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Journal of Marketing Research

1-11
Customization in Luxury Brands: ª American Marketing Association 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0022243720943191
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C. Page Moreau, Emanuela Prandelli, Martin Schreier, and Silke Hieke

Abstract
Luxury brands have started to offer consumers the opportunity to customize their exclusive products by making certain aesthetic
decisions, such as the color, fabric, or cut of their products. A robust finding in the marketing literature is that consumers place a
greater value on customized than on standard products because these unique products better fit and communicate their tastes,
preferences, and identity. However, the majority of focal products in these studies fall outside the luxury segment. The authors
demonstrate that consumers’ customization preferences differ between mainstream and luxury brands. In the luxury segment,
consumers pay a premium for the designer’s expertise and the status that it can convey. As such, the consumers’ desire for self-
expression can potentially erode the product’s signaling value. Through a series of four experiments, the authors demonstrate
that luxury brands can benefit from customization but they can also take customization too far. Their findings suggest that brand
managers should allow consumers to make fewer design decisions for luxury versus mainstream brands to preserve the signal
value created by the designer.

Keywords
crowdsourcing, fashion, luxury, mass customization, self-design, signaling, status

The market for personal luxury goods is expanding rapidly,
with expected growth of 3%–5% per year through 2025, for
a total value increase from €320 billion to €365 billion
(D’Arpizio et al. 2019). The composition of the market is shift-
ing in important ways as well. The United States, for example,
has experienced a “changing of the generational guard” as the
growing population of affluent consumers (those with incomes
over $100,000) is now comprised of more Generation Xers than
Baby Boomers (skynewsinternational.com). The middle class
is also becoming a significant force in this market as some
luxury brands shift from prestige to masstige (Chandon, Laur-
ent, and Valette-Florence 2016). As a result, luxury brands are
facing the paradoxical challenge of maintaining an aura of
exclusivity while also targeting the “emerging aspirational
masses” (Chandon, Laurent, and Valette-Florence 2016,
p. 299; Kahn 2014).
To maintain their prestige while simultaneously engaging
with a broader audience, some notable brands are leveraging
technology to offer consumers a custom experience. Burberry,
for example, has offered web-optimized customization to
enable consumers to design their own trench coat. For a sig-
nificant premium, consumers can go online to Burberry
Bespoke and choose the color, fabric, cut, and lining to create
a one-of-a-kind product (Kahn 2014). Similarly, Louis Vuitton
allows consumers to design made-to-order bags, and Prada
invites consumers to create unique fragrances. The impact of
these customization initiatives on brand equity, however, is not
well understood. Can luxury firms keep or even enhance the
“dream value” derived from their exclusivity by engaging with
the masses using one of these online tools (Chandon, Laurent,
and Valette-Florence 2016, p. 301)? While customization
might enhance the uniqueness of their luxury offerings, it may
also simultaneously harm the value of these products by
decreasing their recognizability. Through a series of four stud-
ies, our research demonstrates that luxury firms can include
customization in their business models if they are thoughtful
about the type and number of design decisions offered to
consumers.
C. Page Moreau is John R. Nevin Professor of Marketing, Wisconsin School of
Business, University of Wisconsin (email: page.moreau@wisc.edu). Emanuela
Prandelli is LVMH Associate Professor of Fashion and Luxury Management,
Department of Management and Technology, ICRIOS, Bocconi University
(email: emanuela.prandelli@unibocconi.it). Martin Schreier is Professor of
Marketing, Department of Marketing, WU Vienna University of Economics
and Business (email: martin.schreier@wu.ac.at). Silke Hieke is Senior
Research and Customer Experience Consultant, Digitalberatung GmbH and
former Research and Teaching Associate, Department of Marketing, WU
Vienna University of Economics and Business (email: sh@digitalberatung.at).
2 Journal of Marketing Research XX(X)
Research by Fuchs et al. (2013) suggests that luxury brands
should be wary when inviting consumers into the design pro-
cess. Their research shows that consumer demand for luxury
fashion brands fell substantially when the products were known
to be crowdsourced rather than designed in-house by the firm’s
professional designers. Consumers in their studies believed that
the crowdsourced products—products designed by other con-
sumers—were of inferior quality and were less capable of con-
veying status than their professionally designed counterparts
(Fuchs et al. 2013). This finding follows from the fact that
professional designers are often perceived to hold a significant
skill advantage over consumer–designer because of their train-
ing, experience, and knowledge (Moreau and Herd 2010).
Customization platforms, in contrast, enable consumers to
modify professionally designed products by making certain
design decisions using an online toolkit. Importantly, the firm
subsequently produces and sells that product only to the
consumer who designed it (Franke, Schreier, and Kaiser
2010). Considering that this customization enables firms to offer
professionally designed yet individualized, one-of-a-kind prod-
ucts to consumers, luxury brands may benefit from embracing
this approach. Essentially, customization may further enhance
the perceived exclusivity of the luxury product by making it
even more unique. However, before addressing our primary
research question of whether and how luxury brands can benefit
from customized offerings, we must first define what we mean
by luxury brands and consumers’ motivations for buying them.
Luxury Brands
In keeping with prior work, we define luxury brands as those
that bestow prestige on consumers who simply display and/or
use them (Han, Nunes, and Drèze 2010; Wang and Griskevi-
cius 2014; Wiedmann, Hennigs, and Siebels 2009). Luxury
brands are considered “emotionally significant stimuli” and
have the ability to evoke hedonic responses from consumers
who connect with them (Hagtvedt and Patrick 2009; Pozharliev
et al. 2015).
