Multivariate Statistical Analysis of Artification Effect on Customer-Based Brand Equity in Luxury Brands

The Arts and Business Relationship model is a strategy used by companies to improve their image (Dell’era 2010; Hoeken 2005; Kottasz et al. 2007, 2008; Pappu and Cornwell 2014; Preece 2010) and to create a positive relationship with potential or current consumers (Brennan et al. 2012; Hetsroni and Tukachinsky 2005; McNicholas 2004; Moir and Taffler 2004). Previous research has indicated that art has the ability to connote exclusivity, sophistication, culture, innovation, taste, luxury, class and prestige (Hagtvedt and Patrick 2008a, 2008b; Lee et al. 2015). Art has been associated with an increase in creativity and imagination for observers (Dewey 1994). Pioneering research by Hagtvedt and Patrick (2008a, 2008b) introduced the concept of art infusion as a spillover effect able to shift luxury perceptions from the arts onto products and to ensure greater brand extension capacity. Ten years later, Carlucci and Schiuma (2018a, 2018b) expanded the notion of art infusion by introducing the concept of art-based management as a knowledge domain for managers, who are thus able both to inspire the internal organization of the company and to embed aesthetic properties in products and/or services. The present study uses the recently introduced concept of artification, which is currently defined as a series of processes that transform the perception of ordinary objects in their relation to contemporary artworks (Heinich and Shapiro 2012; Shapiro and Heinich 2012). This phenomenon is described as a series of social and cultural processes, set in motion over long periods, that challenge commonly accepted criteria defining art. Artification synergistically merges the different contact points a brand can develop with the field of art, from philanthropy and art sponsorship to the creation of corporate collections and creative collaboration with artists (Masè and Cedrola 2017); it is a powerful cultural and social phenomenon that helps explain why some companies, such as those in the luxury industry, exploit the beneficial effect of the arts while at the same time claiming a role as artwork creators (Kapferer 2014). The luxury brand industry has undergone a dramatic change: major structural changes through mergers and acquisitions have transformed small, family-run businesses into financial conglomerates (Kapferer 2014; Lipovetsky and Roux 2003; Roux and Floch 1996). The pressure of globalization, combined with the opening of fast-growing markets in Asia, has led luxury conglomerates to increase sales volumes, thus undermining the impression of rarity, uniqueness and exclusivity that are the key attributes of luxury products (Kapferer 2014; Kapferer and Valette-Florence 2016; Roux and Floch 1996). Luxury businesses are, then, prone to collaborating with the visual arts to sidestep commodification and maintain the fiction of rarity and exclusiveness, as perceived by customers, so that they too can claim to belong to the spheres of arts and culture (Kapferer 2014; Kapferer and Valette-Florence 2016; Riot et al. 2013). Recently restructured and powerful luxury businesses have become similar to companies in the finance, tobacco and oil industries, which are known to invest in the arts to bolster their corporate image and for financial purposes (Kottasz et al. 2007, 2008; Leclair and Gordon 2000). Like businesses in these industries, luxury brands are increasingly becoming involved in such activities as artist collaboration, art sponsorship and philanthropy, corporate art collections and art galleries, and the transformation of shops into art exhibition spaces (Vukadin et al. 2019). Through artification, they are claiming to support the arts by being an integral part of the art world. To test the beneficial effect of artification on luxury brands, this study examines the 2012–14 collaboration of the luxury brand Louis Vuitton with the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. Louis Vuitton was chosen because it is the most valuable luxury brand worldwide (Interbrand 2018), while the focus on the collaboration between the brand and Yayoi Kusama stems from the duration and scope of their collaboration. Since the time of the collaboration, the collection has sold out; brand-sponsored exhibitions and museum retrospectives of Kusama’s work have brought her global recognition as an icon of contemporary pop art and have brought greater visibility to her creations and her personal style. This brand–artist collaboration and the artification effect is tested using a panel of luxury consumers based on the Customer-Based Brand Equity model (CBBE) (Lee et al. 2015; Pappu et al. 2007). In the next section we present a review of the literature on the main concepts mobilized to describe the art–business relationship, from art infusion to art-based management and artification. The methodology and the choice of participants will then be discussed, followed by our main results. The article will conclude with a discussion and the general implications of the findings, together with the limitations of the study and proposals for future research.