Introduction Today, many luxury brands use social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube to communicate with their target consumers worldwide. Previous research has shown that engaging consumers in social media can lead to increase commitment and loyalty (e.g., Hudson, Huang, Roth, & Madden, 2016; Wirtz et al., 2013), purchase intentions (e.g., Beukeboom, Kerkhof, & de Vries, 2015; Kim & Ko, 2010) and sales (e.g., Kumar et al., 2016). Although researchers have investigated the role of social media marketing for luxury brands at an aggregate level (e.g., Godey et al., 2016; Kim & Ko, 2012), little is known about the success drivers of luxury brand communication at a more granular level. Therefore, our study aims to identify the characteristics of luxury brand posts that elicit positive consumer affect. Specifically, we examine the effect of different luxury appeals (e.g., conspiciousness, uniqueness, quality), alongside other brand post characteristics (e.g., vividness, call-to-action, informative/entertaining content) on consumers‟ affective reactions (“Love”) towards a luxury brand post. For this purpose, we draw on field data from Facebook that comprises 2,343 individidual brand posts published by 18 leading luxury brands between 1st January 2017 and 30th June 2017. Our study contributes to literature on luxury brand communication in at least three ways: First, from a theoretical perspective, we are shedding the first light on the relevance of different luxury appeals for generating consumer engagement in social media. Methodologically, we further introduce a novel measure of consumer engagement termed Love-Ratio (short, LoveR), which is based on Facebook‟s new “reactions”-feature that was introduced in 2016. Finally, from a managerial point of view, our insights that help managers of luxury brands to „engineer“ emotionally engaging social media content that contributes to strong consumer-brand relationships. Literature Review Conceptual BackgroundLiterature provides initial empirical evidence for the general advantageousness of social media activities for luxury brands (Godey et al., 2016; Kim & Ko 2010, 2012). Importantly, these studies commonly examine consumers‟ overall assessment of a brand‟s social media activities, i.e. whether a brand‟s (entire) social media presence “enables information sharing with others” (interaction) or “offers customized information search” (customization; Kim & Ko, 2012, p. 1483). Therefore, it constitutes an aggregate measure of a brand‟s social media presence as a whole, and is not concerned with the specifics of the individual interactions between a brand and consumers (post as the unit of analysis). Recent research, however, clearly indicates that the extent to which consumers interact with a brand in social media (e.g., liking, sharing, or commenting) depends on the characteristics of a given brand post (e.g., De Vries, Gensler, & Leeflang, 2012; Sabate, Berbegal-Mirabent, Canabate, & Lebherz, 2014; Schultz, 2017). Most studies in this regard examined correlations between certain characteristics (e.g., use of photos, videos, and/or links, post length and timing) and different measures of consumer engagement or post popularity (i.e., number of likes, comments, or shares).5) These studies provide useful insights into several “hard” criteria that determine consumer interactions with brand posts. However, due to the tremendous coding efforts required, only few studies have also considered “soft” criteria, such as the appeal – i.e., “the overall theme of a post” (Wagner, Baccarella, & Voigt, 2017, p. 2) – that is communicated within a post. To extend knowledge in the field of luxury brand communication in social media, we are adopting a similar approach by (1) proposing a comprehensive set of luxury-specific appeals that may be communicated within brand posts and (2) empirically investigating their effectiveness in evoking positive consumer affect. Conceptual Background Based on a synthesis of prior work (e.g., Vigneron & Johnson, 2004) we propose a set of six distinct luxury appeals that can be communicated via social media posts: 1. Conspicuousness: Conspicuous consumption refers to the consumption of goods or services with the intention of social status improvement and communication to others (Eastman, Goldsmith, & Flynn, 1999). It involves high levels of self-monitoring and a status-signaling mentality (Wilcox, Kim, & Sen, 2009), aimed at presenting oneself by means of a product that is recognized and highly regarded by others. The general aim is to express a brand„s capability to enable a person to become the center of attention and stand out of the crowd by conveying a high social status (Phau & Prendergast, 2000). 