“You are too friendly!” The negative effects of social media marketing on value perceptions of luxury fashion 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.
References (61)
Implications of commodity theory for value change
- et al.
Feeling close from afar: The role of psychological distance in offsetting distrust in unfamiliar online retailers
Journal of Retailing
(2016) Material possessions as stereotypes: Material images of different socioeconomic groups
Journal of Economic Psychology
(1994)- et al.
The influence of social media interactions on consumer–brand relationships: A three-country study of brand perceptions and marketing behaviors
International Journal of Research in Marketing
(2016) - et al.
Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of social media
Business Horizons
(2010) - et al.
Do social media marketing activities enhance customer equity? An empirical study of luxury fashion brand
Journal of Business Research
(2012) Fostering consumer–brand relationships in social media environments: The role of parasocial interaction
Journal of Interactive Marketing
(2014)- et al.
Images of success and the preference for luxury brands
Journal of Consumer Psychology
(2006) Marketing the premium product
Business Horizons
(1987)- et al.
Dove vs. Dior: Extending the brand extension decision-making process from mass to luxury
Australasian Marketing Journal (AMJ)
(2004)
The effect of a limited-edition offer following brand dilution on consumer attitudes toward a luxury brand
Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services
Comparing the importance of luxury value perceptions in crossnational contexts
Journal of Business Research
Scarcity and consumer choice behavior
Journal of Economic Psychology
Scarcity and preference: An experiment on unavailability and product evaluation
Journal of Economic Psychology
Measuring brand equity across products and markets
California Management Review
Social distance and social decisions
Econometrica: Journal of the Econometric Society
Brand tourists: how non–core users enhance the brand image by eliciting pride
Journal of Consumer Research
Brand contamination in social media: Consumers' negative influence on luxury brand perceptions—A structured abstract
Social space and symbolic power
Sociological Theory
Understanding consumers' responses toward social media advertising and purchase intention toward luxury products
Journal of Global Fashion Marketing
Do consumers perceive three levels of luxury? A comparison of accessible, intermediate and inaccessible luxury brands
Journal of Brand Management
How digital challengers are redefining luxury
Exploration of apparel brand knowledge: Brand awareness, brand association, and brand category structure
Clothing and Textiles Research Journal
Observations: Understanding the world of international luxury brands: The “dream formula”
Journal of Advertising Research
Does place matter when shopping online? Perceptions of similarity and familiarity as indicators of psychological distance
Journal of Interactive Advertising
The anatomy of the luxury fashion brand
Journal of Brand Management
Real median household income in the United States
All that is users might not be gold: How labeling products as user designed backfires in the context of luxury fashion brands
Journal of Marketing
Predicting tie strength with social media
Is there any future in achievement motivation?
Motivation and Emotion
Cited by (63)
The “backfire” effects of luxury advertising on TikTok: The moderating role of self-deprecating online reviews
2024, Computers in Human BehaviorThe shape of premiumness: Logo Shape's effects on perceived brand premiumness and brand preference
2023, Journal of Retailing and Consumer ServicesThe effect of interactivity of brands’ marketing activities on Facebook fan pages on continuous participation intentions: An S–O-R framework study
2023, Journal of Retailing and Consumer ServicesImages, reviews, and purchase intention on social commerce: The role of mental imagery vividness, cognitive and affective social presence
2023, Journal of Retailing and Consumer ServicesAvatar-mediated experience in the metaverse: The impact of avatar realism on user-avatar relationship
2023, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services