Den demokratiska lyxen
Abstract: The fashion industry is perhaps the most unpredictable one where change occurs very rapidly. In order to be attractive and interesting in this competitive industry, a brand must constantly be up to date and differentiated from other brands to attract the consumers. This has given rise to an increasing growth of brands that cooperate for marketing reasons and more specifically, clothing retailers that perform designer collaborations with exclusive designers to create limited collections.Studies describing the effects of those collaborations on the retailers brands are rare and especially from a consumer perspective. Since H&M has been a pioneer in designer collaborations and has done it more times and for more years than any other retailer we have conducted our study on their case. Our intention was to investigate how the designer collaborations have affected the brand equity and image of H&M, if the collaborations have increased the willingness to pay for H&M's other ranges and if they have affected H&M's ability to extend its brand to higher price segments, through an experimental study. Our results clearly indicate that this is the case. The collaborations have created stronger positive associations to the H&M brand, they have led to a reduction of price sensitivity among the company's customers and have enabled H&M to more easily extend their brand to higher price brackets. Since our study is performed on only one company, further studies are needed on other companies to make it clear if the results can be fully generalized within and outside the fashion industry.