality, hedonism, and
extended-self. The dimension of perceived conspicuousness was intended to measure
how well a brand was able to indicate social status or the wealth of an owner. Perceived
uniqueness assessed the degree of rarity and exclusivity of a brand. Perceived quality
was intended to measure brand superiority. The dimension of perceived hedonism was
originally developed based on the assumption that some luxury seekers are looking for
personal rewards and fulfillment such as emotional benefits and intrinsically pleasing
properties from their purchase of luxury products. Therefore, this dimension was
designed to measure how well a brand offers hedonic benefits for purchasers and users.
Finally, the dimension of perceived extended-self was developed based on Belk’s (1988)
ideas concerning the “extended self.” Belk suggested that people use possessions to
enhance their self-identity by integrating the symbolic meaning of products into their
own identity. Thus, perceived extended-self was designed to measure the extent to
which a brand expressed one’s identity and personal success.
The process Vigneron and Johnson (2004) used to develop the original BLI consisted
of three stages. First, the researchers developed an initial pool of 157 items from
a review of extant literature, conducting interviews with 12 managers of international
luxury brands in Australia, and completing focus group interviews (FGIs) with
25 postgraduate MBA students studying luxury brand management. Second, 77
 JFMM reviewers (e.g. managers of luxury brands, marketing academics, luxury brand
19,4 consumers) examined these 157 items for duplication and reduced the number of items
to 30. Finally, the researchers had 418 business students respond to a questionnaire
containing the 30 items. Each item was presented as a pair of bipolar adjectives.
Participants were asked to indicate the point, among seven points, between each pair of
bipolar adjectives that corresponded to their perception regarding a given luxury
432 brand. For example, to measure perceived conspicuousness, participants are asked to
respond to the following word pairs: “conspicuous vs noticeable,” “popular vs elitists,”
“affordable vs extremely expensive,” and “for wealthy vs for well-off.” The entire
original measure is presented in Table I along with an indication of what items in the
scale were intended to measure each component of luxuriousness. The researchers
analyzed their student data using exploratory and confirmatory factory analyses
(CFA). These analyses resulted in a scale consisting of 20 sets of bipolar adjective word
pairs designed to measure all aspects of luxuriousness with reported reliabilities
(i.e. Cronbach’s α) ranging from α ¼ 0.89 to 0.91.
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Reevaluation of BLI
Although introduced as a valid and reliable measure of luxuriousness (Vigneron
and Johnson, 2004), the scale was criticized by Christodoulides et al. (2009). These
researchers questioned whether Vigneron and Johnson’s results could be applicable to
participants other than business students. Their critique developed out of their attempt
to use the measure with luxury consumers in Taiwan. Their data analyses revealed
four correlated dimensions of luxuriousness rather than five. However, their
confirmatory factor analyses failed to provide support for the underlying structure
of their dimensions. These findings may have resulted from their decision to allow

Concept measured Item no. Items

Conspicuousness 1 Conspicuous – – – – – – – Noticeable

2 Popular – – – – – – – Elitist
3 Affordable – – – – – – – Extremely expensive
4 For wealthy – – – – – – – For well-off
Uniqueness 5 Fairly exclusive – – – – – – – Very exclusive
6 Precious – – – – – – – Valuable
7 Rare – – – – – – – Uncommon
8 Unique – – – – – – – Unusual
Quality 9 Crafted – – – – – – – Manufactured
10 Upmarket – – – – – – – Luxurious
11 Best quality – – – – – – – Good quality
12 Sophisticated – – – – – – – Original
13 Superior – – – – – – – Better
Hedonism 14 Exquisite – – – – – – – Tasteful
15 Attractive – – – – – – – Glamorous
16 Stunning – – – – – – – Memorable
Extended-self 17 Leading – – – – – – – Influential
Table I. 18 Very powerful – – – – – – – Fairly powerful
Brand 19 Rewarding – – – – – – – Pleasing
Luxuriousness 20 Successful – – – – – – – Well-regarded
Index (BLI) Source: Vigneron and Johnson (2004)
 cross-loadings of items between emergent factors. Discriminant validity overall was Brand luxury
also low and convergent validity did not support conspicuousness as a unique index
dimension of luxuriousness.
There are some plausible explanations for the inconsistencies between the two teams
of researchers. First, the participants that each group of researchers used to develop their
measures were different. Vigneron and Johnson (2004) recruited business school
students. These students may have been exposed to the concepts used in the BLI 433
through their coursework and thus they might have been better at distinguishing
between the dimensional concepts than were the luxury brand consumers recruited
by Christodoulides et al. (2009). Second, participants between the two studies were also
recruited from diverse cultures. Interpretation of the meaning of the terms may have
varied between the cultures, thus, this could have contributed to the inconsistent results.
Although plausible explanations for the inconsistent results relative to the BLI were
provided, the inconsistency also suggests that the scale needed further modification
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and testing before it could be used by a diverse range of luxury consumers. Therefore,
the decision was made to examine the scale for its usefulness for US consumers and to
revise and modify the measure as needed.