A considerable amount of research has examined why con-
sumers buy or aspire to buy luxury brands (see Chandon, Laur-
ent, and Valette-Florence 2016, pp. 300–301). A recent review
article on luxury brands provides an overview of the five pri-
mary theories that have been used to explain consumers’ luxury
brand consumption (Ko, Costello, and Taylor 2019). Dating
back to Veblen’s (1899) theory of conspicuous consumption,
all five theories are largely social in nature and describe con-
sumers’ desire to signal information to both themselves and
others through the acquisition and consumption of luxury prod-
ucts.1 Specifically, the consumption of these prestigious prod-
ucts can signal status, wealth, power, class, taste, and
accomplishment to the appropriate audience, including oneself
(Berger and Ward 2010; Han et al. 2010; Ko et al. 2019). The
1
The other four theories are self-concept theory, social comparison theory, the
theory of the extended self, and the theory of uniqueness (see Ko et al. 2019).
consumption of luxury brands can also signal important infor-
mation about the identity of the user, including the groups to
which the consumer belongs and those from which the con-
sumer dissociates (Belk 1988; Escalas and Bettman 2003;
Kleine, Kleine, and Allen 1995; Richins 1999; Wang, John,
and Griskevicius 2015; White and Dahl 2006, 2007). In doing
so, these brands can enhance consumers’ self-esteem (Chan-
don, Laurent, and Valette-Florence 2016; Han et al. 2010;
Vickers and Renand 2003; Wang and Griskevicius 2014) and
offer them dreams of a better life (Hagtvedt and Patrick 2009;
Pozharliev et al. 2015).
Luxury brands, compared with their more mainstream coun-
terparts, provide these psychological benefits to consumers
because they are perceived to carry a premium price and to
be higher in quality, more exclusive, and rare (Bruce and Kratz
2007; Dubois, Laurent, and Czellar 2001; Fuchs et al. 2013; Ko
et al. 2019; Wiedmann, Hennigs, and Siebels 2009). How, then,
are these psychological benefits affected when luxury brands
allow consumers to customize their offerings? The answer to
this question is not a straightforward one, as we highlight in the
following section.
Luxury Brands and Customization
To understand the effects of customization on luxury brands, it is
first important to distinguish between “Design-It-Yourself” and
“Do-It-Yourself” (Kahn 2014). The luxury brands that offer cus-
tomization to their consumers still maintain control over all of the
production process. As such, the objective quality of the materials
and craftsmanship should be unaffected by the availability of
online customization. The issue, however, is that luxury brands
often maintain their design equity by distancing themselves from
their end consumers and adopting the stance of a pompous expert
(Fuchs et al. 2013; Kapferer and Bastien 2009). Because custo-
mization gives consumers control over some aspects of the prod-
uct’s design, the influence of the designer’s expertise is
necessarily diminished when consumers substitute their judgment
for that of the professional. Consequently, the consumer may
place a lower value on a luxury product that they have customized
as compared with its professionally designed counterpart. Such a
finding would run counter to nearly all of the existing research on
customization (Franke and Piller 2004; Franke and Schreier 2010;
Townsend, Kaiser, and Schreier 2015).
Conversely, customization may enhance the value a con-
sumer places on a luxury product because the customization
process yields a genuinely exclusive product that will be sold
solely to them. Not only is the product exclusive to that con-
sumer; it is also likely to be unique in its design given the vast
choice space offered by customization. Luis Vuitton, for exam-
ple, reduces the probability than any two customers will design
the same bag by letting them choose among eight types of
leather, five different shapes, 26 colors, and two sizes (moder-
nwearing.com 2013). Guerlain allows consumers to choose
among more than 1,200 different combinations to make their
own customized lipstick and paired case. The number of
options ensures the uniqueness of each offering, a trait valued
Moreau et al.
by luxury consumers (Wiedmann, Hennigs, and Siebels 2009).
As Stylist Magazine put it (2010), “Owning a Prada bag in the
first instance is an honour, but owning one personalised to you
is what dreams are made of.” With luxury brands becoming
more ubiquitous, perceptions of rarity, exclusivity, and unique-
ness take on more importance. These perceptions seem to be
especially relevant for millennials, who place less weight on
mere exclusivity and more on a search for true uniqueness
(DeLeon 2018).
This discussion highlights the tension that customization
creates for luxury brands. Consumers who choose to customize
luxury products can access their own, unique self-knowledge to
inform their decisions during the design process. Leveraging
this knowledge helps consumers create a truly unique product
that better fits their tastes and preferences than an off-the-shelf
equivalent (Franke and Piller 2004; Salvador, De Holan, and
Piller 2009; Schreier 2006; Von Hippel and Katz 2002).
Indeed, uniqueness and preference fit are among the factors
that explain the premium that consumers are willing to pay for
a customized product (Franke and Schreier 2008). Such pre-
miums have been identified in categories as diverse as watches,
sports shoes, skis, granola, backpacks, and apparel (cf. Town-
send, Kaiser, and Schreier 2015). However, none of the focal
products in these studies would be considered members of the
luxury segment. Customization in this segment requires con-
sumers to substitute their own design judgment for that of the
professional designers employed by firms who have carefully
cultivated their design equity. This difference between main-
stream and luxury brands may have significant implications for
the design of customization toolkits.
Toolkits in the real world differ in the extent to which con-
sumers can depart from the professionally designed model. The
more product attributes that can be customized and the more
design options available for each attribute, the higher the poten-
tial solution space and, thus, the design freedom granted to the
consumer–designer (Franke, Schreier, and Kaiser 2010; Salva-
dor, De Holan, and Piller 2009; Von Hippel and Katz 2002). For
mainstream brands, design freedom has been shown to increase
purchase intentions monotonically (Franke, Schreier, and Kaiser
2010). However, in the luxury market, we propose that the rela-
tionship between design freedom and purchase intentions may
become more complex as the trade-off between a consumer’s
own preferences and those of the professional designer become
more pronounced. While a consumer may value the ability to
make certain design decisions, even in the luxury market, too
much design freedom may be viewed as a detriment to design
equity. As a result, we hypothesize the following:
H1a: For mainstream customized products, the relationship
between design freedom and purchase intentions is positive
and linear.
