Elsevier

Journal of Business Research

Volume 117, September 2020, Pages 529-542
Journal of Business Research

“You are too friendly!” The negative effects of social media marketing on value perceptions of luxury fashion brands

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.07.026Get rights and content

Abstract

In light of the growing concern about brand dilution of luxury brands on social media, the purpose of this research was to examine the impact of brand-consumer engagement on value perceptions of luxury fashion brands within the context of social media marketing. The result of Study 1 demonstrated that luxury brands were inherently psychologically distant than mainstream brands. The results of Study 2 and Study 3 showed that a luxury brand with a high level (vs. low level) of brand-consumer engagement resulted lower value perceptions (i.e., social, uniqueness, and quality value perceptions) of the brand, and such relationships were mediated by decreased psychological distance. This research provides important implications for luxury brand managers and scholars that luxury fashion brands should maintain psychological distance on social media to protect the core value perceptions of the brands.

Introduction

Social media refers to Internet-based platforms which aim to enable user interactions such as creating and sharing information and discussing ideas (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). Social media has become a powerful marketing tool for brand managers because of its interactive nature. Brands engage with consumers on social media by responding to consumers' posts and encouraging user-participation. According to a report by Schneider (2015), leading brands respond to about 60% of consumers' tweets on Twitter. Luxury brands also have increasingly utilized social media to engage in two-way communications with consumers (Kim & Ko, 2012). Among luxury brands, Coach and Karen Millen encourage consumers to upload photos of their products with hashtag on social media and feature consumer photos on their websites. Also, Cartier actively responds to consumers' questions and engages in conversations with consumers on its Facebook brand page.

A growing number of general brand studies have documented positive outcomes of brand-consumer engagement on social media. For example, Schivinski and Dabrowski (2016) found that user-generated social media brand communications positively influenced brand loyalty and perceived brand quality. Similarly, Labrecque (2014) found that brand-user engagement increased loyalty intentions and willingness to provide information to the brand.

Despite the positive outcomes of brand-consumer engagement on social media documented in the literature, an important question still remains: Is a high level of brand-consumer engagement always beneficial to luxury brands? It is clear that the fundamental concepts of social media and luxury contradict each other: social media is inclusive, interactive, accessible, and designed for the masses, while luxury is exclusive, controlled, and intended for a selected group of wealthy consumers (Desai, 2016; Reed, 2015). Therefore, social media, characterized by interactivity and accessibility, may damage the core meaning of exclusivity inherently embedded in a luxury brand. In line with this perspective, previous researchers have raised concern about the risks of brand dilution of luxury brands on social media (Blasco-Arcas, Holmqvist, & Vignolles, 2016; Tungate, 2009).

However, most of empirical studies have focused on the positive effects of social media on luxury brands (e.g., Chu, Kamal, & Kim, 2013; Kim & Ko, 2012), and the critical issue of how social media may backfire in the context of luxury brands has received little attention. Considering the possible long-term impact of brand dilution, it is imperative to investigate the possible negative impact of social media marketing on value perceptions of luxury brands and the underlying mechanism of the effect. This information could deepen our understanding of the factors that influence luxury brands on social media and generate strategic guidelines for luxury brand managers to protect their brand reputation while taking advantage of social media marketing.

The current study builds on the contention that active brand-consumer engagement on social media may damage the core value perceptions (i.e., social, uniqueness, and quality value perceptions) of luxury brands because the brands feel too close and accessible to the general consumers. As mentioned earlier, luxury brands are intended to cater to only a privileged class of consumers, and they should maintain distance from the masses to stay desirable and valuable (Fuchs, Prandelli, Schreier, & Dahl, 2013; Kapferer & Bastien, 2012). Drawing upon construal level theory of psychological distance, this study aims to illustrate maintaining psychological distance to the masses on social media is essential for luxury brands to protect their important value perceptions. In the current research, psychological distance is defined as consumers' subjective perception about the distance between a luxury brand and the mass market consumers.

Section snippets

Construal level theory of psychological distance

Construal level theory of psychological distance (CLT) (Liberman & Trope, 2008) is a theory that explains the relationship between a person's subjective experience of distance and the person's way of thinking. CLT posits that the more distant (vs. closer) an object is from the self, the more abstractly (vs. concretely) the object is construed, leading to high-level construals (vs. low-level construals). Therefore, CLT posits that as the distance between an object and the self increases (vs.

Study 1

The objective of Study 1 was to provide a preliminary test of the prediction that luxury brands, compared to mainstream brands, will be perceived as more psychologically distant (H1).

Study 2

The objectives of study 2 were to test the effect of brand-consumer engagement on psychological distance of luxury brands (H2) and the value perceptions of luxury brands (H3) and the mediating role of psychological distance (H4).

Study 3

The primary objective of Study 3 was to replicate, extend, and increase generalizability of the findings of Study 2. To do so, Study 3 manipulated the level of brand-consumer engagement in a different way, controlled the effect of brand awareness using a hypothetical luxury brand, and collected samples that are more representative of the U.S. consumers.

Regarding the measures, Study 3 focused on measuring the social distance dimension of psychological distance to better reflect the research

General discussion

Across the experimental studies, this research highlights the impact of psychological distance of luxury brands triggered by a level of consumer-brand engagement on value perceptions of luxury brands. This research yields both theoretical and practical implications in the following ways.

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