How Luxury Brands Can Succeed in Social Media

by | Jan 4, 2023

Digital Platforms

Many luxury brands use social media channels, such as Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, to communicate with consumers worldwide. The relevance of social media channels for luxury brand communication is likely to increase even more as luxury brands increasingly shift their advertising budgets from print to digital media.

“Luxury brands are brands that are perceived as high in quality, have a prestigious image, offer authentic value through functional and emotional benefits, inspire a deep connection with consumers, and therefore can command premium prices.”

Thus, researchers exert considerable effort to assess the advantageousness of luxury brands’ social media activities. Existing research generally advocates the use of social media activities for luxury brands but offers little advice on how to design effective brand communication in social media.

Against this backdrop, this study investigates which characteristics of luxury brands’ social media content elicit positive consumer emotions. Specifically, we examine the impact of non-personal luxury dimensions (quality, heritage, conspicuousness, uniqueness) and personal luxury dimensions (hedonism, extended self) on consumers’ affective responses to luxury brand posts. We focus on positive consumer affect due to its key role in fostering long-term customer relationships, a central objective of luxury brands.

“To measure consumer affect in social media, we introduce a new measure that we label the ‘love ratio’ (LoveR). We consider LoveR an important extension of commonly investigated outcomes, such as likes or shares, which are considered fairly low-level forms of engagement.”

The results from a large-scale field study of luxury brand posts on Facebook and an online experiment reveal that non-personal luxury dimensions evoke more positive affect than personal luxury dimensions. However, the potential to elicit positive consumer affect also substantially varies among the individual luxury dimensions within each of the two groups. We explain these variations by theoretically arguing and empirically demonstrating that the brand luxury dimensions differ in perceived vividness, determining the ease with which consumers process the communication.

Our findings help managers “engineer” social media content that contributes to strong consumer-brand relationships. Importantly, our results reveal that contemporary managerial practice is subpar. Although many luxury brand posts indeed feature quality appeals, managers currently overuse uniqueness and underuse heritage, which has a positive impact on consumer affect.


Full reference: Mandler, Timo, Marius Johnen, Jan-Frederik Gräve (2020), “Can’t Help Falling in Love? How Brand Luxury Generates Positive Consumer Affect in Social Media,” Journal of Business Research, 120, 330–342. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.10.010

Cite for: Luxury brands, consumer affect, social media, consumer engagement, love reactions, perceived vividness, overview of brand luxury typologies (Table 1), luxury brand sample (Table 2), codebook for luxury dimensions (Web Appendix)

Continue Reading? You May Also Like…

What Drives Royalty Rates in International Franchising?

The Significance of Franchising in the Global Economy Franchising – a business arrangement in which a firm (the franchisor) permits another firm (the franchisee) to use its brand name and business format to market goods and services – is big...

The Double-Edged Sword of Unfinished Teasers

Unfinished Teasers: A Double-Edged Sword In today's digital age, content providers constantly seek ways to attract consumers' attention and encourage them to engage with their content. One popular strategy is using teasers—short previews designed...

Not All Wrongdoing Companies Are Equal in the Public Eye

Consumer Reactions to Corporate Crises Corporate crises—those extraordinary critical events that can result in physical harm, financial loss, or environmental damage—often lead to significant backlash from consumers. When a company is at fault, it...

What Explains Consumers’ Global Brand Preferences?

Understanding Consumers' Global Brand Preferences The globalization of marketplaces has fueled significant academic interest in understanding why consumers may prefer global brands over local ones. Researchers have explored various consumer...

What Drives Brand Loyalty?

The Complexity of Brand Loyalty Simplified In today's hypercompetitive marketplace, brands are in a constant battle for customer loyalty—a critical factor that can make or break a business. But what exactly drives customers to stay loyal to a...

Resources for Marketing Researchers

Recommended Reading

Do you want to learn a new method or wish to refresh your knowledge about research theory? My curated reading list covers various topics related to academic writing and publishing, research design, and data analysis.

Scales

Are you looking for measurement scales for your next survey or experiment? Maybe you can find it in my personal scale repository. Chances are good if you are interested in branding or international marketing.

Data Sources

Are you looking for secondary data related to the phenomenon you are studying? I compiled various free and paid data sources that offer information about countries, firms, and brands.

Want to learn more about my courses and workshops?