Prof. Renée Richardson Gosline

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It has been very interesting for me to hear about the research into counterfeiting that Professor Gosline and Professor Maman are undertaking. Although they are approaching the subject from two different angles; Maman focusing on what drives consumers to knowingly buy counterfeits and Gosline homing in on how consumers respond to counterfeits and how this response can affect their subsequent shopping habits, their resulting conclusions and ideas can be combined to create insightful and useful social commentary.

What comes through strongly in Professor Maman’s research is that price is not the deciding factor for consumers knowingly buying fakes, rather it is the buzz, excitement and illicitness associated with the process. Buying fakes initiates an empowering experience of ‘picking up a bargain’ (a similar feeling you get when you go sales shopping), while luxury shopping in a boutique where you are engaged (sometimes even hounded) by sales staff is not to everyone’s tastes. Haggling in a street market or engaging in banter with the seller is more exciting and makes the shopper feel they are in charge; wheeling and dealing to get that bargain that others may not be so ‘smart to get’.

Speaking personally, this is a strange notion to me; I get excited about spending a larger amount of money than I probably should be and owning something special, thus would not gain that same satisfaction from buying a fake, however much of an ‘experience’ I may undergo in the process. But shopping experiences are extremely personal. Clearly a large swathe of society does get a major kick out of buying fakes and, what Professor Maman’s research emphasizes is that this section of society is significant enough for brand owners to need to consider tilting their marketing towards this mindset rather than the other.

The major surprise in Professor Gosline’s research is that counterfeits don’t necessarily hurt the legitimate brands. Although there may be an initial feeling of pleasure gained from buying a fake handbag, ultimately there is a realization that the fake experience cannot replace the genuine one. The multiple counterfeit consumer segments that she highlights in her interview are all buying fakes for different reasons - there will always be consumers who, for financial reasons, are unable to buy genuine luxury items and will ‘make do’ with the fakes but, ultimately, her research indicates that there is a significant group for whom buying a counterfeit will actually spur them on to subsequently buy the genuine item.

Similarly to Professor Maman’s research, the important information for the brand owners to take away, is that their products do have a strong enough life to weather the counterfeit storm and their anti-counterfeiting and marketing tactics could benefit from focusing on this brand strength, as well as highlighting the obvious ethical negatives of buying fakes.

In combination, these two types of research into counterfeiting can help brand owners because they reveal the thought processes behind the actual buying experience (Professor Maman) and the ultimate result of that buying experience (Professor Gosline). As Professor Gosline points out, there will always be counterfeits but, in order to get the better of the counterfeiters, brand owners need to arm themselves and their best arsenal is a greater understanding of the multiple social experiences that constitute shopping.

Jessica Williams, No to Fakes

Fake and counterfeit goods promote unethical behaviour - Monday, April 12, 2010

Francesca Gino from the University of North Carolina has shown that counterfeit products actually make people behave more dishonestly. They cheat more in tests and they judge others as unethical with greater abandon. Even worse, they’re completely unaware of this impact.

Counterfeit labels good for luxury brands? - Friday, February 12, 2010

The designer brand makers may not understand it, but phony bags are potentially a potent sampling tool.

MIT Research Shows Fake Designer Bags Are Gateway Drug to Real Thing - Thursday, January 14, 2010

According to an MIT researcher, knock-off bags are the first step into the world of high-end handbag addiction.

The real fake thing - Monday, January 11, 2010

Can buying a counterfeit purse actually lead customers to purchase the real thing later? Yes, says an MIT researcher, who found that consumers dissatisfied with the lack of quality will end up dropping the big bucks

Fake Louis Vuitton bags look fake without a Tony aura - Wednesday, December 02, 2009

If you want to tout that fake Louis Vuitton Le Radieux handbag as the real deal, you had better look the part, according to a Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher.

People are often unsure about telling authentic luxury goods from fakes - Tuesday, December 01, 2009

Luxury goods are supposed to be expensive because of their quality: A sip of fine wine or the comforting feel of designer clothing should justify the price.

Recent research into counterfeiting by MIT Sloan Professor Renée Richardson Gosline, grabbed the attention of No to Fakes.