2. Uniqueness: Uniqueness refers to the quality of being particularly special due to sheer rarity or remarkable characteristics. Brands express their uniqueness by highlighting their products‟ (a) excellent craftmanship, (b) innovativeness, or (c) their exclusiveness in terms of consumption. Examples for uniqueness through craftmanship include creative product designs, the use of rare materials or ingredients (e.g., diamonds in the context of jewelry), or even tailor-made/personalized products (e.g., configuration of a car; inscription of personal initials onto fashion items). The general aim is to distinguish a product from others, rendering it extraordinary and remarkable. The same can be accomplished through innovation, since a pioneering product is by definition unique in that it has certain features that distinguish it from any other existing competing product. Furthermore, uniqueness can be achieved through exclusiveness of consumption. One method to create contrived rarity is a limitation of the quantity of products manufactured (e.g., limited editions; Vigneron & Johnson, 2004). 3. Quality: Luxury brands are generally expected to deliver high quality products and services (Vigneron & Johnson, 2004). Indicators that can be used in the communication of quality include specific materials (e.g., cashmere, gemstones) or performance data (e.g., power, top speed) that convey a high standard of (instrinsic) quality. 4. Hedonism: In general, the term hedonism refers to the pursuit of pleasure in the sense of sensual self-indulgence. Luxury brands commonly offer emotional and sensual benefits that can be experienced by and transferred to consumers in a consumption situation (Moore & Lee, 2012). Communication aimed at conveying hedonism commonly neglects utilitarian (i.e., functional) aspects of the product of interest and, instead, emphasizes the emotional experience associated with the consumption of that product or service (Vigneron & Johnson, 2004), e.g., pleasure, joy, self-reward, love, passion, or excitement (Holbrook & Hirschman, 1982). 5. Extended Self: The term extended self describes the definition of a person‟s selfconcept by his/her personal possessions. In other words, consumers use products (or services) to define who they are. For example, wearing luxury fashion items enables a person to associate himself/herself with characteristics of the brand, and vice versa (Vigneron & Johnson, 2004). Brand communication reflecting this appeal attempts to suggest that the consumption of a product or service helps them to establish, reinforce, and express an aspired personality trait, such as elegance, confidence, success, or power. 6. Heritage: Many luxury brands have a long history and rich tradition. Communication efforts that intend to convey a brand‟s rich heritage either showcase a brand‟s founder as a person, elaborate on the founder‟s or company‟s history, or highlight a traditional, iconic product which has made the brand what it is today. Data and Method To investigate the effectiveness of these luxury appeals in evoking positive consumer affect, we conducted an empirical analysis using field data from Facebook. We compiled a set of 18 luxury brands from different categories, including fashion, cars, cosmetics, and champagne. For this set of brands, we extracted all brand posts (mostly photos and videos) that were published between 1st January and 30th June 2017, yielding 2,343 individual posts that constitute our unit of analysis. We enriched the raw data by manually coding all brand posts in terms of the luxury appeals of interest, following a two step-procedure. First, we developed a detailed codebook that defines each luxury appeal, provides a list of relevant indicators, and further illustrates each luxury appeal with the help of exemplary brand posts. Using the codebook we instructed two independent coders to code the absence (0) or presence (1) of each luxury appeal within a given post. The inter-rater reliabilities were satisfactory for all luxury appeals, ranging from .79 to .91. We further requested the coders to capture other content characteristics and controls that potentially affect consumer interactions with brand posts, e.g., Vividness, Calls-to-Action, Entertaining vs. Informative Content, Visibility of the Brand, and Type of Endorser. Instead of examining conventional measures of consumer engagement, such as likes, comments, or shares, we introduce a new measure of consumer affect that we label “Love-Ratio” or, short, LoveR. This measure is based on Facebook‟s new class of user reactions that enable users to indicate their feelings about certain posts, such as “Love” or “Anger”. LoveR represents the amount of “Love”-reactions relative to all reactions toward a given brand post. Thus, it reflects an aggregate measure of users‟ positive affect towards a brand post. We consider LoveR an important extension of commonly investigated outcomes such as Likes or Shares, which are considered “fairly low-level form[s] of engagement” (Stephen, Sciandra, & Inman, 2015, p. 20). Consumer affect, by contrast, is generally considered a “chief motivator of behavior” (O‟Cass & Frost, 2002, p. 73) and a “mediating factor in the purchase process” (Schiffman, Bendall, Watson, & Kanuk, 1997, p. 361), therefore representing a useful proxy of consumer attitudes. Model estimation Given the nested structure of the data (i.e., posts are nested within brand pages), we use hierarchical linear