Consumer–brand relationship in the phygital age: a study of luxury fashion

Abstract

This study focuses on hybrid consumption experiences that originate from encounters between the physical and the digital realms. The aim is to analyze brand-driven phygital environments to uncover the relationship between consumers and brands that is established within hybrid consumption spaces. Given its exploratory nature, the study adopts a mixed-methods qualitative type of research design; it includes a multiple-case analysis, a diary-based survey, and a focus group, and it concentrates on five phygital projects of four Italian luxury fashion brands. The analysis reveals nine relevant building blocks of phygital brand environments (PBEs) that pertain to the direction of experience, the environmental features, and customers’ reactions. Moreover, the study provides an early interpretative framework regarding the effects that these constituents of PBEs exert on the consumer-brand relationship (CBR). The work uncovers relevant managerial implications highlighting brand-driven phygital spaces as strategic tools for luxury fashion companies to provide consumers with additional relational value that is generated through encounters between physical stores, digital technology, humans and brands.