Method and results

BLI modification proceeded through three stages: an initial scale-item generation
employing a qualitative method (i.e. FGIs), scale purification process using statistical
techniques (e.g. exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis
(CFA)), and scale verification process using CFA.

First phase: item review and generation

As a first step for initial scale item generation, four mini-FGIs were conducted. As it
was proposed that each pair of words used in the original BLI measure was not distinct
enough to differentiate between them thus, the main purposes of the FGIs were: first, to
revise items used in the original BLI to make them easy to understand and clearly
distinguishable from each other and second, to identify any additional possible items
(word pairs) to measure components of the concept of luxuriousness.
Participants were recruited through two techniques: an advertisement and a
snowball sampling technique. These procedures resulted in two groups that consisted
of college students (undergraduate and graduate) and two groups of employed adults.
Each interview session lasted approximately 75 minutes. After a session ended, each
participant received $20 for participation.
All participants (n ¼ 15) were female and ranged in age from 20 to 31 years. All
participants had experience with purchasing prestige apparel brands or were
knowledgeable about and interested in prestige apparel brands.
The focus group participants were asked first to examine each of the existing word pairs
for their distinctiveness. The word pairs which were identified as being problematic by
all groups were “conspicuous vs noticeable,” “precious vs valuable,” “unique vs unusual,”
“luxurious vs upmarket,” “sophisticated vs original,” “stunning vs memorable,” “leading vs
influential,” “rewarding vs pleasing,” and “successful vs well-regarded.” “Elitist vs
popular,” “for wealthy vs for well-off,” “rare vs uncommon,” “glamorous vs attractive” were
also suggested as not being distinct by at least one group. The word pair “luxurious vs
upmarket” was deleted since the entire scale is supposed to measure how luxurious a brand
is and the word “luxurious” seemed to be improper to be used as an item to measure itself.
 JFMM In contrast, all groups indicated that the following pairs were clear and represented
19,4 ends of a continuum of a single concept: “extremely expensive vs affordable,” “very
exclusive vs fairly exclusive,” “crafted vs manufactured,” “best quality vs good quality,”
“superior vs better,” “exquisite vs tasteful,” and “very powerful vs fairly powerful.”
Participants suggested that levels of the attribute were clearest when the word pairs were
comprised of the same term and used modifiers to indicate degree.
434 Two things were carefully considered when selecting new word pairs for their use
as replacements or as additions to the original scale items. First, since it was critical for
potential participants to clearly understand every item, any word pair having a
possibility of being misinterpreted was replaced. In other words, a word pair identified
as being confusing by any single participant was replaced. Second, the participants in
the sessions agreed that the easiest way to understand a word pair was when the word
pairs used the same adjective with an adverb like “fairly” or “very.” Therefore, word
pairs were reviewed and one adjective for each problematic pair was selected with
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corresponding adverbs to indicate degree of the attribute. The fact that many of the
non-problematic word pairs were those using the same adjective with adverbs to
express degree supported this decision.
In order to choose one adjective that best reflected each item, participants reflected
on which aspect of luxuriousness that the item pair was designed to measure. For
example, the first item pair was conspicuous vs noticeable. The aspect of luxurious to
be measured was “how noticeable is the brand?” According to the question, the word
“noticeable” was chosen as the adjective to be used in the revised scale. The revised
item became “very noticeable vs fairly noticeable.” Using this process, all problematic
word pairs were revised. Additionally, six word pairs were included from the list
derived from the focus groups since those pairs were frequently suggested, but were
not included in the original BLI.
The aim of producing a trustworthy index was used to support the decision
of whether or not to add a recommended word pair to the scale. Trustworthiness
refers to the notion that a selected replacement for each problematic word pair was
“worth paying attention to” (Lincoln and Guba, 1985, p. 290). For example, our
concern was how accurately the items and the adjectives reflected each component of
luxuriousness. To make the final decisions, one of the researchers, who had industry
experience in luxury apparel market and research experience with luxury market,
selected the final terms to be included. Her experience and expertise with the luxury
literature supports the trustworthiness component regarding whether the chosen
terms best reflected the original concepts. In addition, an experienced researcher in
retail merchandising also made a review of the questions that supported the level of
trustworthiness.
Table II displays the final set of items used for the revised measure. Items 1-19 were
derived from the original scale and items 19-25 were derived from participants in the
focus groups.

