This thesis helps to address the gap in literature relating to the study of the provision of information to consumers, consumer information search behaviour and consumer information processing and choice behaviour relating to information-intensive products. Throughout the thesis, wine is taken as an example of an information-intensive product. Through a series of four published papers in peer reviewed journals, the thesis examines how firms can control and manipulate the provision of information to consumers and that by restricting the availability of information, the firm can make its target consumers want the product even more. Although secrecy has existed for centuries, as a marketing tool it is relatively new and little is understood about its power or purpose in marketing strategy. The thesis also analyses how consumers process information relating to information-intensive products using mental shortcuts, or heuristics, to substitute price for product quality at increasing rates of product consumption. Finally, the thesis provides a new way in which to segment the luxury wine market based on consumer knowledge together with the timing of consumption. The thesis provides a number of interesting advancements in marketing and consumer behaviour research. The first advancement examines whether secret wine societies are actually that secret at all and finds that they are not; however this finding does not absolve the need for marketers to use secrecy as a marketing tool. The second advancement provides insight into advertising, blogs and consumer innovativeness and finds a positive relationship between attitude toward advertising and consumer innovativeness. The third advancement finds evidence that consumers’ process information by using the price-quality heuristic, for both sighted and blind tasting experiments. Furthermore, the study finds that blind tasting (deliberate thinking) reinforces sighted tasting (automatic thinking) which contributes to judgement errors about product quality. The fourth advancement is to provide a new way to segment the luxury wine market based on consumer objective knowledge, frequency of consumption and timing of consumption. / <p>QC 20160518</p>

<p>Political consumers, by using their consumerism to make political statements, constitute a potential force in changing global consumption patterns towards more sustainable ones. Thus new insights concerning this specific group and its ways of searching for information prior to a purchase decision might help understand the mechanisms behind sustainable consumption choices. This study is based on a series of twelve personal qualitative interviews conducted with Swedish consumers of sustainable goods. These interviews confirmed certain characteristics known to political consumers, such as a high level of commitment, high standards regarding information and the frequent use of labelling schemes. Furthermore this study has shown the complexity experienced by this group of consumers regarding sustainability claims and the role of a chosen “sustainability champion” in helping make sense of this complex information. Finally this study reminds of the significance of respecting the consumer and his trust for a message as well as the need for simple and clear information tools to distinguish proper sustainable goods from others.</p>

Political consumers, by using their consumerism to make political statements, constitute a potential force in changing global consumption patterns towards more sustainable ones. Thus new insights concerning this specific group and its ways of searching for information prior to a purchase decision might help understand the mechanisms behind sustainable consumption choices. This study is based on a series of twelve personal qualitative interviews conducted with Swedish consumers of sustainable goods. These interviews confirmed certain characteristics known to political consumers, such as a high level of commitment, high standards regarding information and the frequent use of labelling schemes. Furthermore this study has shown the complexity experienced by this group of consumers regarding sustainability claims and the role of a chosen “sustainability champion” in helping make sense of this complex information. Finally this study reminds of the significance of respecting the consumer and his trust for a message as well as the need for simple and clear information tools to distinguish proper sustainable goods from others.

Ao analisar o macroambiente no setor de moda, pode-se situar esta indústria em um cenário econômico de competição e de eliminação de fronteiras. Em razão da existência de um grande número de empresas de moda e ao intenso trabalho da mídia, o consumidor está em contato com diversas opções de produtos, preços e facilidades, tornando-se cada vez mais desafiador para uma empresa se destacar nesse mercado. O setor de moda tem como característica a necessidade de renovação e, portanto, o contínuo e cíclico desenvolvimento de produtos. Esta particularidade tem como consequência uma grande influência sobre a gestão, produção, logística e atratividade dos artigos no mercado, que, aliadas à obsolescência, intimamente ligadas às estações do ano, estabelecem para esses produtos um ciclo de vida relativamente curto. Os meios de comunicação tornam-se mecanismos fundamentais para a disseminação da moda, que se revela, na maior parte das vezes, em uma trajetória de uma única via, onde as informações são simplesmente transmitidas ou ditadas. Das transformações no cenário da tecnologia digital da comunicação, emergem novas formas de interação, as mídias sociais. Estas novas tecnologias têm tornado viável uma comunicação contínua entre pessoas e empresas por meio da Internet, que ao valorizar a interação, possibilita que grupos com objetivos comuns se encontrem e possam compartir suas visões e objetivos. Neste contexto, surge um novo modelo de participação colaborativa que pode vir a ser uma ferramenta útil às empresas no desenvolvimento de coleções de moda. Este modelo permitiria, através da comunicação de via dupla, a utilização de opiniões e feedbacks de seus consumidores-alvo para estreitar relações e aperfeiçoar estratégias de segmentação e posicionamento. Pretende-se com o presente trabalho elaborar um estudo sobre a utilização das mídias sociais nas etapas do processo de desenvolvimento de coleções de moda em três diferentes segmentos: a moda exclusiva, o varejo tradicional de moda e o fastfashion. Os resultados demonstraram que as empresas com características mais inovadoras utilizam as mídias sociais com a finalidade de aumentar a visibilidade e o alcance de suas marcas e produtos, apropriando-se de seu potencial de comunicação. Enquanto as que oferecem peças com maior apelo comercial e grande grau de aceitação procuram utiliza-las também com foco na interação, a fim de identificar os desejos vigentes dos consumidores e tentar inseri-los em suas coleções / Analyzing the macro fashion environment, one can situate this industry in economic scenery of competition and frontiers elimination. Due to the presence of a great number of fashion enterprises and the intense media work, the consumer is in contact with several products, prices and convenience options; making it more and more challenging for the enterprise standing out into that market. Fashion sector has, as a characteristic, the need of renewing, and, so, the continuous and cyclical development of products. This particularity has a relatively short life time, as consequence, a great influence on managing, production, logistics and attractiveness of the market article that, allied to the functional obsolescence, strictly linked to the seasons establish, to the products. Means of communication become fundamental mechanisms to fashion dissemination that reveals itself, most of the time, into one way trajectory. From changings in digital technology scenery of communication, there come up new interaction forms, the social media. These new technologies have made the continuous communication viable among people and enterprises by means of Internet, that valuing interaction makes it possible, for groups with common objectives, meeting and sharing their view and goals. Into this context, a new model of collaborative participation comes up, which can be able to aid enterprises, allowing the usage of opinions and feedbacks of their target-consumers, as developing close relations and improving the segmentation strategies and positioning through the double way communication, as being a useful tool to fashion collections development. It is intended, with the present work, to draw up a study on the usage of social media in the process steps of fashion collections development. The results have shown that the companies with the most innovative characteristics utilize social medias in order to grow the visibility and reach of its brands and products, appropriating their communication potential, while the ones that offer bigger commercial appeal parts and great acceptance degree look to utilize them also with interation focus, in order to identify the current consumers wishes and try to insert them into their collections