In her research paper Rethinking Brand Contamination: How Consumers Maintain Distinction When Symbolic Boundaries are Breached, Professor Gosline focused on how consumers respond to counterfeits, particularly in relation to luxury brand handbags. Contrary to common belief, she actually found that counterfeits don't necessarily hurt the legitimate brands. The last No to Fakes expert feature was on research by Prof. Anne-Flore Maman into consumer motivation to buy fakes and we were interested to see how Professor Gosline's reseach and ideas could be linked to and compared with this. Bearing in mind the massive economic cost of counterfeiting to brand owners, we wanted her to shed some light on the kind of impact her research could have on future anti-counterfeiting tactics.

You clearly believe that consumers who buy counterfeit luxury items are not necessarily trying to get away with looking like they have forked out on the real thing and indeed may even brag about the fact that the item is counterfeit, so have fakes taken on a life of their own; are fakes actually in fashion?

I applaud consumers who are able to put their own interpretations on fashion to co-create the brand. But fakes are not in fashion; creativity and consumer empowerment are. Imitation is an inevitable part of the fashion cycle, but fakes are not in fashion because they are more than merely imitative – they are insincere and unoriginal.

In regards to consumers who brag about using fakes, I have certainly encountered them while conducting my research. But many of these people actually come to realize that the fake consumer experience cannot replace the authentic one, and, in a longitudinal study I conducted, 46% of fake consumers went on to purchase the genuine article. So I think that all fake consumers are not the same. There are multiple counterfeit consumer segments, depending on income, the markets in which they procure the counterfeits, and attitudinal disposition. For instance, the consumers who buy counterfeits at purse parties often feel compelled to admit that they own fakes because they purchased them with other people around, and because of the emphasis on their social identities in a social network. Then, you have those counterfeit consumers who will never buy the real thing because they are extremely price sensitive; their attitudes toward luxury brands are often oppositional as a result. Still you have those who purchase their counterfeits in secret and attempt to perpetuate the impression that their purchases are real – they would never admit to owning the fake.

So, in regards to whether fakes are actually in fashion, I would say no -- they lack the originality and true brand experience that is central to being fashionable. That said, consumer co-creation is very fashionable.

Some of the major luxury brand owners, such as Chanel and Versace, declined to comment on your research findings. Do you think some areas of the high-end fashion industry are in denial, hoping that the problem will just go away if it is awarded as little talk time as possible?

I cannot speculate as to how luxury firms determine which external research they will comment on publicly, except to say that their brand strategies are, understandably, proprietary information. Certainly it is in their best interests to maintain a consistently oppositional stance against counterfeits, regardless of whether the actual damage to the brand may be overstated in the media. I do not think that these brands are being passive or denying the rise of counterfeiting; quite the opposite, actually. I think they have taken great pains to stem counterfeit distribution and consumption, as well they should.

You commence your research findings with a quote from Georg Simmel in 1907, which highlights the role of status groups in the setting of style and what is deemed desirable. Rather like the Sneeches on the Beaches in the classic Dr Seuss children’s story, is the consumer urge to always strive for the unobtainable what is fueling the counterfeit industry or do consumers buy counterfeits because they somehow feel they are getting a better deal and getting their revenge on the brand owners, who shouldn’t be asking such high prices for their products in the first place?

I think both of these processes may be at work, depending on the consumer. As I mentioned above, there will always be consumers who are price-sensitive or take an oppositional stance toward established brands, and those consumers are far less likely to buy the real thing. Nevertheless, there are lots of consumers who, whether they admit it or not, aspire to what these luxury brands represent. The brands represent an indulgence and sophistication, which may not reflect their actual daily lives. My research shows that, for these consumers, purchasing the fake product will never be a substitute, because the brand in much more than a logo.

The Sneeches on the Beaches is an interesting story because it illustrates in part the fact that the social status boundaries that separate the real luxury consumers from the imitators are socially created, and dynamic. The data from the experiments that I have run with luxury consumers show that, as counterfeits become increasingly sophisticated and prevalent, the real consumers change the criteria for inclusion, such that merely having the logo is not enough to be considered authentic to the brand. Other social cues – comportment, style, attitude – reveal whether the consumer is authentic to the brand. In fact, luxury consumers’ willingness to pay is cut in half when they do not have these cues — like when the bag is shown against a neutral background. In this way, authenticity is not a property of the product, it is a property of the consumer’s relationship to the brand. This enables real consumers to spot the fakers, and protects the brand from potential contamination.

