Search results

This research aims to unravel the intricate relationship between luxury brands' social media marketing strategies (i.e. communication and engagement) and their impact on consumers' willingness to pay a premium and brand loyalty.

A large online consumer panel was used to conduct an online survey of 381 consumers. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was adopted for hypothesis testing.

The study's outcomes indicated that (1) perceived interactivity and perceived openness positively influence social media brand communication, (2) social media brand communication and engagement are positive determinants for consumer empowerment and parasocial interactions, (3) consumer empowerment and parasocial interactions positively influence willingness to pay a premium and (4) parasocial interactions (but not consumer empowerment) positively influence brand loyalty.

The study offers significant theoretical implications by unraveling the mechanism of social media marketing for luxury brands, which is under-researched in the current literature. More specifically, the study reveals the process of how social media brand communication and engagement reinforce luxury brand outcomes through parasocial interactions and consumer empowerment. In addition, the study provides empirical evidence to delineate the role of interactivity and openness in enhancing social media brand communication. Moreover, the study extends past research that emphasized initial adoption outcomes such as attitude and purchase intention by probing luxury brand loyalty and willingness to pay a premium.

By effectively strategizing social media marketing, luxury brand marketers can promote brand loyalty and willingness to pay a premium. Luxury brand marketers should concentrate on establishing parasocial interaction with consumers by designing optimal social media brand communication and engagement. To this end, luxury brand marketers should consider integrating the elements of interactivity and openness in their communication with consumers.

The study offers valuable insights for luxury brand marketers aiming to capitalize on the potential of social media marketing to enhance their revenue generation and customer retention. The study advances past luxury branding research by validating the role of consumer empowerment and parasocial interactions in luxury brands' social media marketing.

From an international retailing perspective, this empirical study aims to examine luxury fashion retailers' changing marketing strategies in China.

Using case studies of 14 luxury fashion retailers, qualitative data were collected via 31 semi-structured executive interviews.

Both standardised global and localised multinational marketing strategies were found to have initially been employed by luxury fashion retailers entering into China. Subsequently, localised multinational strategies became increasingly important for their post-entry operations and business development, particularly in terms of their product strategies. More specifically, as well as the introduction of Chinese brand names, product design has been adapted according to Chinese market conditions, and product portfolios have been adapted to satisfy regional differences. However, localised product sourcing in China is far less common.

As the findings are generated from China, they may not explain luxury fashion retailers' marketing strategies in other markets. Despite the relatively small sample size, the 14 luxury fashion retailer case studies originate from across a wide range of countries, retail formats and ownership structures and are therefore considered to be varied enough to represent the market.

The study offers practitioners insights into the success that can be generated by the manipulation of marketing strategies, particularly product strategies, within the world's second biggest luxury market.

This paper extends the current international retailing literature by examining and comparing the motives and practices of luxury fashion retailers and the increasing localisation of their marketing strategies in China as they move from initial market entry into their post-entry operations.

The purpose of this research study is to identify differentiation factors Burgundian wineries use to distinguish their brand, and to determine whether these methods align or conflict with luxury marketing differentiation attributes.

A qualitative methodology of 23 in-depth interviews with various sized wineries, as well as Burgundy market experts, was used. In addition, document analysis of websites and marketing materials was carried out along with a comprehensive review of the luxury marketing literature.

Results show that Burgundian wineries have adopted some, but not all, of the luxury marketing differentiation attributes. Furthermore, there are a series of core tensions in the industry, including disagreement on using luxury marketing strategies. These findings contribute to the theory base in luxury wine marketing by illustrating how general luxury marketing attributes are used for wine brand differentiation.

This research is the first of its kind to investigate luxury marketing differentiation practices of Burgundy wineries. The results are relevant for new wineries in Burgundy, as well as those in different regions of the world who desire to emulate, and perhaps come close to achieving, some of the luxury price points that certain Burgundy wine producers achieve. The information is also useful to assist related industries, such as food and spirits, which struggle in implementing luxury marketing strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate masculinity in Chinese social media marketing for global luxury fashion brands through two studies.

