Özet:

Counterfeits are one of the most important threats for organizations that have orijinal brands as their most valuable assets. In order to increase their brands’ value, organizations make several sacrifices and ongoing investments. However, the demand for counterfeits is rising all around the world which creates negative consequences for these organizations. In this context, knowing the factors that motivates consumers to buy counterfeits is critically important. In this regard, this study focuses on the individual characteristics which are proved in the literature to have the most important role in buying counterfeits and it investigates the effects of these factors on intention to buy counterfeits. The individual characteristics that are included in the study are materialism, willingness to take risk, smart shopper self perception, value consciousness, fashion consciousness, integrity, personal gratification, status consumption. In the foreign literature, no study has that broad scope containing several variables as in this study. From the point of the Turkish literature, there are very rare studies related with this issue. These two aspects emphasize the importance and uniqueness of the study. Depending on the results of the analysis of the data consisting of 879 valid questionnaires, seven hypotheses were accepted while one was rejected. The results of the study shed light on the organizations for their marketing and branding activities aimed to prevent counterfeit usage and to increase the demand for their original brands. 1. INTRODUCTION According to Turkish Language Association, “to counterfeit” means “to imitate or to try to imitate something” (www.tdk.gov.tr). Individuals may encounter with counterfeits in every phase and every area of their lives. This concept may have both positive and negative associations. For instance, you may imitate the behaviors or lifestyle of someone you admire. This was an example for a positive association. On the other hand, you may imitate an artwork, literary or academic work which will convey negative associations. From organizations’ or marketing’s point of view, it is possible to state that imitation or counterfeiting are mostly associated with products or brands. Organizations are investing huge amounts in order to increase their brands’ values and brands images and try to keep this success up to date. The main reason for these ongoing investments and efforts is that brands are one of the most valuable assets for organizations. But unfortunately, despite Year: 2014 Volume: 1 Issue: 3 organizations’ these tremendous efforts brands encounter with several threats. One of these threats is certainly “counterfeits” that have increasing production and consumption rates in spite of several regulations and laws. Counterfeits are reproductions of a trademarked brand which are closely similar or identical to genuine articles. This includes packaging, labelling and trademarks, to intentionally pass off as the original product (Kay, 1990). Counterfeits are illegally made products that resemble the genuine goods but are typically of lower quality in terms of performance, reliability or durability (Lai and Zaichkowsky, 1999). The literature classifies counterfeits into two categories which are deceptive counterfeiting and non-‐deceptive counterfeiting. Under deceptive counterfeiting, the consumer is not aware of the fact that he/she purchases a copy rather than the original product and cannot be held accountable for the behavior. It includes all situations in which the customer is being deceived about the product’s origin. On the other hand, non-‐deceptive counterfeiting occurs when people knowingly buy fakes. In other words, in non-‐deceptive counterfeiting consumers intentionally purchase fake products (Bloch et al., 1993; Tom et al., 1998; Prendergast et al., 2002; Hieke, 2010). At this point, another concept related to counterfeit is “piracy”. Lai and Zaichkowsky (1999) point out that, counterfeiting and piracy are in essence the same since they are both the reproduction of identical copies of authentic products. However, piracy is mostly related to software and fixed medium content such as films and music recordings (Chow, 2000; Cheung and Prendergast, 2006). At the same time, products that use a brand name or a logo that differ slightly from a well-‐known brand but are close enough that consumers will associate it with the genuine product are also considered as counterfeits (e.g. Adadis, Hike, PolyStation etc.). This study focuses on non-‐deceptive counterfeits that are purchased by consumers who are willing to pay less and know that they are fakes. Today one can face with counterfeits in almost every sector. The sectors in which individuals can encounter counterfeits mostly are fast fashion, accessorizes, health/medicine, cosmetics, electronics (tvs and mobile phones), software etc. (Green and Smith, 2002; Trainer, 2002). Jacobs et al. (2001) classified product categories that mostly have counterfeits into four groups. These product categories are: 1. Highly visible, high volume, low-‐tech products with well-‐known brand names, such as toothpaste, candies, and chocolates. 2. High-‐priced, high-‐tech products, such as computer games and audio or video entertainment products. Fake auto and airplane parts are also in this category. 3. Exclusive, prestige products such as well-‐known apparel and accessories as well as perfumes and other expensive gift items. 4. Intensive R&D, high-‐tech products such as pharmaceuticals. The number and demand of counterfeits that are produced in different product categories are increasing day by day (Wang and Song, 2013). James Moody from FBI Organized Crime Division emphasized the importance of the issue when he stated that “Counterfeiting will become the crime of the 21st century” (Wilcox et al., 2009). To illustrate this increase and importance in numbers we can glance at the report of IACC (International Anti-‐Counterfeiting Coalition). According to IACC, the global counterfeit market which had a size of 5.5 billion dollars in 1982 reached to 350 billion dollars in 2012 (Ergin, 2010). In Turkey, during the last decade the counterfeit market size was doubled and reached to 1 billion dollars in 2013. With this growth, Turkey has become the second largest market following China which has the largest counterfeit market all around the world (http://www.ntvmsnbc.com, December 28, 2013). According to the results of the survey conducted by Brand Protection Group of Turkey in 2008, 58% of the Turkish consumers regularly purchase counterfeits. The product categories that Turkish consumers mostly prefer to buy counterfeits are fast fashion, shoes, bags, watches, accessorizes and jewelery. The statistics both in Turkey and around the world show that in spite of the regulations selling and purchasing rates of counterfeits increase day by day. As a result of this counterfeits have become one of the most important global problems of the 21st century. Despite this growing importance and popularity the Turkish literature on counterfeits is so limited. Therefore, this study aims to fill this gap in the literature by focusing on non-‐deceptive counterfeits. In order to fight against counterfeits it is important to reveal which factors motivate consumers to buy them. In this regard, the literature states that the most important factors effective on consumers’ intentions to buy counterfeits are individual characteristics. Therefore, the study focuses on individual characteristics that may affect consumers’ decisions in their counterfeit purchases. Specifically the study has two main objectives: a) to understand the role of individual characteristics on consumers’ intentions to buy counterfeits and b) to reveal the most important individual characteristics that are effective on consumers’ intentions to purchase counterfeits. By achieving these objectives it is aimed to shed light on organizations marketing and branding strategies and help them to fight against counterfeits. The remainder of the article is organised into seven parts. In the following section the pertinent literature is reviewed and depending on the evidences from the literature research hypotheses are formulated. This is followed by research methodology and empirical findings of the study. In the final sections, conclusions and implications are derived from the study findings, and suggestions for future research are provided. 2. LITERATURE SURVEY 2.1. Consumers’ Intentions to Purchase Counterfeits The stated statistics about counterfeits show that the demand for counterfeits countinously increases worldwide. Therefore, to reveal the factors causing the increase in demand for counterfeits become more of an issue. Defining these factors play an important role to explain the reasons why consumers are willing to purchase counterfeits. When the relevant literature is reviewed, it can be seen that consumers’ intentions to buy counterfeits is affected by several different factors. Phau&Teah (2009) and Hidayat&Diwasasri (2013) categorize these factors into two groups namely social factors

Anahtar Kelimeler: