There has been an emerging interest in the effective luxury advertising, which has been conducted within and across national borders. Unlike earlier studies on luxury brands that focused on the behavior and opinions of luxury consumers (e.g., luxury motivations, value perceptions, etc.), this nascent stream of research queries an important role that advertising exerts on luxury consumers (Freire, 2014). Informed by these developments, our study examines how luxury brand marketers can design effective social media messages for their consumers. In particular, we draw on recent research in consumer psychology to shed new light on (1) how consumer feelings about the psychological distance of luxury consumption may influence their evaluation of different types of message appeals on social media and their intention to share these messages with others; and (2) we address how this process varies depending on (a) the perceived tie strength between consumers on social media, the functional attitudes of luxury brands, and across different cultural milieus.

“Today I was persuaded to spend more than $200 on a lotion in Barneys. The price difference (between online and store) is $75. However, the store salesman told me that it is only few dollars way! I felt humiliated by the upscale society.” Lawrence, a 22 years old male Chinese who is an international undergraduate student studying marketing in a public U.S. university, posted the above status on his WeChat moments. With its fast growing economy and huge population, China has become one of the most lucrative markets for luxury brands (Zhan and He 2012). In fact, China has surpassed Japan and become the No.1 luxury products’ spender in the world, accounting more than one-quarter of the global luxury brand expenditure (Yousuf 2012). According to Bian & Company’s study (2016), $ 17.6 billion were spent on Chinese luxury market in 2015. In the past, the core Chinese luxury consumers are female middle-class and up-class consumers (Zhan and He 2012). In recent years, the faces of Chinese luxury consumers have gradually changed: more and more Chinese luxury goods buyers are males, and they actually spend more money on average than women do (Chen, 2016). In addition, the Chinese culture is different from the Western culture (Li, Li and Kambelle 2012). Accordingly, Chinese luxury consumption follows its own patterns and trends, which may not always resemble those of the Western world (Li, Li and Kambelle 2012). Previous studies have revealed unique characteristics of Chinese luxury consumers, in terms of motivations, for example, Mianzi (prestigious face) (Li and Su 2007; Wang and Ahuvia 1998), subcultures (Wang, Sun and Song 2011), public meaning (Wang, Sun and Song 2011), gift giving (Li and Su 2007), and reference groups (Li and Su 2007). All of those studies emphasized the cultural and social dimensions of luxury brands’ consumption. Given these distinctive characteristics of the Chinese market, Western luxury brands have made use of all possible communication methods to connect with Chinese consumers. One of the seemingly promising channels is the Internet. The Internet breaks down geographical and temporal boundaries (Kozinets 1999), and enables Western luxury brands to connect with overseas markets. Among all the digital advertising tools, social media have become increasingly important in the Chinese market (Kim and Ko 2012). In 2015 alone, there were 574 million active mobile social media users in China (Kemp 2015). Due to the large number of social media users, Western luxury brands, like Burberry (Phan, Thomas, and Heine 2011), have started practicing social media advertising (Okonkwo 2009). Accordingly, several challenges emerge. With the rising popularity of social media, Chinese consumers increasingly demand Western luxury brands’ social presence online. Looking at the bright side, social media allows Western luxury brands to show a desirable brand image (Okonkwo 2009; Tynan, McKechnie, and Chhoun 2010) and maintain customer relationship (Kim and Ko 2012). However, concerns about negative consumer comments and their potential impact on brand images (Britten 2013; Macnamara and Zerfass 2012; Singer 2014) loom large. Thus, it remains a question whether and to what extent Western luxury brands embrace the interactive media. Moreover, it is unclear how Chinese consumers perceive their social media advertising effort. In particular, how Chinese young males, the new market segment, interpret luxury brands’ social media advertising presence is an untapped research field. Thus, the purpose of this study is to fill the research gap by exploring how Chinese young male consumers understand and interpret luxury brands’ social media advertising. Given the exploratory nature of the study, a qualitative research approach is adopted (Creswell 2013).

