Focus Group Design Preparation

Several steps were conducted in order to prepare the two focus groups, depicted as follow:

o Decide a sample and splitting the participants into the two groups following specific criteria (see intra 5.2.2 Sampling).

o Choose some possible dates in which conduct the two focus groups.

o Create two separate Facebook events, one for each focus groups, with the respective participants. In these two separate events, a poll was created in order to agree with the people concerned a suitable date for everybody. Accordingly with the date, the researchers booked a room in the Library of CBS, in order to ensure a quiet place, where the participant could feel free to express their opinions. A specific room with a round table has been chosen, in line with the focus group literature guide. Food and drinks were provided by the researchers.

o Prepare the focus group guide (see next paragraph) in order to facilitate the focus group and to be always able to redirect the conversation towards the research objectives.

o Confirmation was asked individually one day before the focus group, as well as reminded in the Facebook event, indicating again place and time of the meeting.

Focus Group Guide

In order to moderate the focus groups and to guide the participants, a focus group guide has been created and the preparation process took overall 10 days (intra 11.3 Focus Group Guide, Appendix). The guide is the result of a first data analysis (see intra 6.2.1 First stage: manual analysis), in which the researchers have analysed the semi-structured interviews, grouping similarities and differences in the participants’ responses in order to further research some interesting topics. As a matter of fact, the guide was structured with a twofold purpose: firstly, building on the semi-structured interviews results, the researchers aimed to clarify some elements that were not clearly answered in the semi-structured interviews, understanding other possible opinions on the influence of each dimension of Brand Authenticity on Brand Equity;

secondly, two additional elements emerged from the interviews and they have been used as starting point for further discussions, in order to better understand new yet undiscussed topics.

This was possible by the distinctiveness of the focus group method, which encourage discussion and interactions between individuals, in order to test each other’s opinion and views on broad topics (Bryman, 2012).

That is to say, the guide has been subjected to some changes throughout the data collection process whenever the researchers believed that some elements would require more or less attention than previously theorized, in order to follow the flow of discussion. Nevertheless, in the following section, a brief overview of the structure of the focus group guide is presented.

Firstly, some ice-breaker questions have been posed, in order to make the participants at ease.

A short presentation by each participant was required, with a specific focus on the interest and the relationship towards fashion and the luxury world, in order for the researchers to understand how well informed the participants were about the topic.

Secondly, a section dedicated to heritage, the Brand Authenticity dimension, was carried out.

With this short series of questions, the researchers tried to test the link between heritage and Brand Attachment. During the semi-structured interviews, in fact, interviewees named heritage as one of the main attributes that could create attachment with a brand. Here, also a general opinion about heritage has been asked.

A third part was dedicated to sincerity, which was specifically linked with Brand Personality and Consumer Brand Resonance. After testing the influence of sincerity on the latter element, a digression about personality has been made, with a focus on brand ambassadors: during the second semi-structured interviews, this topic has arouse and the researchers tried to build on it, in order to discover whether the sincere personality of a brand ambassador could be reflected on the brand that he or she promotes.

Fourth, the link between craftsmanship and Brand Performance has been tested. During the semi-structured interviews, the dichotomy between the hand and the made-by-machine arouse, and some of the interviewees have linked this with the aspects of reliability and durability: for some, a hand-made product is more reliable and long-lasting, for others it is not reliable because every product is different from the others. That is why the researchers wanted to further investigate this topic.

A fifth and conclusive part was dedicated to Brand Authenticity as a whole and its specific link with the three attributes of Consumer Brand Resonance that a company could have some control on: engagement, attachment and loyalty.

An attentive reader might have noticed that the dimension of quality is not present in the focus group guide, even though it is a dimension of Brand Authenticity considered in the analysis and

investigated in the semi-structured interviews. The main reason for its absence is that the researchers did not considered it a topic in need of clarification. While for the other dimensions some discrepancies have been found among the interviews, for quality almost all the participants agreed on the responses. The perception on quality it is commonly shared, so further investigation did not seem as urgent and as needed as for the other dimensions.