H1b: For luxury customized products, the relationship
between design freedom and purchase intentions is non-
linear, following an inverted U-shaped pattern.
We test this hypothesis in Study 1.
3
Study 1: Adidas versus Hermès Sneakers
Method
In Study 1, we recruited 317 students (Mage ¼ 24.54 years)
from a major European university to participate in a study in
exchange for the chance to win Amazon coupons. Each respon-
dent was randomly assigned to one of six conditions in a 2
(brand: mainstream vs. luxury)  3 (design freedom: none
vs. low vs. high) between-participants design experiment admi-
nistered in a lab setting on a computer. Hermès served as the
luxury brand, and Adidas represented the mainstream fashion
industry; sneakers were used as the focal product category.
At the outset of the experiment, participants in all conditions
received a short introduction informing them that [Hermès/
Adidas] would be offering a new sneakers model as part of its
upcoming Fall/Winter collection. This new model, which was
identical across conditions, was depicted from different angles
in a series of color pictures (the model was pretested to be
consistent with both the Hermès and Adidas brands). Partici-
pants then indicated on a seven-point scale the extent to which
they liked this product (1 ¼ “dislike,” and 7 ¼ “like”).
Participants in the customization conditions (high vs. low
design freedom), were also informed that they could customize
the sneakers. For those in the high design freedom condition,
participants learned that [Hermès/Adidas] provides customers
with many degrees of design freedom to personalize almost all
features of the sneakers according to their taste and prefer-
ences. In particular, customers were informed that they could
select the color and material of the laces and of the heel tab of
the shoes, and any other modular element of the upper shoe. In
addition, customers could change the color, size, shape, and
material of the sole, and they could even define a different form
of the shoe’s overall shape. They could also put their own
initials on the tongue inside the sneakers. Participants learned
that all these customizations would be implemented through a
user-friendly online toolkit (easy and intuitive to use for any
customer).
Participants in the low design freedom condition were told
that [Hermès/Adidas] provides customers with a few degrees of
design freedom to personalize selected features of the sneakers
according to their taste and preferences, while maintaining the
basic core product design of the specific [Hermès/Adidas]
sneakers shown to them. In particular, customers were
informed that they could select the color and material of the
laces and of the heel tab of the shoes. They could also put their
own initials on the tongue inside the sneakers. Again, partici-
pants learned that all these customizations would be implemen-
ted through a user-friendly online toolkit (easy and intuitive to
use for any customer).
Participants in the control condition (no design freedom), in
contrast, learned that they could purchase exactly the design
shown in the picture (with no possibility to change the snea-
kers’ design). Participants in all conditions then responded to
two dependent measures capturing purchase intentions for the
respective sneakers: “How likely is it that you would purchase
4 Journal of Marketing Research XX(X)
Purchase Intent
(1 = "low," and 7 = "high")
7 expectations, this main effect is not surprising if one assumes a
6 5.43
5
4.81 4.82
4.1
4 3.29
3.18
3 intent for customizable versus standard off-the-shelf sneakers
2 (Mhigh ¼ 4.81 vs. Mlow ¼ 4.82 vs. Mnone ¼ 3.23). While this
1 effect emerged in both the high and low design freedom con-
Mainstream brand: Adidas Luxury brand: Hermès
No customizaon Low customizaon Full customizaon
Figure 1. How self-customization affects purchase intent for a
product in the context of a luxury versus a mainstream brand
(Study 1).
these sneakers for the next season?” and “How probable is it
that you would purchase these sneakers for the next season?”
Answers were expressed on a Likert scale (1 ¼ “unlikely/
improbable,” and 7 ¼ “likely/probable”) and averaged for fur-
ther analysis (r ¼ .85).
A series of control and manipulation checks followed:
(1) “How would you describe the brand [Hermès/Adidas]?”
(1 ¼ “not at all luxurious,” and 7 ¼ “very luxurious”),
(2) “According to the above description of the product, how
customizable are the sneakers presented to you? That is, how
much of the sneaker design can you change before pur-
chasing?” (1 ¼ “not at all customizable. Nothing can be
changed,” 4 ¼ “somewhat customizable. A few things can
be changed,” and 7 ¼ “totally customizable. A lot can be
changed”). Finally, respondents reported their age and gender.
Findings
Manipulation checks. A series of 2 (brand: mainstream vs. lux-
ury)  3 (design freedom: none vs. low vs. high) ANOVAs
confirmed the effectiveness of the manipulations. For the item
capturing perceptions of brand luxury, the main effect of the
brand was significant (MAdidas ¼ 3.65 vs. MHermès ¼ 6.31;
F(1,311) ¼ 482.27, p < .001). For the item capturing perceptions
of design freedom, the predicted main effect of the design
freedom manipulation emerged (F(2,311) ¼ 213.85, p < .001).
In particular, participants felt they had more design freedom (1)
in the high versus low design freedom conditions (Mhigh ¼ 5.66
vs. Mlow ¼ 4.39, p < .001) and (2) in the low versus none
design freedom conditions (Mnone ¼ 2.19, p < .001). Finally,
participants did not differ in their liking of the focal brands
(MAdidas ¼ 5.65 vs. MHermès ¼ 5.50; F(1,311) ¼ 1.63, p ¼ .20).