Second phase: scale purification

Once the revised measurement items were arrived at, scale purification followed. Scale
purification, also referred to as deletion of scale items, is done to create the most valid
and reliable measure with the least number of items. Along with possible reduction in
the total number of items, the dimensionally of the scale is checked along with the
reliability and discriminate validity. For this phase of the scale revision process, a
cross-sectional survey was employed.
 Concept measured Item no. Extremely luxurious Fairly luxurious
Brand luxury
index
Conspicuousness 1 Very noticeable – – – – – – – Fairly noticeable
2 Elitist – – – – – – – Popular to public
3 Extremely expensive – – – – – – – Affordable
4 Upper class – – – – – – – Upper-middle class
Uniqueness 5 Very exclusive – – – – – – – Fairly exclusive
6 Very valuable – – – – – – – Fairly valuable 435
7 Very rare – – – – – – – Fairly rare
8 Very unique – – – – – – – Fairly unique
Quality 9 (Hand) Crafted – – – – – – – (Mass) manufactured
10 Best quality – – – – – – – Good quality
11 Very sophisticated – – – – – – – Fairly sophisticated
12 Superior – – – – – – – Better
Hedonism 13 Exquisite – – – – – – – Tasteful
14 Extremely attractive – – – – – – – Attractive
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15 Very stunning – – – – – – – Fairly stunning

Extended-self 16 Very influential – – – – – – – Fairly influential
17 Very powerful – – – – – – – Fairly powerful
18 Very pleasing – – – – – – – Pleasing
19 Highly regarded – – – – – – – Well-regarded
Additional items 20 Original – – – – – – – Cliché
21 Elegant – – – – – – – Beautiful
22 Inaccessible – – – – – – – Accessible
23 Timeless – – – – – – – High-fashion Table II.
24 Heritage – – – – – – – Emerging Revised items for
25 Famous – – – – – – – Recognized modification of BLI

Data collection procedure. Data collection entailed utilizing an online questionnaire tool
and E-rewards, a consumer research firm. Utilizing a market research firm was an
appropriate way to recruit participants because it enabled participation of a diverse
group of luxury consumers that would be difficult to obtain randomly from the entire
population. E-rewards maintains various research panels consisting of adults who have
agreed to participate in consumer and marketing research. They are motivated
participants since E-rewards offers “E-Rewards currency” when its panel members
respond to calls for participation. Panel members accumulate currency until they reach
an amount that they can use to redeem it for gift cards, flight miles, or reward points
from various business partners (e.g. Pizza Hut, Blockbuster, Hilton).
The population of interest was female consumers who were at least interested in
prestige clothing brands or experienced purchasing one prestige clothing brand within
the past two years. A stratified sampling method allowed recruitment of an evenly
distributed number of participants from three different income classes: over $100,000,
$55,000 to less than $100,000, and less than $55,000.
Participants were recruited at one point in time (n ¼ 502). The sample of participants
was then randomly divided into two groups for two purposes: scale purification
(n ¼ 249) and scale verification (n ¼ 251).
Questionnaire. In order to facilitate participants’ ability to respond to the items
assessing their perceptions regarding a prestige brand, participants were first asked to
indicate one prestige brand that they favored or were familiar with. Next, they were
asked to respond to the revised 25 item BLI presented in Table II with that prestige
 JFMM brand in mind. To respond to the measure, participants are asked to indicate the one
19,4 point, among seven points, between a pair of bipolar adjectives that described their
perception of the prestige brand. This process followed the procedure outlined by
Christodoulides et al. (2009).

