Influence of integration on interactivity in social media luxury brand communities
Introduction
Luxury fashion brand marketers and advertisers have recently turned their attention to luxury consumers in social media communities devoted to their brands (Ko & Megehee, 2012). Consumers are drawn to luxury brands for more than just the acquisition of materialistic or superficial possessions. They may also be drawn by perceptions of profound value, exceptional craftsmanship, and identification with a particular country (Keller, 2009, Miller and Mills, 2012, Phau and Prendergast, 2000). Luxury consumption is therefore multidimensional and embraces financial (e.g., exclusivity), functional (e.g., product excellence), individual (e.g., personal enjoyment), and social value (e.g., prestige and status) components (Hennigs et al., 2013, Miller and Mills, 2012). As a result, luxury brand managers recognize that complex and psychological motivations drive consumers to purchase their items.
The consumer perception that a product is luxurious depends on subjective consumer experiences, individual needs, and product categories (Ko, 2011). Currently, luxury brand images have expanded to include brand heritage, quality, artistic value, and customer relationships (Kim & Ko, 2012). In an effort to communicate these images more effectively with customers, luxury fashion brands, in particular, are expanding their use of social media communities (Kim & Ko, 2012).
Since Cartier established the first online luxury brand community on MySpace (Goldie, 2005), other luxury brands such as Chanel, Louis Vuitton, and Prada, have created many online and social media communities devoted to their brands. If luxury brand managers want to successfully manage their brand communities in the face of an ever-changing social media environment, they need to understand how to effectively communicate deeper values around their luxury brands through their brand communities (Chi, 2012, Fujita et al., 2017, Jung and Kim, 2016, Lewis et al., 2017, Porter and Dontsu, 2008).
In general, brand communities are specialized, non-geographically bound, and based on a social relationship among the brand users (Muniz & O'Guinn, 2001) who share both particular and common devotion to the brand. Social brand communities, where members have a relationship in the social media context, can create trustworthy experiences for customers, inspire interactivity, improve brand attitudes, augment brand loyalty, and increase purchase behaviors (Chelladurai, 2016, Gu and Kim, 2016, Kim et al., 2015, Kim and Leng, 2017, Porter and Dontsu, 2008, Sabah, 2017, Yu et al., 2017).
This study uses the key concepts of integration and interactivity to provide a theoretical foundation to investigate luxury brand communities (LBCs) on social media. The study examines: (1) the effects of LBC integration on interaction as a process; (2) the effects of interaction as a process on perceived interactivity of LBCs; and (3) the effects of integration and interactivity on attitudes, brand loyalty, and purchase intentions. It also discusses the implications for luxury brand management academia as well as practitioners.
Section snippets
Theoretical framework of luxury brand communities
To enhance their brands, create customer relationships, and increase sales, luxury brands need to develop more unique brand identities, and through those, offer exclusive brand relationships. Luxury brand communities are inherently oriented toward acquiring new and refined experiences (Freire, 2014), and boosting brand relationships (Hagtvedt & Patrick, 2009).
Since most luxury brands try to appeal to customers through their symbolic and emotional aspects, brands that create positive
Methods
The study investigates key questions about associations among integration, interactivity, attitude, purchase intention, and brand loyalty by surveying 252 members of social media LBCs in South Korea. The participant pool included 120 men (47.6%) and 132 women (52.4%) from 20 to 49 years old (mean = 32.2 years). Specifically, this survey recruited members of luxury brand Facebook fan pages. Before completing the entire survey, participants were asked whether they were LBC members, specifically of a
Results
In terms of validity and reliability (see Table 2): the measurement model had an acceptable overall goodness-of-fit (Chi-square = 1176.776, DF = 647, p < 0.001, Chi-square/DF = 1.819, RMR = 0.045, CFI = 0.904, RMSEA = 0.057). The reliability coefficients of the integration measures (product, brand, company, and other owners) were 0.815, 0.779, 0.719, and 0.800, respectively. The reliability coefficient of all five interactions as a process was 0.816. The reliability coefficient of all 10 perceived
Discussion
This study makes three key contributions that have implications for academics and practitioners. First, the study offers a theoretical framework to analyze social media LBCs using the key concepts of integration and interactivity. Second, the findings confirm a relationship between the key concepts: positive effects of LBC integration on interaction as a process and positive effects of interaction as a process on perceived interactivity of LBCs in the social media context. Finally, the study
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