Luxury consumption : how new dimensions of luxury brand management affect Norwegian generation Z’s attitude towards luxury brands and the intention to acquire them?

Abstract

It is evident that Generation Z will dominate marketing in the next few years. However, there are still limited researches about their buying behavior patterns. The luxury goods consumption among Generation Z is rather undiscovered, and therefore luxury brands may lack the knowledge to attract them. This research investigates the attitude towards luxury and underlying motives of Norwegian Generation Z to purchase luxury goods since the Norwegian luxury consumption market is fairly new and its rise coincided with new luxury branding strategies. The possible factors based on characteristics of Generation Z and new aspects of the luxury brands' marketing profiles were identified as drivers to establish a causal relationship between those drivers and Norwegian Generation Z's attitudes and intention to purchase luxury fashion items. The results show that Norwegian Generation Z is sensitive towards sustainability and may be influenced by social media influencers more than they expect, yet still value traditional attributes of luxury. This research also captured the differences in drivers to purchase luxuries between the genders. Our study suggests that luxury brands need to create specific marketing strategies based on the target group preferences for the Norwegian market to succeed among Norwegian youngsters. Keywords: consumer behavior, Generation Z, Norwegian luxury consumers, luxury brand management, marketing, purchasing intention