Results
436 Scale purification
Participant characteristics. Participants reflected a range of characteristics. Participants’
ages ranged from 18-74 years (m ¼ 40.82). Income levels ranged from $20,000 to over
$150,000. Participants’ represented individuals residing in 40 different states within the
USA. The majority of the participants (67.1 percent) held undergraduate degrees and was
Euro American (76.3 percent). In terms of occupation, the largest group of participants
(23.3 percent) indicated they were “professionals” holding jobs like academic researchers
or professors, medical doctors, or lawyers.
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EFA was used to obtain latent factor constructs (Bartholomew et al., 2002; Field,
2005) from the 25 items assessing perceived luxuriousness. Principal component
analysis for factor extraction with direct oblimin rotation was employed. Direct oblimin
rotation method was judged to be the appropriate extraction method since the
component correlation matrix indicated the latent factors were interrelated to some
degree (Field, 2005).
To determine the appropriateness of factor analysis, first, an EFA was run and the
correlation matrix (correlation coefficients and p-values) that is produced from this
analysis was reviewed. Specifically, items were examined for p-values (probability
values) greater than 0.05 and correlation coefficients with values higher than 0.9. Three
items, “elitist vs popular to public,” “accessible vs inaccessible”, and “very attractive
vs fairly attractive” were found to have p-values greater than 0.05. As a result, those
three items were removed from further analyses.
Once the three items were deleted, EFA was rerun since the deleted items could
affect the factor structure as well as other statistics. The outputs from the second EFA
were reviewed to assess whether the data met other assumptions including the KMO
statistic (Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy) and Bartlett’s test of
sphericity. The KMO was 0.929 indicating the patterns of correlations were relatively
compact and thus, the factor analysis could produce distinct and reliable factors
(Hutcheson and Sofroniou, 1999; Kaiser, 1974). Bartlett’s test of sphericity showed a
significant level of p-value ( p o 0.000) indicating all the items used in the second EFA
were interrelated with each other and confirming that factor analysis was appropriate.
Normality of the data was checked using skewness and Kurtosis measures which were
acceptable, that is, near a value of ±1.
The decision rule followed for the number of factors to retain was eigenvalues
greater than 0.7 which is the eigenvalue threshold. Factor analyses resulted in seven
factors accounting for 73.304 percent of the total variance. As it was assumed that
items with factor loadings of 0.40 or above had practical significance (Hair et al., 1998),
items were reviewed for factor loadings lower than 0.40. Loadings were also examined
to assess whether there were items with low communalities ( o 0.30) (Hair et al., 1998).
No item loading met both criteria. All factors loadings ranged from 0.426 to 0.859. All
communalities ranged from 0.551 to 0.781.
Since the second EFA did not indicate any problems according to the specified
criteria, the results of the second EFA formed the basis to conduct CFA. Therefore, the 22
 retained items was subjected to CFA for the purpose of further refining measurement Brand luxury
items and to derive latent structures. index
CFA. CFA was conducted to test the latent constructs that emerged from the EFA.
CFA is a statistical method to specify models delineating how measured variables reflect
certain latent variables (Thompson, 2004). Since the EFA results showed seven factors
(i.e. “uniqueness,” “quality,” “extended-self,” “tradition,” “accessibility,” “famous,”
“noticeable”) , the initial measurement model (i.e. seven factors with 22 items) was 437
assessed using AMOS 18.0. Each model was submitted to CFA until each indicated the
best model fit considering item normality, regression path weights (significance of
unstandardized factor loadings), standardized factor loadings, squared multiple
correlations (SMCs), item-to total correlations, average variance extracted (AVE),