This study aims to examine the impact of endorser ethnicity and portrayal on consumers’ attitude toward luxury ad and brand. In addition, the moderating role of individual’s appearance self-esteem is examined. In the ads of luxury brands in China, it is common to have two types of endorser ethnicity (i.e., international vs. local) and two types of endorser portrayal (i.e., sexy vs. smart). Endorser ethnicity in an ad may influence consumers’ self-referencing behavior which refers to an individual’s tendency to encode communication information differently depending on the level on which the self is implicated in the information (Rogers et al., 1997). Asian consumers’ self-reference level is found to be higher when they are exposed to ads featuring an Asian model than a Western model (Martin et al., 2004). In other words, if an international luxury brand adopts a localization advertising strategy in China by using a Chinese endorser, the local consumers are more likely to generate a higher level of self-reference.

In recent years, online video advertising through social media has become a fast-growing tendency that will continue unabated. Online video advertising has become an important and influential tool in the hands of marketers and advertisers, who are spending on average over $10 million annually on digital video, representing an 85% increase from 2 years ago (IAB, 2016). Luxury brands frequently use lifestyle advertising to sell a certain lifestyle to consumers. However, it is the storytelling content that appears to become one of the marketing trends of 2016. This study aims to explore the impact of informativeness, entertainment, and credibility of storytelling and lifestyle video advertising on advertising value and consumer attitudes. To this end, we conducted online surveys with 300 respondents. Factor analysis, correlations, t-tests, and multiple regression analysis (SPSS 21.0) were performed to analyze the data. Our results demonstrate that the advertising value dimensions – informativeness, entertainment, and credibility ̶ have positive effects on advertising value, flow experience, and attitudes towards advertising. This, in turn, positively influences consumers’ purchase intentions. However, our results show that, as compared to lifestyle video advertising, storytelling video advertising has a more significant effect on advertising value. Taken together, the results of the present study provide a theoretical foundation for the real-life applications of storytelling and lifestyle video advertising. Our results also offer meaningful implications for marketers with regard to effective social media video advertising.

The popularity of visual communication in social network sites (SNS) can guide an important question about its effectiveness and the optimization for luxury brand advertising: How do visual communication messages via SNS work for consumer information processing and their evaluation of luxury hotels? To address this question, we examine consumer information processing in SNS in which visual communication messages work as narratives based on narrative transportation theory (Green & Brock, 2002; van Laer, Ruyter, Visconti, & Wetzels, 2014). Specific purposes are: (1) to identify key features of consumer information processing as narrative persuasion (i.e., narrative transportation), (2) to examine how consumers’ perceptions of fluency with visual messages (i.e., comprehension fluency and imagery fluency) influence the narrative persuasion process, and (3) to explore how the narrative persuasion process develops consumer responses with respect to positive affect and visit intention. First, we predict that increased fluency of information processing (comprehension fluency and imagery fluency) would increase narrative transportation. Second, increased narrative transportation would increase affective response and visit intention. Lastly, as for the two consequences, we predict that affective response would positively affect visit intention. A web-based survey was used for data collection. Measurement items of research variables were adapted from previous studies. A total of 193 usable responses were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk. Participants were directed to explore one randomly assigned luxury hotel Instagram page (Four Seasons or Ritz Carlton) and complete the questionnaire based on the experience. Results showed that comprehensive fluency, rather than imagery fluency, has significant impact on narrative transportation. Narrative transportation in turn influences affective response and visit intention; affective response influences visit intention. Additional tests suggest that narrative transportation and affective response play a mediating role in the narrative persuasion process. These findings highlight the power of narrative transportation in advertising for luxury brands, advising that marketers need to put efforts on enhancing visual storytelling in SNS communication.