When it comes to anti-counterfeiting activities and applying the knowledge you have acquired during your research, do you think that the key to a successful campaign would be to focus on the potential damage and the moral issues involved in buying counterfeit goods, rather than focusing on the exclusivity of the ‘real McCoy?’. Is it not that very notion of exclusivity exuded by luxury brand marketing that is perpetuating the consumer urge to buy the fake versions and, by highlighting this in anti-counterfeiting, activities are not the brand owners in danger of further alienating consumers?

I think that both of these messages (ethical and exclusivity) are important. The ethical problems associated with the counterfeit industry are essential to understanding the social impact of consumption, and in this day and age of empowered, savvy consumers, people want to understand their impact on the world around them. This is not only limited to environmentally-friendly products; fashionable people care about helping the world too (hence the Louis Vuitton political campaign).

The exclusivity is important as well, as consumers use publicly-consumed items to signal group membership – this is the case for everything from the books we choose to display on our shelves, to the cars we drive, to, of course, fashion brands. It is true that an unwelcomed side-effect of aspirational brands is imitation from people who wish to have access. But if the emphasis is on the quality of the craftsmanship and the uniqueness of the experience, consumers will feel that they are making an investment, rather than merely trying to amass possessions. This would cultivate true expertise among authentic consumers, not merely exclusivity for exclusivity’s sake.

As you say in your paper; “Despite a glut of inauthentic imitations and decades of copious counterfeiting, the authentic sales of luxury brands have never been stronger among high status consumers”. If counterfeiting of a brand does not then lead to brand contamination for high status consumers, do you think there is a chance that the counterfeit luxury industry may ultimately burn itself out and that consumers in general will tire of copies and see them as de-legitimizing their social status?

Unfortunately, I think that counterfeits will always exist, even though consumers eventually realize that they are not substitutes for the real thing. This is because this realization, the appreciation of the authentic brand, is a process, and consumers will be on various points on this time table. Consumers develop relationships with their brands, and, just as relationships between people can be at different stages (initial flirtation, monogamy, demise), so can consumers’ relationships with their brands. Therefore, there will always be people who are attracted to counterfeits because they naively assume that they can access the true brand via a look-alike; the point of my research is that many of these consumers may still develop an appreciation of the true brand (a relationship), and abandon the fakes over time.

What is your personal view of counterfeits and have you, or would you, ever buy a fake product of any kind?

My personal view of counterfeits has changed over time. I grew up in New York City, where counterfeits are juxtaposed with genuine luxury items. Therefore, fakes were normalized, to a certain extent, because they were highly visible. Nevertheless, I came to realize that they were not indistinguishable from the real product. This is because, as my research has confirmed, luxury brands represent a lifestyle that is not easily faked. I did not come from a background that was characterized by luxury consumption, so the notion that status boundaries are durable, even in the face of apparent democratization, is quite intriguing to me. Now, I have no desire to own fakes, though the purchase behavior fascinates me. My research is not meant to encourage or rationalize counterfeit consumption. Rather, I show that the fakes are not substitutes for the real thing, and that attempting to “pass” for a luxury consumer with a fake is, more often that not, a losing proposition.

Renée Richardson Gosline is an Assistant Professor of Marketing in the Management Science group at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. She teaches the MBA course in Branding.

Prior to joining academia, Professor Gosline worked as a Marketing practitioner. She was a Planner and Account Supervisor at Leo Burnett, and a Brand Management Associate at LVMH Moet Hennessey Louis Vuitton. She has developed brand strategies for mass and niche brands.

Professor Gosline conducted her Doctoral training at Harvard Business School, her Graduate coursework in Sociology at the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and her undergraduate studies at Harvard College.

Professor Gosline's general area of interest is how social networks affect consumer-brand relationships, and how brands serve as dynamic symbols of social status boundaries. Her current research examines how luxury brands are impacted when they are imitated by counterfeits and “knockoff” imitations. She identifies the circumstances under which imitation can validate, or contaminate, a brand. Her aim being to contribute to our general understanding of how consumers define authenticity, and how this is shaped by social structure (networks and status, specifically). Her other research interests include omnivore consumer behavior, social network analysis (particularly how networks constrain consumer choice), and consumer empowerment.

She can be contacted at: rgosline@mit.edu