composite reliability, and discriminant validity. These criteria were collectively used to
judge whether to delete an item or not.
Model fit was evaluated via the goodness of fit index (GFI), adjusted goodness of
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fit index (AGFI), normative fit index (NFI), non-normed fit index (NNFI), comparative fit
index (CFI), and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA). Model fit is
considered to be satisfactory if values of GFI and AGFI are close to 1.00 (Byrne, 2001);
NFI, NNFI, CFI are equal to or greater than 0.90; and RMSEA values equal to or less
than 0.08 (Hair et al., 1998).
Significance values of each regression path weight ( p-value) were reviewed
to determine if p-values were less than 0.05. In addition, standardized factor loadings
( β- value) of 0.40 or above are considered to have practical significance (Hair et al.,
1998), therefore any item revealing factor loadings less than 0.40 were deleted.
Item SMCs indicate communalities of each item which explain variability in each
item accounted for by the designated factor. SMC of 0.30 was reported to be a minimal
acceptable cut-off point (Hair et al., 1998), thus any item having SMC less than 0.3
was deleted.
In investigating the measurement model resulting from the EFA, the p-value of
regression path weights were all significant. However, since the model fit indices of the
initial seven-factor confirmatory factor model did not reach acceptable thresholds, items
were examined for deletion using the previous outlined criteria. Three items (i.e. “very
noticeable vs fairly noticeable,” “upper class vs upper-middle class,” and “famous vs
recognized”) exhibited SMC less than 0.3 and were removed from further analyses.
After this modification, the model consisted of five latent variables. These variables
were labeled “uniqueness,” “quality,” “extended-Self,” “accessibility,” and “tradition.”
Model fit indices revealed that GFI was 0.869, NFI was 0.882, NNFI was 0.913, CFI was
0.927, and RMSEA was 0.074. Composite reliability, AVE were checked and all values
except a latent factor of “Uniqueness” were in acceptable ranges. Composite
reliabilities of the four latent factors’ (i.e. “quality,” “Extended-self,” “accessibility,”
and “tradition”) were all above 0.7 and AVEs were all greater than 0.5. Composite
reliability and AVE of “Uniqueness” were 0.705 and 0.446, respectively. Since AVE of
uniqueness was less than 0.5, the latent factor of uniqueness was deleted. Thus, four
factors (“quality,” “extended-Self,” “accessibility,” and “tradition”) were retained.
In order to gain better compatibility of the model, the modification index was
checked. After checking it several times, three items “Elegant vs Beautiful” (of the
quality dimension of the scale), “original vs kitche,” and “extremely pleasing vs
pleasing” (of the extended-self dimension) were removed from further analyses.
In addition, “Best quality vs good quality” and “superior vs Better” were correlated,
 JFMM thus they were allowed to covary. “Very Influential vs Fairly Influential” and “very
19,4 powerful vs Fairly powerful” were also allowed to covary due to their high correlation.
At last, the modification indices indicated that two items “exquisite vs tasteful” and
“very stunning vs fairly stunning” were highly correlated. These two factors composed
the “Hedonism” dimension of the original BLI. Thus, these two items were located as a
new latent factor and the new model with five factors were submitted to CFA for trial.
438 A χ2 test revealed that the model fit for this new five latent variable-model
(CMIN ¼ 90.342, df ¼ 55, CMIN/df ¼ 1.705, GFI ¼ 0.948, NFI ¼ 0.952, NNFI ¼ 0.969,
CFI ¼ 0.979, and RMSEA ¼ 0.053) was significantly better than the initial four latent
variable-model (CMIN ¼ 103.458, df ¼ 57, CMIN/df ¼ 1.815, GFI ¼ 0.941, NFI ¼ 0.945,
NNFI ¼ 0.965, CFI ¼ 0.974, and RMSEA ¼ 0.057).
Therefore, the final measurement model included five latent factors labeled quality,
extended-self, hedonism, accessibility, and tradition. Items belonging to each factor are
displayed in Table III. In addition, χ2 difference tests confirmed that the final version of
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the model was significantly improved from the initial version.