In the framework of luxury marketing, counterfeits have been constructed as a constant threat – an irritating presence and a hostile intruder (Bian & Mouthinho, 2008; Keller, 2009). However, there now exists a minor but growing body of literature that has found counterfeits as potentially non-threatening or even beneficial for luxury brands (e.g., Barnett, 2005; Romani, Gistri & Pace, 2012). Building on this emerging stream of evidence, the goal of this conceptual paper is to explore how counterfeits act as advertising for luxury brands and how luxury brands could benefit from this. To understand the communicative potential of counterfeits, we construct our argument around Veblen’s (1899/1994) foundational notion of how the conspicuous consumption of luxury revolves around the creation of new styles by/for the elite consumers and the efforts of the masses to emulate them. In doing so, we differentiate the effects based on whether they contribute to the emergence of new luxury goods targeted to elite consumers or the diffusion of luxury to the masses. The emergence of luxury stems from the desire of elite consumers to distinguish themselves from the masses through conspicuous consumption (Veblen, 1899/1994). Counterfeits contribute to this phenomenon by accelerating the snob effect (Leibenstein, 1950) as counterfeits destroy snob premium of goods and drives elite consumers to seek new ways to distinguish themselves (Barnett, 2005). Counterfeits also accelerate the fashion cycle that luxury companies depend on (see also Sproles, 1981). They do so by induced obsolescence that destroys the status value of product designs when they are copied and by anchoring trends to design features that accelerate their diffusion and subsequent replacement (Raustiala & Sprigman, 2006; 2009). Another key component of conspicuous consumption relates to the diffusion of luxury to the greater public (Veblen, 1899/1994). Therein counterfeits can generate aspiration effect when non-elite consumers imitate elite consumers by consuming counterfeits and in so doing generate brand awareness and exposure among other non-elite consumers (Barnett, 2005; Shultz & Saporito, 1996) at early stages of diffusion. During latter stages of diffusion counterfeits can generate bandwagon effect (Leibenstein, 1950) as they confer the desirability of certain luxury goods and brands over others (Barnett, 2005;Bekir, El Harbi & Grolleau, 2008). Finally, counterfeits can generate herding effect as they signal which to consumers which goods are desirable and appreciated or ‘trendy’ at a certain point in time (De Castro, Balkin & Shepherd 2008).

Luxury brands embed meanings in advertising and encourage brand/category ritualistic behavior (Johar, Holbrook, & Stern, 2001; Otnes & Scott 1996). The ritualization of a luxury brands, such as champagne, is important because rituals encourage transformation and status attainment (Driver, 1991; Otnes & Scott, 1996). Yet, do all luxury consumers interpret the rituals communicated in advertising similarly? We consider Collins (2004) Interaction Ritual Theory (IRT) to examine how advertised rituals transform consumption practices of luxury products. We used a hermeneutic phenomenological research method (Langdridge, 2007), collecting data (interviews and photos) from 18 informants (Atkinson & Flint, 2001) using a two-tier collection strategy (see Ziller, 1990). After informants provided images of champagne (see Collier & Collier, 1986; Heisley & Levy, 1991), semi-structure interviews were conducted. The questions related to topics such as champagne sharing, ritual influence, image descriptions, and personal consumption. The data were analyzed using a grounded theory approach (Glaser, 1978), inductively coded based on IRT’s conditions. A thematic analysis of the images was also conducted (Fereday & Muir-Cochrane, 2006) as was an iterative analysis of the transcripts. The researchers separately and then together analyzed the images and transcripts to determine similarities, understandings, and interpretations of emergent themes. Consistent with taste regimes literature (Arsel & Bean, 2013), we find champagne consumption is also practiced and ritualized according to two types of regimes. Within an open regime, informants experience champagne as a medium for engaging with limited individuals, with the product as the kernel of the experience. The open regime is a negotiated (beyond what is advertised) ritual that can be explored and extended. Alternatively, a closed regime represents a more stagnant system of social interaction, emerging as a product of the situation, often a celebration (as typically advertised). Those practicing a closed regime banalize the ritual, have hegemonic discourses related to product, and have more difficulty naming brands. Consumer’s luxury brand expectations, including rituals, are often interpreted through advertising and brand-created communications. Understanding how consumers integrate brand messages into rituals with the products and brands as well as the brand role in rituals is important. While it can be hard for brands to know their target customers’ ritual regime, brands may choose varied communications approaches to reach both consumer types. Either way, consumer expectations of open regimes are likely built through advertising, while closed regimes are built through special events and intensive distribution strategies.