Study 1 compares physical characteristics of males in visually oriented US (Instagram) and Chinese (Weibo) social media posts promoting global luxury fashion magazine brands (e.g. Vogue, Cosmopolitan, GQ and Esquire). Study 2 examines the prevalence of and Chinese consumers’ responses (reposts, comments and likes) to different masculinities depicted in luxury fashion brand-sponsored Weibo posts.

Male portrayals for Chinese audiences feature more characteristics associated with emerging East Asian hybrid masculinities – “Little Fresh Meat” (LFM) and “Old Grilled Meat” (OGM) – than associated with global or regional hegemonic masculinity (i.e. the scholarly Wén and action-oriented Wu). Wén remains common in social media posts for luxury fashion goods, but LFM and OGM engender more consumer responses.

Chinese luxury fashion marketing depicts masculinity more similarly to other East Asian marketing than to Western marketing. Some luxury fashion brands are struggling for acceptance among Chinese youth. Luxury fashion marketers should incorporate hybrid rather than hegemonic masculinities to prompt more favorable responses among Chinese consumers, especially younger female target markets.

Growing female occupational and consumer power and shifting male employment from blue-collar to white-collar jobs have influenced media portrayals of masculinity. Social media marketing for luxury fashion brands demonstrates the prevalence and appeal of hybrid masculinities in China.

Despite luxury's increasing globalization and broadening scope via digitalization and new markets, the intellectual structure of the overall research corpus remains tenuous. This work therefore aims to provide an overview of published work on international luxury marketing and to contribute to a better understanding of the research area.

Using a systematic approach, 1151 items (papers) were retrieved and 181 selected from the international luxury marketing field published before 2019. These items were analyzed by using various bibliometric techniques to identify the most productive countries, journals, influential authors, papers and research clusters.

Although most of the outputs originate from business, management and marketing journals, other disciplines also research this topic. The analysis reveals an emerging field, with 85% of the published papers appearing between 2010 and 2018, which are primarily the output of US- and UK-based authors and none of whom dominates the field. The three identified keyword clusters are (1) consumers and consumption (2) tools and (3) core themes.

This article contributes to our understanding of the evolution, current status and research trends of published research on international luxury marketing by presenting a mapping analysis and proposing future research directions.

This is the first bibliometric mapping analysis of research on the topic from its conception to 2019. It contributes insights from different research disciplines, adds to the categorization of the international luxury marketing literature and provides promising future research directions in terms of research areas and strategies.

The purpose of the study is to introduce the idea of arena-relevant marketing capabilities and examine their impact on firm performance. Arena-relevant marketing capabilities are capabilities particularly relevant for success in a specific competitive arena in which rivals from different industries try to satisfy customer needs with alternative products and services. The authors focus on the luxury arena and pose the following research questions: Which are the arena-relevant marketing capabilities in the luxury competitive arena (i.e. luxury-arena-relevant capabilities)? (2) What is the relative importance of luxury-arena-relevant vs general marketing capabilities for firm performance in the luxury competitive arena?

To identify luxury-arena-relevant marketing capabilities, the authors conduct a qualitative study among 21 top managers of luxury brands. A subsequent large-scale managerial survey empirically tests the effects of luxury-arena-relevant vs general marketing capabilities on firm performance.

The study identifies four luxury-arena-relevant marketing capabilities: perfection in product creation, exclusive pricing, luxury-congruent storytelling and luxury brand inspiration. It confirms empirically that they have a higher impact on firm performance within the luxury competitive arena than general marketing capabilities.

The study takes an innovative perspective on marketing capabilities by linking them with the concept of a competitive arena and underlines the academic relevance of the concept of arena-relevant marketing capabilities for explaining firm performance.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent to which luxury brand retailers use new technologies as a tool for corporate marketing communication.

The authors used a multiple-case study approach consisting of five information-rich cases, with the similar characteristics of large firms selling luxury brands which are aware of the importance of innovation. In each company, the authors interviewed the key person in charge of marketing innovation strategies and collected data from annual reports, press releases and direct observation of all the new technology categories used.

