The Artification of Luxury: How Art can affect Perceived Durability and Purchase Intention of Luxury Products

Luxury brands are currently addressing the issues arising from the “democratization” of luxury consumption by looking for new ways to reinforce their aesthetic, moral and symbolic value. Along with this challenge, luxury brands are facing the growing consumers’ concern about the social and environmental impact that luxury brands’ activities bring forth. In this chapter, we propose that associating luxury products and brands with the concept of art and artworks might help luxury companies tackle these issues. We start from the definition of luxury and the analysis of the motives behind luxury consumption, and then discuss the role played by sustainability in luxury through an overview of the main characteristics of luxury goods, such as scarcity and durability, that make them be considerable as sustainable in nature. Next, we discuss the idea that luxury and art share some important elements, such as the inherent strong emotional value, the relevance of craftmanship and savoir-faire, and, above all, the idea of durability (defined as the ability of a product to maintain its quality and value over time), which characterizes both luxury products and artworks. In particular, building on this premise as well as on previous studies documenting the existence of the so-called art infusion effect – defined as the general positive effect that the presence of art in product advertising has on product evaluation and perception – we propose that the relevance of the artist’s craftmanship in the process of the artwork creation positively influences consumers’ perceived durability of the product advertised, which, in turn, positively affects consumers’ purchase intention. Results of an experimental study discussed next support our hypothesis. Theoretical contributions of our study and managerial implications of our findings are finally discussed in the chapter.