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Hideous but worth it: Distinctive ugliness as a signal of luxury

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Abstract

Long-standing wisdom and academic research consistently agree that consumers choose attractive products and avoid ugly ones. And yet, multiple luxury brands successfully sell distinctively ugly products. This research provides an explanation, identifying distinctive ugliness as a signal of luxury and examining its impact on consumer choice. We explore this in seven studies, including a field study, a market pricing analysis, and five controlled laboratory experiments, three with consequential behavioral measures, incorporating a variety of fashion products, brands, aesthetic manipulations, and audiences. When products are from a non-luxury brand, consumers choose the attractive option and avoid the ugly. However, when from a luxury brand, consumers choose distinctively ugly products as often as attractive ones, not despite their ugliness but due to their ugliness and resulting ability to signal luxury. As such, brand prominence offers a boundary condition, as both a loud logo and distinctive ugliness serve to signal. Implications for both luxury and non-luxury brands are discussed.

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Notes

  1. Study 2 found a positive effect of ugliness for a luxury brand regardless of distinctiveness. However, given the overwhelming results from the other studies indicating the necessity of distinctiveness, we expect distinctiveness is necessary for the effect and caution brands from assuming ugliness without distinctiveness will have the same effect.

  2. We thank an anonymous reviewer for pointing us toward this example.

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Acknowledgements

The authors express their gratitude for the helpful comments and suggestions received from Patti Williams, Joseph Nunes, and Carter Morgan and appreciate the feedback received from the marketing departments of Indiana University, University of Houston, the Vanderbilt University marketing camp, the Lehigh University College of Business research retreat, as well as attendees at the Marketing Science and Association for Consumer Research conferences.

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  1. Lehigh University, 421 Rauch Business Center, 621 Taylor Street, Bethlehem, PA, 18015, USA

    Ludovica Cesareo

  2. Miami Herbert Business School, 5250 University Drive, KE 507, P.O. Box 248147, Coral Gables, FL, 33124, USA

    Claudia Townsend

  3. Miami Herbert Business School, 5250 University Drive, KE 504, P.O. Box 248147, Coral Gables, FL, 33124, USA

    Eugene Pavlov

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  1. Ludovica Cesareo
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Appendix 1: All study stimuli

Appendix 1: All study stimuli

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Cesareo, L., Townsend, C. & Pavlov, E. Hideous but worth it: Distinctive ugliness as a signal of luxury. J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. 51, 636–657 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-022-00913-3

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