Convergent validity was assessed using AVE data. AVE indicates the amount of
variance accounted by each construct versus the amount of variance caused by
measurement error. If the AVE value of a construct is over 0.5, then the variance
accounted by the construct is greater than the variance due to measurement error and
convergent validity is supported (Fornell and Larcker, 1981). AVEs for the five factors
were: 0.62 for extended-self, 0.64 for quality, 0.69 for hedonism, 0.5 for accessibility, and
0.53 for tradition. Composite reliabilities were 0.88 for quality, 0.83 for extended-self,
0.81 for hedonism, 0.67 for accessibility, and 0.69 for tradition (see Table IV).
Distinctiveness among the five latent factors was measured using χ2 tests and
the SEM-based alternative approach. χ2 tests between each latent factor were all
significant, thus supporting the assumption that the five dimensions were distinct from
each other. Next, a SEM-based alternative approach to discriminant validity was run
holding the model unconstrained (the correlation between two constructs is free) and
constraining the correlation between constructs to 1. If the χ2 difference test reveals the
two models differ significantly, the constructs differ (Bagozzi et al., 1991). Results
supported that the five constructs differed significantly from each other. In other
words, discriminant validity of the final model was affirmed.

Latent factors Item no. Item

Quality X9 Hand crafted vs mass manufactured

X11 Best quality vs good quality
X12 Very sophisticated vs fairly sophisticated
X13 Superior vs better
Extended-self X17 Very influential vs fairly influential
X18 Very powerful vs fairly powerful
X20 Highly regarded vs well-regarded
Hedonism X14 Exquisite vs tasteful
X16 Very stunning vs fairly stunning
Table III. Accessibility X3 Very expensive vs fairly expensive
Items for each latent X5 Very exclusive vs fairly exclusive
factor for the Tradition X23 Timeless vs high fashion
modified BLI X25 Heritage vs emerging
 Standardized Composite Cronbach’s Variance
Brand luxury
Constructs Item loading SMC reliability α extracted index
Quality X9 0.67 0.45 0.88 0.87 0.64
X11 0.81 0.65
X12 0.83 0.69
X13 0.87 0.76
Extended- 439
self X17 0.79 0.63 0.83 0.87 0.62
X18 0.72 0.51
X20 0.84 0.71
Hedonism X14 0.82 0.67 0.81 0.84 0.69
X16 0.84 0.70
Accessibility X3R 0.65 0.43 0.67 0.67 0.50
X5R 0.76 0.58
Tradition X23 0.67 0.45 0.69 0.69 0.53 Table IV.
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X25 0.78 0.61 Confirmatory factor

Notes: Composite reliability ¼ (∑ standardized loading)2/((∑ standardized loading)2+∑ measurement) analysis – Model 1
error. Variance extracted ¼ (∑ standardized loading)2/((∑ standardized loading)2+∑ measurement error) (Purification Sample)

Scale validation
The scale purification procedure resulted in five factors and 13 items. The five-factor
model was examined for scale validation with the other half of the data set (n ¼ 251).
Participant characteristics. Demographic characteristics of the second set of
participants were similar to the characteristics of the first set. Participants’ income
levels were alike. For example, the percentage of participants with income levels
between $55,000 and $100,000 was approximately 37 percent (first sample) and
35 percent (second sample). Participants representing income levels of over $100,000
was 40 and 44 percent, respectively. In terms of education levels, four-year college
graduates represented 37 percent of both samples. The major ethnic group was Euro
American for both groups (76.3 percent in first sample, 81.1 percent of second sample).
The age distribution also showed similarity between the samples as the percentage of
individuals within each age group (i.e. 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s) was approximately 20 percent
for both groups.
CFA. The 13-item and five-factor model was submitted to CFA and evaluated to
determine the model fit with the new data. Model fits revealed acceptable ranges,
χ2 ¼ 90.401(53) ( p o 0.000), GFI ¼ 0.948, NFI ¼ 0.947, NNFI ¼ 0.966, CFI ¼ 0.977, and
RMSEA ¼ 0.053. Path weights were all significant and factor loadings ranged from
0.60 to 0.82. SMCs were all above 0.3. Reliabilities (W 0.7) were all satisfactory except
“Accessibility” (Cronbach’s α ¼ 0.65) and AVEs ( W0.5) were all satisfactory. Again,
χ2 difference tests supported that each construct of the modified BLI was distinct from
others. Tables V and VI present comparisons of the results from the purification and
validation procedures.

Discussion
The primary purpose of this research was to revise the original BLI developed by
Vigneron and Johnson (2004) to provide a practical tool for assessing consumer’s
perception of the luxurious of a brand. The original BLI was revised through mini-FGIs
and further tested and developed through scale purification and verification
 JFMM procedures. The modified BLI contains five dimensions (i.e. quality, extended-self,
19,4 hedonism, accessibility, tradition). The number of the dimensions remained the same as
the original conceptualization (i.e. conspicuousness, uniqueness, quality, hedonism,
extended-self), however, the contents of those dimensions differed (see Table VII).
The modified BLI had two major differences from the original. First, the revised
scale contained an accessibility dimension reflecting items from the previous
440 conspicuousness and uniqueness dimensions of the former scale and eliminating these
two dimensions as unique components of luxuriousness. Second, a new dimension,
labeled tradition, was added. Then, the other three dimensions – quality, extended-self,
and hedonism – were retained from the original BLI with a slight change in the item
numbers. These results are consistent with Christodoulides et al. (2009) who found that
the dimensions of conspicuousness and uniqueness were the most problematic.