modeling (Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002) with random intercepts to analyze the data. We specify the proposed luxury appeals (Conspiciousness, Uniqueness, Quality, Hedonism, Extended Self, and Heritage) alongside additional content characteristics, and brand dummies as predictors of LoveR. After estimating the direct effects, we stepwise include interaction terms to test potential moderating effects of Vividness and Entertainment. The results suggest that three of the six luxury appeals evoke positive consumer affect. The strongest driver of LoveR is Quality (β = .978, p < .001), followed by Hedonism (β = .479, p < .05) and Heritage (β = .451, p < .01). Conspiciousness and Uniqueness, by contrast, are not significantly related to consumers‟ affective reactions towards brand posts. Furthermore, the use of an appeal that communicates Extended Self even decreases LoveR (β = -.530, p < .10), although the effect is only marginally significant. To further contextualize these main effects, we included additional interaction terms involving Vividness and Entertainment. We find (a) that the effect of Hedonism on LoveR is further enhanced by the use of videos (relative to photos and other less vivid types of media; interaction effect: β = 1.023, p < .05, conditional effect of Hedonism for vivid content β = .934, p < .01,) and (b) that the effect of Heritage on LoveR tends to be larger when it is communicated in an entertaining rather than informative style (interaction effect: β = .753, p = .001; conditional effect of Heritage for entertaining style: β = .660, p < .001). Conclusions Our study sheds light onto the effectiveness of luxury brands‟ communication in social media in terms of generating positive consumer affect. Our results based on an analysis of 2,343 individual luxury brand posts in Facebook show that only certain luxury appeals can trigger consumers‟ “Love”-reactions towards a brand post. Specifically, we find that brand posts that convey Quality, Hedonism, and Heritage appeals increase the likelihood of a brand post being “loved“, whereas Conspiciousness and Uniqueness exert no influence at all. Posts which communicate an Extended Self may even decrease favorable affective reactions by users. The effects of Hedonism and Heritage are further enhanced by the use of videos or entertaining content, respectively. These findings have direct implications for the marketing communications of luxury brands. From a content perspective, marketers should develop and run media content that (a) emphasizes hedonic consumption motives (as reflected by Hedonism) rather than status-signaling motives (as reflected by Conspiciousness), preferably using rich media such as videos; (b) educates consumers about the history and values of a brand, preferably in an informative rather than entertaining way; and (c) reinforces a brand‟s quality claim.

With the tremendous development of social media in recent years, luxury brands have welcomed social media with open arms as a means to engage with their customers. How luxury brands can make good use of social media marketing strategy is a top priority for both academicians and partitions but has not been well investigated. Many significant research gaps are present in this area warranting further explorations. For example, there is little research on the effectiveness of celebrity endorsement on social media (except for Chung and Cho’ (2017) study), even less for luxury brands. In addition, previous research on social media marketing mainly focuses on western-based platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Given the mentioned research gaps, this study builds on social media marketing and celebrity endorsement literature and aims to investigate the key factors influencing the effectiveness of celebrity-based social media marketing efforts for luxury brands. In particular, China market and Sina Weibo are selected as our research setting. We propose the message characteristics, celebrity characteristics, celebrity-brand relationship and brand characteristics have impact on customer engagement in celebrity-based social media marketing activities. We combined two data sources to generate the key variables. First, we derived posts on the brand pages of 12 luxury brands (e.g., Cartier, Tiffany, BVLGARI and PIAGET) that were published on Sina Weibo from September 2016 to March 2017 on the middle of December 2017. Then celebrity-related posts were all picked out. The final sample includes more than five hundred celebrity-related brand posts. For each post, it contains three kinds of engagement measures (i.e., the number of Likes, Retweets and Comments) observed on Sina Weibo. They are dependent variables in our model. We built up regression models to test the hypotheses. To generate those variables that cannot be derived directly from the posts, a set of independent coders was recruited to quantify those variables. The exploratory results show that posts related to celebrities (e.g., brand ambassador/spokesman) take a significant part of posts on Sina Weibo brand pages.

