AUTHOR COPY © 2012 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1350-23IX Journal of Brand Management 1–14 www.palgrave-journals.com/bm/ Correspondence: Sandrine Falcy IAE de Grenoble, BP 47, Grenoble Cedex 38040, France E-mail: Sandrine.falcy@ iae-grenoble.fr Original Article Do consumers perceive three levels of luxury ? A comparison of accessible, intermediate and inaccessible luxury brands Received (in revised form): 28th November 2011 Virginie De Barnier is Professor of Marketing at the University of Aix-Marseille (IAE Aix Graduate School of Management) in France and Researcher Wesford Business School, Grenoble, France. She graduated in both Marketing and Psychology. She is programme director of MSc Marketing and Brand Management at IAE Aix en Provence. Her research interests are in the area of consumer behavior, advertising and luxury brand management. Her textbook, De la stratégie marketing à la création publicitaire (Dunod 2010), is in its third edition and has been adopted at top universities, business schools and leading firms. She also published several articles in Recherche et Applications en Marketing and Journal of Business Research. Sandrine Falcy is associate Professor at Grenoble University (IAE Grenoble, Graduate School of Management, France). She is graduated in Political Sciences and Marketing. Her research interests focused on quantitative methods and are based on different topics such as consumer behavior, environmental scanning, perceived audit quality and quality of service. Pierre Valette-Florence is Professor of Marketing and Quantitative Methods at Grenoble University (IAE Grenoble, Graduate School of Management, France). Professor Valette-Florence has published numerous articles within the field of Marketing, Consumer Behavior and Branding Management. In addition, with Professor Lynn Kahle, he is the author of a forthcoming book on Life Style and Psychographics. ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to study the concept of luxury levels and to assess whether they are significant for consumers. Perceptions of five brands were measured: Chanel and Mont Blanc for accessible luxury level, Rolex for intermediary luxury level and Ferrari and Van Cleef & Arpels for inaccessible luxury level. Also three luxury perception scales were compared: Kapferer (1998), Vigneron and Johnson (1999) and Dubois et al (2001). Various statistical analyses are carried out in order to validate the structure of the scales and to show their discriminant validity with regard to the five luxury brands encompassed in this study. This research shows some convergences between the three scales as well as the utility of these scales for differentiating luxury brands. Finally, the predictive validity of these scales is unlighted, validating the distinction of brands among the three aforementioned luxury levels. Results also show that there is a luxury continuum at a theoretical