The findings of this paper reveal that this sector is considerably aware of the benefits of using new media as a marketing communication tool, while the effective use of these new media is still limited.

This paper provides an empirical contribution to the emerging topic of innovation and technology management in retailing, with the emphasis being placed on the luxury sector through an in-depth investigation of the usage of new technologies by the firms studied.

This paper is the first one investigating thoroughly the luxury sector usage of new technologies to improve corporate marketing communication.

Digital technologies and social media have improved the connectivity and collaboration between firms and customers in all sectors. However, in the luxury sector, the approach to social media and digital technologies has been slower than in other industries. The purpose of this paper is to review the academic literature on social media marketing in luxury brands to highlight the current state of the art, the addressed key research themes and the implications for management research and practice.

A systematic literature review of academic research on social media marketing has been conducted to gather, examine and synthetize studies related to luxury brands. By following a review protocol based on both automatic and manual search on the Scopus database, all relevant studies on luxury brands were identified and analyzed.

A critical conceptualization of social media marketing in luxury brands has been provided and the emerging key research themes have been categorized into four main areas.

Academic literature about social media marketing activities in luxury firms is very limited and existing studies focus only on certain aspects, contexts or single cases. In contrast, the value of this study, for both academics and practitioners, lies in providing, for the first time, a comprehensive and critical systematization of social media marketing academic literature in the field of luxury brands.

Although the consumption of luxury brands is significantly on the rise in emerging markets, a significant impetus is needed to boost their growth to achieve desired revenues and profitability. This paper aims to consider social media marketing activities and consumer-brand engagement as key constructs to realize these desired objectives.

The empirical relationships among social media marketing activities, consumer-brand engagement and consumer response have been examined with a sample of 465 respondents.

Social media marketing activities foster engagement among luxury brand consumers, translating into a favorable response. Besides this, informational marketer generated content (MGC) moderates the relationship between social media marketing activities and consumer-brand engagement.

Marketers can use the outcomes of this study to better engage consumers of luxury brands on social media platforms to engender a favorable response.

This paper highlights how consumers of luxury brands are engaged through different marketing activities in the social media context. Also, the moderating role of MGC has been explored.

This paper aims to examine the relationships among two distinct yet interconnected forms of value orientations, namely, terminal and instrumental values, brand consciousness and behavioral intentions. This study validated the conceptual model for branded fashion apparel consumption in an emerging market, e.g. India.

The research design followed a two-step approach to test the measurement and structural models for partial least squares structural equation modeling with SmartPLS (v.3.0) as recommended by Anderson and Gerbing (1988).

The results illustrated that both the instrumental and terminal values influence brand consciousness and, consequently, brand consciousness had an impact on behavioral intentions for fashion apparel consumption. Instrumental values had a greater influence on brand consciousness and behavioral intentions than terminal values. Brand consciousness mediated the relationship between instrumental/terminal values and behavioral intentions.

This study defined two value orientations (i.e. instrumental versus terminal) using cross-sectional data from an emerging market. Future studies may examine the research findings’ generalizability using diverse data sets (longitudinal and cross-sectional) and evaluate the value orientation and customers’ favorable behavioral intentions for luxury fashion consumption.

This study provides insights into luxury marketers and practitioners to understand the contribution of instrumental and terminal values on brand consciousness and behavioral intentions for luxury fashion apparel. The findings would assist in developing marketing strategies for an emerging market, i.e. India.

With the rapid proliferation of materialism, the Indian market has witnessed the dawn of a new era of luxury fashion acceptance. The research offers evidence that in emerging markets such as India, consumers exhibit value orientation toward luxury brands while holding a sense of fashion involvement in their consumption behavior.

This study is a pioneering attempt to understand the relationships between the value orientation, namely, instrumental and terminal values and their underlying influence on brand consciousness and behavioral intentions toward fashion apparel. Rokeach’s (1973) two-dimensional value dichotomy was adapted to understand luxury apparel consumption in an emerging market context, specifically India.