The posh, the paradoxical and the phony: Are there individual differences between consumers of luxury, masstige and counterfeit brands?

This research furthers our understanding of consumers of masstige brands and shows how they are different from consumers of luxury and counterfeits. Our work brings out differences in these consumers through three cognition-based constructs – cognitive goals (maximization), cognitive style (attitude towards contradictions), and cognitive control (perceived behavioral control). We show that consumers who buy luxury brands are maximizers with a negative attitude towards contradictions and low perceived behavioral control. Independent masstige brand buyers are satisficers and have a positive attitude towards contradictions. Consumers who prefer masstige brand extensions have satisficing as their strategy. They have both a positive attitude towards contradictions and positive perceived behavioural control. Finally, counterfeit-prone consumers are characterized by a high perceived behavioral control (PBC). The significant contribution of our work is that we distinguish between the purchase intentions of the two types of masstige brands and simultaneously study them with luxury brands and counterfeits.