Consumer Behavior in the Sharing Economy
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60 minutes
of course content spread across 9 modules and videos. Learn at your own pace!
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5
downloadable artifacts that allow you to assess how exclusive and premium your brand is and its risks to counterfeits.
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>97%
of previous participants in masterclasses, workshops, and executive education recommend the instructor to others.
Why this course exists.
Most content on luxury branding falls into one of two traps: dense academic theory that never touches a real pricing or positioning decision, or marketing folklore—vague talk of "exclusivity" and "prestige" with no mechanism underneath it. This course exists because practitioners deserve better than either. It takes the actual research literature on status, scarcity, identity, and perceived luxury and turns it into something you can apply to a real brand by Monday morning: named frameworks, real brand cases, and a working diagnostic you build piece by piece until it's a finished Playbook. No quizzes, no jargon for its own sake—just the psychology that actually explains why people pay what they pay, made usable.
What you’ll leave with.
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A working model of luxury consumption as identity work and social signaling, not simple conspicuous spending.
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The ability to apply 5 core frameworks: status signaling/Veblen theory, aspirational reference groups, the rarity principle, social identity theory, and the Brand Luxury Index.
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3 brand case studies (Patek Philippe, Rolex, Hermès) plus a counterfeit/brand-protection case (Louis Vuitton) you can reuse when briefing a team or pitching a client.
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A completed, one-page Luxury Positioning Playbook for a real brand of your own.
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A defensible position on sustainable luxury—how to integrate ethics without diluting exclusivity.
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A framework for assessing counterfeit and dilution risk, and where the ethical line sits in using scarcity and status tactics.
Your instructor.
Eugene Chan, PhD
Eugene (PhD Toronto; MA Chicago; AB Michigan) is a behavioral scientist whose work focuses on the moments when customers are uncertain, skeptical, or under scrutiny, translating insights from consumer psychology into practical strategies that strengthen confidence, reduce friction, and improve adoption across products, services, and communication. His academic work is published in Financial Times Top 50 journals and has been covered by media outlets include Globe and Mail, Men’s Health, and the Wall Street Journal. He has conducted workshops and masterclasses for leading companies in Canada, Australia, and the United States, and has served on tenured faculties at Tyndale University, Toronto Metropolitan University, Purdue University, Monash University, and the University of Technology Sydney.
You’ll want to enrol if you want to…
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... understand the actual psychology behind why people pay a premium—grounded in named research like Veblen, Higgins, and Vigneron & Johnson, not marketing folklore.
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... score any brand's luxury positioning using a real diagnostic tool, instead of relying on gut feel about what "feels premium.”
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... learn to use scarcity, status signaling, and exclusivity deliberately—and know exactly where the ethical line sits.
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... walk away with a finished, presentation-ready Playbook for your own brand, not just notes and good intentions.
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... make sense of two live pressures every premium brand faces right now—sustainability and counterfeits—without defaulting to guesswork.
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... apply everything to real cases (Patek Philippe, Rolex, Hermès, Louis Vuitton) so the frameworks click before you ever touch your own brand.