Purchase intent for the respective sneakers. We used a 2 (brand:
mainstream vs. luxury)  3 (design freedom: none vs. low vs.
high) ANOVA to test whether design freedom differentially
influenced consumers’ purchase intentions for luxury and
mainstream brands (see Figure 1). The results first revealed a
main effect of the brand manipulation. with participants report-
ing higher purchase intentions for Adidas sneakers than for
Hermès sneakers (MAdidas ¼ 4.54 vs. MHermès ¼ 4.07, F(1,311) ¼
6.85, p < .01). Given that brands influence consumers’ price
downward sloping demand curve. Second, we find a main
effect of the design freedom factor (F (2,311) ¼ 43.88, p <
.001). In particular, participants indicated a higher purchase
ditions (ps < .001), the two customization conditions them-
selves did not differ significantly between each other (p ¼ .76).
Most importantly, for our test of H1, the results also revealed
a significant interaction between design freedom and brand
(F(2,311) ¼ 9.24, p < .001). As predicted by H1a, design freedom
positively influenced purchase intentions for Adidas sneakers,
with those in the high design freedom condition reporting
greater purchase intentions than those in the low design free-
dom condition (Mhigh ¼ 5.43 vs. Mlow ¼ 4.81, p ¼ .018) and
with those in the low design freedom condition reporting
greater purchase intentions than those in the control condition
(Mnone ¼ 3.18, p < .001). Consistent with H1b, however, we
found a different pattern of effects for the Hermès brand: while
participants in the low design freedom condition indicated
greater purchase intentions than those in the control condition
(Mlow ¼ 4.82 vs. Mnone ¼ 3.29, p < .001), moving from low to
high design freedom significantly reduced participants’ pur-
chase intent for Hermès sneakers (Mhigh ¼ 4.10, p < .01).
Discussion
The results from Study 1 demonstrate that luxury brands can
take the customization process too far. By giving consumers
too much freedom in the design process, these companies
appear to erode some of the design equity they had created.
How does design freedom do so? To answer this question, it is
important to specify—at a more granular level—what it
means to be a luxury brand. The measures proposed by Ko
et al. (2019) are helpful in this regard. According to their
specification, luxury brands offer greater value to consumers
the more that they remain true to the brand’s “espoused
values,” “reflect a timeless design,” serve “as a symbol of
prestige,” and make consumers proud to have others know
that they use the brand (see Ko et al. 2019, p. 408, for their
complete set of measures).
Customization threatens value creation on all four of these
dimensions when the consumer’s idiosyncratic taste is substi-
tuted for that of the designer. It does so because consumers may
not understand the brand’s visual signature, the “subtle cues”
that help identify a brand, “even in the absence of an explicit
logo or brand name” (Han et al. 2010, p. 27). If a consumer
inadvertently removes or negates one of those subtle cues dur-
ing the customization process, the product will likely stray
further from the brand’s value and timelessness and, impor-
tantly, may lose some or all of its signaling value. Thus, brands
must be quite thoughtful in the amount and type of customiza-
tion they allow.
Moreau et al.
The ideal balance between the consumer’s and the
designer’s input into the product’s design likely varies by cus-
tomer segment. In particular, fashion-conscious consumers
may be more averse to replacing a designer’s judgment with
his or her own because of a greater premium placed on the
product’s signal value. While the fashion-consciousness con-
struct is multifaceted, it has been positively associated with
consumers’ prestige sensitivity, their self-confidence, and the
attention they pay to the image of luxury brands (Mulyanegara
2011; Summers 1970; Wan, Youn, and Fang 2001). Consumers
who score higher on fashion-consciousness also tend to be
more involved with clothing styles and with their own appear-
ance (Nam et al. 2007; Wan et al. 2001).
As such, we expect consumers’ fashion-consciousness to
amplify the effects we observed in Study 1, and thus, we pre-
dict a three-way interaction among fashion-consciousness,
brand, and design freedom. Specifically, at high levels of
design freedom, fashion-consciousness should be negatively
related to consumers’ purchase intensions for luxury brands
because these consumers would likely place a greater amount
of weight on the status that the design could convey. Conver-
sely, at these same high levels of design freedom, fashion-
consciousness would likely be positively related to consumers’
purchase intensions for mainstream brands because these con-
sumers have greater confidence in their own sense of style and
would welcome the opportunity to express that style through
more extensive customization. More formally, we advance the
following hypothesis:
H2a: At high levels of design freedom, fashion-consciousness
negatively influences purchase intentions for customized lux-
ury products.
H2b: At high levels of design freedom, fashion-consciousness
positively influences purchase intentions for customized
mainstream products.
The following study, therefore, is designed to test H2 and to
generalize the effects demonstrated in Study 1 to different
stimuli and to a different location: the heart of luxury fashion,
Milan’s downtown shopping district.
Study 2: Chanel versus Zara
In Study 2, we recruited 297 women aged between 18 and 30
years (Mage ¼ 25.40 years) as they were shopping in the Quad-
rilatero della Moda (“The Four Streets of Fashion”) in down-
town Milan. They knew they were contributing to a relevant
university research project, without getting any monetary com-
pensation for their participation. Each respondent was ran-
domly assigned to one of four conditions in a 2 (brand:
mainstream vs. luxury)  2 (design freedom: high vs. low)
between-participants design experiment. Chanel served as the
luxury brand, and Zara represented the mainstream fashion
industry.
Upon agreeing to participate in the study, women in all of
the conditions received a short introduction informing them
5
that [Chanel/Zara] would be offering a new bag—bauletto—
as part of its upcoming Fall/Winter collection. All participants
were also informed that they could customize the bag accord-
ing to their own preferences. For those in the high design
freedom condition, participants were told that [Chanel/Zara]
was planning to give customers the opportunity to customize
many features of the bag, including the material for the hand-
bag’s body, bottom, and handle, the shape of the bag, and the
adornments for the bag. Participants in the low design freedom
condition were told that [Chanel/Zara] was planning to give
customers the opportunity to customize a few features of the
bag, including the color of the material for the bag’s base and
the selection of several predesigned adornments.
Participants then responded to the primary dependent mea-
sures capturing purchase intentions similar to those used in
Study 2. Specifically, participants indicated how likely they
would be to purchase that type of customized bauletto for next
season and how probable that purchase would be (1 ¼
“extremely unlikely/improbable,” and 7 ¼ “extremely likely/
probable,” r ¼ .95). The two items were averaged to form an
indicator of purchase intentions. Two manipulation checks fol-
lowed: (1) “How would you describe the brand?” (1 ¼ “not at
all luxurious,” and 7 ¼ “very luxurious”) and (2) “When you
think about the customization options described to you in this
study, how much design freedom were you given?” (1 ¼ “very
little,” and 7 ¼ “a great deal”). Finally, respondents reported
their age and their fashion consciousness by indicating the
extent to which they agreed with the following four statements:
“My friends would describe me as fashion–conscious,” “My
friends would tell you that I have a good style,” “My friends
would say that I know what looks good on me,” and “My
friends would tell you that I know how to mix and match
different fashion items” (alpha ¼ .92). The items were aver-
aged to form an indicator of fashion consciousness.
Findings
Manipulation checks. Two 2 (design freedom: low vs. high)  2
(brand: mainstream vs. luxury) ANOVAs confirmed the effec-
tiveness of the manipulations. For the item capturing percep-
tions of brand luxury, the main effect of the brand was
significant (MChanel ¼ 6.24 vs. MZara ¼ 2.87; F(1, 293) ¼
392.9, p < .001). For the item capturing perceptions of design
freedom, the predicted main effect of the design freedom
manipulation emerged (M high ¼ 4.64 vs. M low ¼ 3.73,
F(1, 293) ¼ 18.9, p < .001).
Purchase intent for the customized bag. We used a 2 (design
freedom: low vs. high)  2 (brand: mainstream vs. luxury)
ANOVA to test whether design freedom differentially influ-
enced consumers’ purchase intentions for luxury and main-
stream brands (see Figure 2). The results revealed a main
effect of the brand manipulation with participants reporting
higher purchase intentions for the Zara bauletto than for the
Chanel version (MZara ¼ 3.91 vs. MChanel ¼ 3.44, F(1, 293) ¼
4.40, p < .05). This finding is unsurprising given that the Zara
6 Journal of Marketing Research XX(X)
Purchase Intent
(1 = "low," and 7 = "high")
7 1.27
6 1
4.86
5 4.51
4
2.85
3 2.45
2 -1.4
1
Mainstream brand: Zara Luxury brand: Chanel
Design freedom: low Design freedom: high
Figure 2. How design freedom differentially affects purchase intent
for a self-customized product in the context of a luxury versus a
mainstream brand (Study 2).
bag would be expected to carry a significantly smaller price tag
than the Chanel bag. Importantly, the results also revealed a
significant interaction between design freedom and brand pre-
dicted by H1 (F(1, 293) ¼ 128.3, p < .001). As expected, greater
design freedom yielded higher purchase intentions for the Zara
bag (Mhigh ¼ 4.86 vs. Mlow ¼ 2.85, F(1, 293) ¼ 60.5, p < .001),
while the opposite was true for the Chanel bag (Mhigh ¼ 2.45
vs. Mlow ¼ 4.51, F(1, 293) ¼ 68.0, p < .001).
To test H2, we then added fashion consciousness to the
model, which revealed a negative main effect of fashion con-
sciousness (b ¼ 2.64, t ¼ 2.89, p < .01) as well as the
predicted three-way interaction among design freedom, brand,
and fashion consciousness (b ¼ 1.08, t ¼ 3.18, p < .01).
Overall, the model fit improved significantly with the addition of
the three-way interaction (change in F(1, 289) ¼ 10.1, p < .01). A
floodlight analysis using the Johnson–Neyman technique (Hayes
2013) indicates that the interaction between design freedom and
brand is enhanced for those higher in fashion consciousness.
Specifically, we find that the interaction between brand and
design freedom is significant for participants scoring 3.33 or
higher on the fashion consciousness scale. Further, the effect
becomes stronger as respondents’ fashion consciousness
increases (e.g., b25th percentile of fashion consciousness [4.75] ¼ 3.11,
t ¼ 7.25, p < .001 vs. b75th percentile of fashion consciousness [6.25] ¼
4.73, t ¼ 10.69, p < .001). In support of H2a, the purchase
intentions of the Milanese fashionistas were significantly lower
for the Chanel brand than were those of their less fashion-
conscious counterparts at high levels of design freedom (see
Figure 3). The opposite was true for the Zara brand, thereby
supporting H2b.
Discussion
The results from this study offer additional support for our
basic proposition that luxury brands need to use caution when
offering customization options to the consumer. When the lux-
ury brand’s equity is based on the cachet, expertise, and artistry
of its designers, offering consumers too many customization
options can diminish rather than enhance purchase intentions as
the designer’s judgment is replaced by that of the consumer.
3 2.59
2.37
2.04
2 1.71
0
-1
-0.76
-2
-1.88
-3 -2.36
-2.68
Mainstream brand (Zara) Luxury brand (Chanel)
Figure 3. How fashion consciousness differentially affects the effect
of design freedom per brand tier (Study 2).
This effect is particularly strong for those with high fashion
consciousness who, importantly, are the likeliest target market
for these (customized) luxury brands. This finding further
emphasizes the importance of distinguishing between main-
stream and luxury brands in both the customization literature
and practice.