Ao analisar o macroambiente no setor de moda, pode-se situar esta indústria em um cenário econômico de competição e de eliminação de fronteiras. Em razão da existência de um grande número de empresas de moda e ao intenso trabalho da mídia, o consumidor está em contato com diversas opções de produtos, preços e facilidades, tornando-se cada vez mais desafiador para uma empresa se destacar nesse mercado. O setor de moda tem como característica a necessidade de renovação e, portanto, o contínuo e cíclico desenvolvimento de produtos. Esta particularidade tem como consequência uma grande influência sobre a gestão, produção, logística e atratividade dos artigos no mercado, que, aliadas à obsolescência, intimamente ligadas às estações do ano, estabelecem para esses produtos um ciclo de vida relativamente curto. Os meios de comunicação tornam-se mecanismos fundamentais para a disseminação da moda, que se revela, na maior parte das vezes, em uma trajetória de uma única via, onde as informações são simplesmente transmitidas ou ditadas. Das transformações no cenário da tecnologia digital da comunicação, emergem novas formas de interação, as mídias sociais. Estas novas tecnologias têm tornado viável uma comunicação contínua entre pessoas e empresas por meio da Internet, que ao valorizar a interação, possibilita que grupos com objetivos comuns se encontrem e possam compartir suas visões e objetivos. Neste contexto, surge um novo modelo de participação colaborativa que pode vir a ser uma ferramenta útil às empresas no desenvolvimento de coleções de moda. Este modelo permitiria, através da comunicação de via dupla, a utilização de opiniões e feedbacks de seus consumidores-alvo para estreitar relações e aperfeiçoar estratégias de segmentação e posicionamento. Pretende-se com o presente trabalho elaborar um estudo sobre a utilização das mídias sociais nas etapas do processo de desenvolvimento de coleções de moda em três diferentes segmentos: a moda exclusiva, o varejo tradicional de moda e o fastfashion. Os resultados demonstraram que as empresas com características mais inovadoras utilizam as mídias sociais com a finalidade de aumentar a visibilidade e o alcance de suas marcas e produtos, apropriando-se de seu potencial de comunicação. Enquanto as que oferecem peças com maior apelo comercial e grande grau de aceitação procuram utiliza-las também com foco na interação, a fim de identificar os desejos vigentes dos consumidores e tentar inseri-los em suas coleções / Analyzing the macro fashion environment, one can situate this industry in economic scenery of competition and frontiers elimination. Due to the presence of a great number of fashion enterprises and the intense media work, the consumer is in contact with several products, prices and convenience options; making it more and more challenging for the enterprise standing out into that market. Fashion sector has, as a characteristic, the need of renewing, and, so, the continuous and cyclical development of products. This particularity has a relatively short life time, as consequence, a great influence on managing, production, logistics and attractiveness of the market article that, allied to the functional obsolescence, strictly linked to the seasons establish, to the products. Means of communication become fundamental mechanisms to fashion dissemination that reveals itself, most of the time, into one way trajectory. From changings in digital technology scenery of communication, there come up new interaction forms, the social media. These new technologies have made the continuous communication viable among people and enterprises by means of Internet, that valuing interaction makes it possible, for groups with common objectives, meeting and sharing their view and goals. Into this context, a new model of collaborative participation comes up, which can be able to aid enterprises, allowing the usage of opinions and feedbacks of their target-consumers, as developing close relations and improving the segmentation strategies and positioning through the double way communication, as being a useful tool to fashion collections development. It is intended, with the present work, to draw up a study on the usage of social media in the process steps of fashion collections development. The results have shown that the companies with the most innovative characteristics utilize social medias in order to grow the visibility and reach of its brands and products, appropriating their communication potential, while the ones that offer bigger commercial appeal parts and great acceptance degree look to utilize them also with interation focus, in order to identify the current consumers wishes and try to insert them into their collections