Does counterfeiting affect luxury customer-based brand equity?

In recent years, there has been an important debate on the harmful effectof counterfeits on luxury brands. Marketing literature states that fake luxury productsnegatively affect consumers ’ perception of the genuine brand. Contrarily, somestudies have reported that fake alternatives do not necessary lower genuine brandproduct evaluations, providing some interesting evidence on single theoreticalconstructs referring to attitudes, perceptions or behaviors. The aim of this study isto deepen the investigation into this phenomenon and try to shed some light on theeffects of counterfeit awareness on genuine brand users ’ and on potential users ’customer-based brand equity (CBBE). Results show that counterfeits have nonegative effect on consumers ’ perception of the luxury brand. Moreover, a positiveshift on the six blocks of CBBE pyramid is observed in consumers who are aware ofthe existence of a fake alternative. The innovative nature of these fi ndings is supportedby a detailed data analysis and the managerial implication discussion.