While purchase intentions are clearly an important factor
predicting the likelihood that the consumer will indeed pur-
chase the customized product, the measures used to capture
purchase intentions presume that the consumer will success-
fully complete the customization process. This presumption,
however, likely overinflates the likelihood that a consumer will
actually purchase the product because there is a significant
chance that the consumer will abandon the customization pro-
cess before it actually ends. Online retailers, such as Nike, face
significant challenges with cart abandonment. Even when con-
sumers are purchasing standard, off-the-rack products, an aver-
age of 69.1% of them leave items in their cart without
completing a purchase (https://blog.salecycle.com/post/the-
remarketing-report-q1-2018/). For those engaged in the custo-
mization process, the percentage is likely much higher.
A number of factors may lead consumers to halt the custo-
mization process prior to its completion, including frustration
experienced during the design process (Metz, Franke, and Mor-
eau 2018). This frustration could be a function of learning how
to use the toolkit itself; however, it may also result from having
too many choices (i.e., choice overload: Iyengar and Lepper
2000; Schwartz 2004). Firms, therefore, should consider the
amount of choice they offer to consumers in terms of the num-
ber of customization decisions the consumer must make as well
as the number of options available for each of those decisions.
In our final two studies, we therefore shift our focus away
from consumers’ purchase intentions for customized products
and, instead, focus on consumers’ preferences for the amount of
design freedom they would like to have during the design pro-
cess. In doing so, we aim to offer further evidence of the ten-
sion between consumers’ desire for a unique, personalized
product and their desire to maintain the signal value offered
by luxury products. If our theoretical argument is correct, con-
sumers should prefer less design freedom when they customize
Moreau et al.
luxury versus mainstream products because of their greater
desire to preserve the product’s ability to signal its brand
identity.
One overt way to signal a luxury product’s brand identity is
through the use of a logo (Berger and Ward 2010; Han et al.
2010). We propose that when a brand logo is prominently dis-
played on a customized product, its presence and visibility will
give the consumer license to develop a more unique and idio-
syncratic product that better fits their personal design prefer-
ences. In short, a prominent brand logo could increase a
consumer’s desire for design freedom during the customization
process for a luxury brand because it preserves the value of the
signal while enabling greater personalization. For mainstream
products, the prominence of the brand logo will have less of an
effect on consumers’ desire for design freedom because the
brand, by definition, has less ability to signal status information
in the first place. As such, consumers are less concerned that
their customization decisions will erode the brand’s signal
value. More formally:
H3: Brand type (luxury vs. mainstream) interacts with brand
logo prominence to influence the desired level of design
freedom such that brand logo prominence increases desired
design freedom for luxury, but not mainstream, products.
We test this hypothesis in the following study.
Study 3: The Moderating Role of Brand
Prominence
Participants in Study 3 were 294 male students recruited at a
major European university who participated in exchange for
course credit or monetary compensation in a series of unrelated
studies (Mage ¼ 22.94 years; female respondents were busy
with another, unrelated study). Upon entering the lab, partici-
pants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions in a 2
(brand type: mainstream vs. luxury)  2 (brand logo promi-
nence: low vs. high) between-participants experiment. Partici-
pants in all conditions were shown a picture of a new model of
sunglasses, portrayed to come from either the upcoming col-
lection of Dior (luxury) or Benetton (mainstream). In addition,
participants in all conditions received a short introduction
informing them that the focal brand offers these sunglasses as
a product that can be self-customized. Participants were then
told that the brand’s well-known logo would either be dis-
played on the outer side of the sunglasses’ arms (high brand
prominence) or would not be visible to an observer (low brand
prominence). All participants then read a description of the
customization process, which explained that, in general, the
solution space can range from minimal (e.g., changing the color
of the lenses) to extensive (e.g., changing the color of the
frames, the shape of the sunglasses, the size of the arms) (orig-
inal stimuli were administered in German). The focal depen-
dent variable in this study was how much design freedom they
would like to have if they were going to customize these
7
sunglasses (1 ¼ “minimal solution space,” and 7 ¼ “maximum
solution space”).
As a manipulation check, participants were asked to indicate
the extent to which they agreed on the item “The [BRAND]-
logo will be clearly visible on the sunglasses” on a seven-point
scale (1 ¼ “strongly disagree,” and 7 ¼ “agree”). They next
responded to an item to capture the perceived brand positioning
(1 ¼ “mainstream,” and 7 ¼ “luxury”). Finally, participants
indicated their fashion confidence and their age and were then
debriefed.
Findings
Manipulation checks. We used two 2 (brand: mainstream vs.
luxury)  2 (brand logo prominence: low vs. high) ANOVAs
to confirm that the brand and the brand prominence manip-
ulations worked as intended. Both models revealed the
anticipated main effect of the manipulation. Specifically,
Dior was perceived as more luxurious than Benetton
(MDior ¼ 5.63 vs. MBenetton ¼ 3.58, F(1, 290) ¼ 135.27,
p < .001), and in the high brand prominence condition, the
brand was, indeed, considered higher in prominence than in
the low brand prominence condition (M high ¼ 4.00 vs.
Mlow ¼ 2.85, F(1, 290) ¼ 26.78, p < .001).
Design freedom. A 2 (brand: mainstream vs. luxury)  2 (brand
logo prominence: low vs. high) ANOVA revealed a significant
main effect of brand. Consistent with our prior results, partici-
pants desired greater design freedom when they were customiz-
ing a mainstream versus a luxury brand (MBenetton ¼ 4.94 vs.
MDior ¼ 4.32, F(1, 290) ¼ 12.00, p ¼ .001). The main effect of
brand logo prominence was not significant (F(1, 290) ¼ .59,
p ¼ .44), but importantly, the interaction hypothesized in H3
was significant (F(1, 290) ¼ 4.75, p ¼ .03). As predicted, parti-
cipants in the luxury brand condition desired greater design
freedom when the brand logo was highly prominent rather than
when it was absent (Mhigh ¼ 4.58, Mlow ¼ 4.04, F(1, 290) ¼ 4.40,
p ¼ .04). For participants in the mainstream brand condition,
brand logo prominence had little effect on their desired design
freedom (Mhigh ¼ 4.81, Mlow ¼ 5.07, F(1, 290) ¼ .99, p ¼ .32;
see Figure 4).