Celebrity endorsement in advertising constitutes a continuing trend for brands of all value levels. Regarding products originating from the luxury cosmos, resorting to celebrities at first sight seems likewise especially convenient. After all, the glamorous lifestyle of celebrities seems to fit perfectly with luxury goods. However, an old wise saying claims that what is too beautiful to be true cannot be true. Indeed, it seems justified to scrutinize why a luxury brand that bears stardom in itself needs the light of a further star to shine down on it. This controversy forms the starting point of the study at hand. In a first instance, the attitudes of opponents and supporters of celebrity endorsement in luxury marketing are balanced and merged into a model. This contains all aspects a luxury brand should consider concerning its celebrity endorsement policy. Secondly, one-hundred and eighteen luxury brands are analyzed concerning the question whether they employ celebrity endorsement. For all brands for which this applies, the celebrity endorsement policy is assessed based on the aspects included in the model in order to carve out what already works well and where there is still potential for improvement.

This study examines consumer reaction to different luxury advertising information (promotion-focus vs. prevention-focus). Studies examine the relationship between consumers’ face concern and individual regulatory focus, and explore the relationship between face concern and luxury advertising type with a 2 (face concerns) × 2 (advertising information) experiment design.

Sex appeal advertising has been widely adopted in luxury fashion marketing and yet little attention has been paid to the impact of sex appeal on perceived luxury values. Using a 2(low/high degree of sex appeal) x 2(male/female ad endorser) x 2(male/female ad viewer) factorial design, this study finds that the use of a high degree of sex appeal in an advertisement significantly improves young consumers’ perceptions of the appearance, quality, uniqueness, and conspicuousness value of a luxury fashion brand. The impact of sex appeal on the self-identity, hedonic, materialistic or prestige value perceptions appear to be insignificant. Gender interacts with the degree of sex appeal on the appearance and quality value only. Implications for luxury brand marketers and advertisers are discussed.

Consumers and sources are embedded in cultural contexts that influence how those sources are read. We examine how consumers stigmatized for being fat collectively read advertisements for luxury fashion brands featuring plus-sized sources. We unveil individual and cultural resources stigmatized consumers rely on to collectively develop readings of advertising sources.

This study demonstrates how consumers’ implicit self-theory orientations (Entity vs. Incremental) relate to their perceptions of luxury brand appeals (Functional vs. Non-functional). Specifically, our experiments show that the entity theorists are likely to value the hedonic appeal of luxury brands, whereas incremental theorists value their functional appeal. The study provides useful insights for managers for designing advertising messages and their positioning strategies for luxury brands.

This study explores relationship between social responsibility in advertising and brand attitude in luxury products. This study investgates how psychological constructs of attitude towards advertising affect brand attitude and purchase intention of luxury brand consumer and how it can lead the sustainable development of luxury products. Consumers no longer purchase products only but depend on quality and price of product. With globalization and rapid growth, corporate social responsibility becomes important issue. And the advertising represents corporate image and management concept. More recently, and coinciding with some major corporate ethical disasters, many companies have been including sections on governance, ethical practice, and social responsibility (David S. Waller & Roman Lanis, 2009). According to David S. Waller & Roman Lanis (2009), Corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure has been the subject of substantial academic accounting research (Farook and Lanis 2005; Gray, Owen, and Maunders 1987). Advertising is one of the typical means that can represent a corporate image. As defined by Lutz (1985, p. 53), attitude toward advertising in general is “a learned predisposition to respond in a consistently favorable or unfavorable manner to advertising in general.” In his framework, Lutz viewed attitude toward advertising in general as being directly influenced by general perceptions of advertising (Srinivas Durvasula et al., 1993). Authors would like to study following issues in this research. (1) How perceived social responsibility influences Attitude toward advertising. (2) How fashion consumer behavior influences Attitude toward advertising. (3) How attitude toward advertising affects brand attitude and purchase intention. (4) How proximity plays a moderating role among perceived social responsibility, attitude toward advertising and brand attitude.