Dimensions of the revised scale

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The quality dimension assesses concerns about quality aspect of a brand. This
dimension focusses on consumers’ evaluation of attributes of a product encompassing
product material and construction. The extended-self dimension is concerned with how
well a prestige brand indicates the social status of owners of the brand. This dimension
reflects the symbolic function of luxury products which fulfill consumers’ desire for
self-enhancement, role position, group membership, and ego identification (Vickers and
Renand, 2003). The hedonism dimension is associated with sensory experience of the
aesthetic components or sensual pleasures. This dimension measures the visual and
physical appeal of a brand.
The accessibility dimension measures how readily available the brand is to
consumers. This dimension includes two components: expensiveness and exclusiveness.
That participants linked these items together suggests that for them, expensive products

Fit statistics Model fits in purification sample Model fits in validation sample Desired value

χ2
90.342 90.401
df 53 53
Table V. GFI 0.948 0.948 Close to 1.00
Comparison NFI 0.952 0.947 0.90 or higher
with purification NNFI 0.969 0.966 0.90 or higher
and validation CFI 0.979 0.977 0.90 or higher
samples – model fits RMSEA 0.053 0.053 0.08 or lower

Composite reliability Coefficient α Variance extracted

Construct P V P V P V

Quality 0.88 0.84 0.87 0.85 0.64 0.57

Extended-self 0.83 0.80 0.87 0.84 0.62 0.58
Table VI. Hedonism 0.81 0.82 0.84 0.82 0.69 0.69
Comparison with Accessibility 0.67 0.66 0.67 0.65 0.50 0.50
purification Tradition 0.69 0.74 0.69 0.73 0.53 0.59
and validation Notes: P, purification sample, V, validation Sample. Composite reliability ¼ (∑ standardized loading)2/
samples – ((∑ standardized loading)2+∑ measurement error). Variance extracted ¼ (∑ standardized loading)2/
reliabilities and AVE ((∑ standardized loading)2+∑ measurement error)
 Original BLI
Dimensions Items
Quality Crafted vs manufactured
Upmarket vs luxurious
Best quality vs good quality
Sophisticated vs original
Superior vs better
Extended self Leading vs influential
Very powerful vs fairly
powerful
Rewarding vs pleasing
Successful vs well-regarded
Hedonism Exquisite vs tasteful
Attractive vs glamorous
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Modified BLI
Brand luxury
Dimensions Items (item code) index
Quality Hand crafted vs mass
manufactured
Best quality vs good quality
Very sophisticated vs fairly
sophisticated 441
Superior vs better
Extended self Very influential vs fairly influential
Very powerful vs fairly powerful
Highly regarded vs well-regarded
Hedonism Exquisite vs tasteful
Very stunning vs fairly stunning

Stunning vs memorable
Conspicuousness Conspicuous vs noticeable Accessibility Very expensive vs fairly expensive
Popular vs elitist Very exclusive vs fairly exclusive
Affordable vs extremely
expensive
For wealthy vs for well-off
Uniqueness Fairly exclusive vs very
exclusive
Precious vs valuable
Rare vs uncommon Table VII.
Unique vs unusual Comparison with the
Tradition Timeless vs high fashion original and the
Heritage vs emerging modified BLI

are highly likely to be exclusive and vice versa. High price and exclusivity are essential
attributes of a prestige brand but they do not indicate the same characteristic and should
not be considered synonyms. Products can be high in price but due to the range of retail
channels (e.g. the internet) may not be exclusive in that there can be several methods
of distribution.
Finally, the tradition dimension considers attributes linked to the origin or/and history
of a prestige brand. Previous researchers (Nueno and Quelch, 1998; Dubois et al., 2001)
noted that ancestral heritage and recognizable style (e.g. a Chanel tweed jacket) are
important characteristics of luxury products. The modified BLI assesses this important
component. Thus, the modified BLI encompasses the most important characteristics of
luxuriousness and is an improvement over the original BLI in terms of parsimony.