Discussion
The findings from this study highlight the importance of both
the brand and its prominence in consumers’ preferences for
design freedom in a customization task. While consumers still
prefer less design freedom when customizing luxury products,
they are more open to a broader range of options when the
brand is prominently featured on these high-status items.
Essentially, the “badge” of the designer can give the consumer
cover to experiment with a wider range of options in the cus-
tomization task.
The operationalization of brand prominence in this study
was quite overt: the logo either appeared or did not appear
on the outside of the sunglasses. Thus, the brand prominence
8 Journal of Marketing Research XX(X)
Desired Design Freedom
7
6
5.07
4.81
5 4.58
4.04
4 a central piece in this season’s [Valentino/Benetton] collection
3
2
1
Mainstream Brand: Beneon Luxury Brand: Dior
Low brand prominence High brand prominence
Figure 4. How brand prominence (logo manipulation) affects one’s
desire for design freedom in the context of a luxury versus a main-
stream brand (Study 3).
manipulation in this case directly affects a consumer’s ability
to signal to others. However, as we have noted, the brand’s
visual signature can also be used to communicate a brand’s
identity, albeit in a more subtle way (Han et al. 2010). In our
final study, we use this much more subtle manipulation of
brand prominence and expect it to reduce consumers’ desire
for design freedom when customizing luxury products. We
make such a prediction because, unlike the signal sent by the
brand logo manipulation in Study 3, the signal sent by the brand
signature can be overridden by consumers’ customization deci-
sions. More formally:
H4: Brand type (luxury versus mainstream) interacts with
brand signature prominence to influence the desired level of
design freedom such that brand signature prominence
decreases desired design freedom for luxury, but not main-
stream, products.
We test this hypothesis in the following study.
Study 4: The Moderating Effect of a Brand
Signature
Method
Participants in Study 4 were 249 female students recruited
from several leading European universities in exchange for
course credit (Mage ¼ 22.71 years). At the outset of the experi-
ment, participants were randomly assigned to one of four
conditions in a 2 (brand type: mainstream vs. luxury)  2
(brand signature prominence: low vs. high) between-
participants experiment. Valentino served as the luxury brand
and Benetton as the mainstream brand; backpacks were the
focal product category.
Participants in all conditions first received a short introduc-
tion that informed them that the study was about a new back-
pack from [Valentino/Benetton], which would be launched in
the next Fall/Winter season. The backpack was described as
cool and versatile, large enough to carry some books but small
enough to replace a classic handbag. To control for brand logo
prominence, participants were told that they would not find any
logo on the exterior of the backpack.
We manipulated brand signature prominence as follows: in
the high signature prominence condition, participants were
informed that the brand’s designers considered the backpack
and that the backpack would be considered a “signature
product,” meaning that its design would strongly identify the
brand and its current collection. In the low prominence condi-
tion, participants learned that the brand’s designers considered
the backpack a peripheral piece in this season’s [Valentino/
Benetton] collection and that the backpack would not be con-
sidered a “signature product,” meaning that its design would
not strongly identify the brand and its current collection.
In addition, participants in all conditions learned that the
focal brand had also decided to offer its customers the option
of customizing this specific backpack. Next, participants read a
description of the customization process, which explained that,
in general, the solution space could range from minimal (e.g.,
the choice of the backpack’s color, material) to extensive (e.g.,
the choice of the backpack’s color, material, shape, size, dec-
orations). All participants learned that customers would be
using an intuitive, easy-to-use online software to customize the
product and that the brand would subsequently produce and
deliver the backpacks to the customers.
As in Study 3, the focal dependent variable in this study was
how much design freedom they would like to have if they were
going to customize these backpacks (1 ¼ “minimal solution
space,” and 7 ¼ “maximum solution space”). We further cap-
tured participants’ brand perceptions (1 ¼ “mainstream brand,”
and 7 ¼ “luxury brand”) and fashion-consciousness (as mea-
sured in Study 2, alpha ¼ .82). Finally, participants indicated
their age and gender and were debriefed.
Findings
Manipulation checks. A 2 (brand type: mainstream vs. luxury) 
2 (brand signature prominence: low vs. high) ANOVA on the
brand perception measure confirmed the effectiveness of the
manipulation. Participants perceived Valentino to be more lux-
urious than Benetton (MValentino ¼ 5.93 vs. MBenetton ¼ 2.74,
F(1,244) ¼ 663,41, p < .001).
Design freedom. A 2 (brand type: mainstream vs. luxury)  2
(brand signature prominence: low vs. high) ANOVA on parti-
cipants’ desired level of design freedom revealed a significant
effect of the brand type manipulation, such that participants in
the mainstream (Benetton) condition desired more design free-
dom than those in the luxury (Valentino) condition (MBenetton ¼
5.05 vs. MValentino ¼ 3.48, F(1,245) ¼ 80.89, p < .001). This
main effect supports our theorizing by demonstrating that
brand tier influences consumers’ desired level of design free-
dom. Second, the ANOVA revealed a main effect of brand
signature prominence such that participants desired less design
freedom when the brand signature was high rather than low in
prominence (Mhigh ¼ 4.08 vs. Mlow ¼ 4.44, F(1,245) ¼ 4.07,
Moreau et al.