Implications
The modified BLI can be used to monitor and manage a prestige brand in the market
place. Not only can marketers of prestige brands use the index to assess consumers’
perception of the luxuriousness of their brands but also to position their brand along
the desired dimension of luxuriousness. For example, if marketers assessed their brand
and found that their consumers indicated it has too much accessibility, they could make
adjustments to their distribution decisions. Since there are several dimensions that
compose overall perceived luxuriousness, marketers can be specific in their goals.
Clearly, the modified BLI can be used to measure marketing performance.
 JFMM In addition, the scale can be used to identify specific predictors of each dimension
19,4 of luxuriousness. For example, questions concerning how a specific attribute
(e.g. price, fabrication, style, design) impacts each dimension can be answered as well
as questions concerning how other aspects of the brand such as the use of different
advertising images (e.g. use of violence, use of sex) for their impact on perceived
luxuriousness can be assessed. For example, Marc Jacobs created a campaign that
442 featured a woman posed as a corpse (The Gardian, 2014). Assessing how the use
of this or similar images impact different dimensions of perceived luxurious might
be useful information to obtain prior to the implementation of such campaigns.
With the refinement of this scale perceived luxuriousness can also be investigated
as an antecedent to consumer behaviors. It could be used to predict consumer’s interest
or satisfaction with emerging luxury brands and brand extensions of existing
luxury brands as well as the impact of mergers and acquisitions of other brands by a
luxury brand or vice versa on perceived luxuriousness.
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Limitations and directions for future research

Similar to any other study there are limitations inherent in this research. First, in terms
of the scale modification procedure employed, the initial 25 items were generated
through four mini-FGIs rather than through large focus groups that may have resulted
in broader conceptualization of luxuriousness. For example, the last focus group
interview had the largest number of participants. This group generated more dynamic
discussion than did the small focus groups. In addition, participants in the item
generation phase were homogenous rather than heterogeneous in terms of their
demographic characteristics. It is possible that people working within the luxury
industry such as sales associates, brand managers, or marketers of a prestige brand
may have different ideas about luxuriousness from these consumers. Therefore, large
and diverse focus groups are recommended as needed for further development
and refinement of the BLI. In addition, this study employed only female sample,
thus, the modified scale has limitation to measure both men’s and women’s idea about
brand luxuriousness.
Furthermore, there are a few concerns with using this revised BLI. First, correlations
among the five factors were very high even though discriminant validity was
supported. Second, the revised scale may be too parsimonious, thus there is the
possibility that there are components of the concept of luxuriousness that remain
uncaptured by this version. Third, reliabilities related to the accessibility and tradition
dimensions are at a minimal level of acceptance. Therefore, future researchers need to
be cautious in using this scale and may want to continue to develop the scale to further
improve its reliability and validity.
Another concern is that the perception of luxuriousness may be impacted by
participants’ previous experiences with the brand they were thinking about when
responding to the items. For example, respondents having extensive purchase
experience with the prestige brand were likely to be influenced by their experiences
when responding to the measure. If they had a negative experience with the brand for
any reason, they may have viewed the brand as less luxurious especially if that
experience was relatively recent. Or some participants may not like the most recent
designs offered by the brand and this may have influenced their ratings of
luxuriousness as it might be difficult to think a brand is aesthetically not pleasing but
still luxurious.
 Testing the revised BLI using a broader geographic base would also be useful to Brand luxury
assess its applicability to markets outside of the USA. It is possible that the measure is index
limited to use in western markets and with the successful expansion of luxury brands
into eastern markets, it would be useful to test its applicability there.

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Further reading
Kocak, A., Abimbola, T. and Ozer, A. (2007), “Consumer brand equity in a cross-cultural
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replication: an evaluation of a scale”, Journal of Marketing Management, Vol. 23 No. 1,

pp. 157-173.

About the authors

Jieun Kim, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Fashion Business in the School of
Business Administration at the Sejong Cyber University. Her research interests are luxury
clothing fashion market, brand equity and relationship marketing. Jieun Kim is the
corresponding author and can be contacted at: jkim@sjcu.ac.kr
Dr Kim K. Johnson, PhD, is a Professor in the Department of Design, Housing, and Apparel, at
the University of Minnesota. Her research interests include consumer behavior, retailing, and
social psychology.

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