Desired Design Freedom
7
6
5
4.98 5.12
4
3.89
3
3.05
2
1
Beneon (Mainstream Brand) Valenno (Luxury Brand)
Nonsignature product Signature product
Figure 5. How brand signature affects one’s desire for design freedom
in the context of a luxury versus a mainstream brand (Study 4).
p ¼ .045). Importantly, we also found support for the signifi-
cant interaction described in H4 (F(1,245) ¼ 7.66, p < .01). As
predicted, for the luxury backpack, participants desired less
design freedom when brand signature was high rather than low
in prominence (Mhigh ¼ 3.05 vs. Mlow ¼ 3.89, p ¼ .001).
However, for the mainstream backpack, brand signature pro-
minence had no significant effect on desired design freedom
(Mhigh ¼ 5.12 vs. Mlow ¼ 4.98, p ¼ .60; see Figure 5).
General Discussion
According to a recent report by Bain & Company, the online
luxury market has grown more than tenfold since 2004, reach-
ing 10% of the total market by the end of 2018 (D’Arpizio et al.
2019). While this growth has been fueled, in part, by the suc-
cess of customization in categories as diverse as women’s fra-
grances to men’s ready-to-wear clothing, customization has not
been an important source of growth in all luxury categories.
Indeed, some luxury firms whose business model depended on
customized offerings have failed to survive (e.g., Tinker Tai-
lor). D’Arpizio et al. (2019) highlight the need for a better
understanding of customization in the market for luxury goods.
Our research helps fill this gap and explain why some luxury
brands have failed to fully monetize customization: when prod-
ucts have a signaling role, giving customers too many degrees
of design freedom can backfire.
What distinguishes luxury brands from their more main-
stream counterparts is the air of exclusivity and quality that
they exude. These elite perceptions are founded, in part, on
consumers’ perceptions of the expertise contributed by the
products’ designers (Fuchs et al 2013; Moreau and Herd
2010). This “design equity” is often cultivated by creating a
perceived gulf between the designers and the consumers they
serve. Customization, by its very nature, erodes that gulf by
allowing consumers to join with designers in contributing to a
product’s design.
Our research highlights the inherent tension between con-
sumers’ desire for self-expression and their desire to signal
status in the market for customized luxury goods. Study 1
demonstrates that when luxury brands offer low and moderate
levels of customization, consumers respond in much the same
way as they do when mainstream brands offer similar levels of
9
customization: they perceive greater value in the customized
product relative to its off-the-shelf counterparts (Franke, Schre-
ier, and Kaiser 2010). However, at high levels of customiza-
tion, too much of the designer’s judgment can be displaced by
that of the consumer, thereby diminishing the value of the
luxury product. By taking the customization process too far,
luxury brands are in danger of eroding much of the designer
equity they have created. This designer equity is crucial to
brand equity because it contributes to the perceived exclusivity
of the brand. Thus, luxury brand managers must carefully cali-
brate the extent of customization offered. Critically, managers
must identify the sweet spot on the design freedom continuum
that allows the consumer–designer to imbue the product with
enough self-essence while ensuring that enough designer
essence is maintained.
Study 2 reinforces the importance of this lesson for luxury
brands by demonstrating that too much design freedom is par-
ticularly damaging for those in their most attractive target seg-
ment: consumers high in fashion-consciousness. In doing so,
this study sheds additional light on the process underlying the
inverted-U effect. Consumers high in fashion-consciousness
tend to be more concerned with their own appearance, more
sensitive to prestige, and more aware of the image associated
with luxury brands (Mulyanegara 2011; Nam et al. 2007; Sum-
mers 1970; Wan et al. 2001). As such, the more pronounced
effect of design freedom on these consumers suggests that
customization can erode the perceived prestige and signal value
offered by luxury brands.
Study 3, however, suggests that luxury brands can protect
their ability to convey status by making the brand more promi-
nent through overt means (e.g., via the obvious display of brand
logos). By assuring the luxury consumer that others can receive
the status signal that they are sending, these brands can give
their consumers greater license to express themselves through a
more extensive set of customization decisions. However, Study
4 warns that when the brand signature, rather than the brand
logo, is what creates the signal, less design freedom is desired
for luxury brands because the more one customizes, the more
the brand signature is lost. In addition to the substantive gui-
dance, these insights contribute to the customization literature
by demonstrating that the type of customized attribute matters
in a customization task.
Future Research
The four studies presented herein demonstrate the importance
of brand type (luxury versus mainstream) in understanding the
potential value of customization. Whereas prior research has
focused on the value of self-expression to explain consumers’
preference for customized products, we show that the value of
the designer’s expertise and status should also be given con-
siderable weight when designing customization opportunities
in the luxury market. Luxury brand managers must carefully
consider the balance between consumers’ contributions to the
design process and that of the professional designers. The opti-
mal balance for each luxury brand likely depends on several
10
factors, including the product category, the traits of the target
consumers, and the culture of the market.
It is important to note that we have only examined fashion
brands in our work, making it important for future research to
assess whether our findings extend to other types of luxury
goods that tend to carry few brand identifiers (e.g., jewelry).
It could be that the materials themselves (e.g., the metal and the
stones) are capable of signaling status on their own, making
concerns about design freedom less relevant in these cate-
gories. Thus, the more general insight is that luxury brand
managers will need to test and experiment with their own cus-
tomization initiatives to find the point where both consumers
and designers can add value to the design of exclusive products.
Doing so will enable managers to offer additional guidance to
consumers in the customization task, particularly if consumers
are tempted to exploit all of the customization options
provided.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank the editorial team for their truly exceptional gui-
dance; the reviewers for their constructive feedback; Maria Beatrice
Casarosa, Rachele Ciulli, Elena Di Muzio, Francesca Mandrini,
Niccolò Suriano, and Lidia Tinacci for their help with the empirical
work, and Joe Nunes for his feedback on earlier studies for this
research.
Associate Editor
Vladas Griskevicius
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to
the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article.
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