It is certainly not possible to analyse the evolution of the global luxury consumers orientations for the new luxury Chinese brands without considering the essence and the impact of the “brandscape”. In the last decade, China has assisted to the surge of the “luxury lifestyle” for a multiplicity of consumer segments living in those coastal areas – and not only - filled with luxury and fashion brands, that invaded every city area from streets to airports from clinics to hotels where concept stores, luxury flagship stores, sponsorships for events and urban artefacts “add value to the symbolic production of an urban lived space” (Bellini and Pasquinelli, 2015). Luxury product brands are enriched by the synergy with the city brand and the diverse fashion and art city locations, activities and events. In the new luxury perspective that sees luxury in its experiential dimension and no longer only in desire of an exclusive object, the relation of luxury brands and city brand requires a specific focus, in particular in the new fast growing economies as China that sees the rise of the new experiential luxury lifestyle and new local luxury brands. In the fast growing luxury Chinese luxury market where new Chinese luxury brands are striving to acquire a brand identity and image first in the local market and then in the international one, city branding may be a conductive solutions for brand value and identity creation. Authentic luxury experiences in significant city contexts appear added value activities for luxury brands in particular for those with no consolidated heritage and identity as the new Chinese luxury brands. New retail formats such as pop-up stores, concept stores located in specific high value artistic or fashion related locations adds value (Bellaiche et al, 2012). For Chinese luxury brands with a very limited identity, a almost absent heritage and a ongoing value creation of the brand, in-store experience is increasingly important (Atsmon et al, 2012) and the shopping location certainly represent an important factor for the increasingly diverse and demanding luxury customers by being not only the instrument towards the desired subjects but also a value-adding experience on its own (Rintamaki et al, 2007, p. 628). The emergence of the Chinese luxury consumer did not mean the presence on a market where the consumers are gathered by the same tastes, desires and purchasing patterns. Reference to the global consumer culture and paradigm evidenced that consumers in diverse geographical contexts may have different and sometimes even conflicting opinions or shared desires and values expressed in similar behaviours or symbols towards a brand. Global brands sets the international standards and convey shared symbols (Holt, Quelch and Taylor 2004) and a myth of cosmopolitanism to which many consumers world-wide appreciate (Strizhacova, Coulter and Price 2008).Brands represent a form of culture and they relate to the way people live, think, eat and choose to wear as well, a form of seeing life and the world (Askegaard, Kjeldgaard and Arnould, 2009) . Luxury brands have become increasingly present in the Chinese consumer market and lifestyle and the role of purchasing luxury goods experiencing a luxury lifestyle has taken an unexpected importance and meaning in the Chinese social context. China has started to experience the consumer culture only after China's opening up to the market economy as a result of the economic reforms post-1979 that have given to "aspirational" consumers more freedom to develop a consumer culture partially away from political limitations but still permeated in the Chinese culture and its characteristics. Those reforms have also given rise to the private businesses and the birth of a consumer middle class, "the new rich", in China. The birth of the Chinese middle class has fuelled the emergence of a highly diversified consumer class with different purchasing attitudes (Latham, 2006) and a new way to express their taste, their motivation for purchasing (Gillette, 2000) and in particular an increasing brand awareness, mode of purchasing and conceptualisation of luxury (Rambourg, 2014; Rovai, 2016). Distinctive aspects of luxury consumer culture have started to emerge in the late years, evidencing new desires for Chinese luxury consumers with respect to luxury brands, accompanied by the entrance in the market of Chinese luxury brands aspiring the capitalise on the increasing "Chinese luxury desire" but limited by their lack of specific characteristics of authentic luxury brands - heritage, identity and prestige amongst others. As a result, this research focuses on the analysis of Chinese luxury brands presence in the local Chinese urban context; specifically, it focuses on how the Chinese urban fashion context can help to support the creation of a luxury brand value and also reinforce a luxury brand identity and image in a Chinese luxury consumer culture that does not possess a luxury heritage. An analysis of two luxury Chinese brands and a local luxury and fashion concept store has been initiated together with further evidence from the Shanghai urban context, its activities, events and cultural specifics together with the following a qualitative method and in particular Yin (1989) case study approach. A series of 15 interviews have been held in late 2016 in Shanghai with the two Chinese luxury brands creative designers, owners and staff during one month together with observation and consulting of documents. Literature review has focused on the role of individual brands that, being somehow associated with the city become a collective brand (Pasquinelli, 2014), framing "the complex network of associations, linking products, spaces, organizations and people (Bellini and Pasquinelli, 2015). Initially, an important attention has been oriented towards the geographical associations to the country-of-origin effect (Bilkey and Nes, 1982; Johansson et al, 1985) later on evidencing that a defragmentation into of smaller geographical units may be appropriate at urban level (Bellini and Pasquinelli, 2015) to highlight the relevance of the "origin" not simply in relation to a broad geographical context where the brand manufactures a product but also „the place, region or country where a brand is perceived to belong‟ (Thakor and Kohli, 1996, p. 26). The origin being not only a matter of product production but more of product conceptualisation, perception or consumption going towards the "brand product usage context" (Gerr et al, 1999). Brand product usage happen in those spatial circuits whose cities are part of and whose role may be conductive to the „local origination‟ of product brands, adding value to the birth and internationalisation of locally originated brands (Pike, 2011). Those local brands are developed from an ecosystem composed by relations and ownerships involving a multiplicity of stakeholders whose customers are an integral part (Power and Hauge, 2008). In the literature, Fashion capitals is a unique case of those ecosystems with a specific relationship between industry and spacial circuits is based on the urban context instrumental to fashion creation and also to consumption (Breward and Gilbert, 2006). The city as a part of the consumer culture and in particular as part of the brand product experience (Thrift, 2004). As a result of the literature review and the conceptualisation of fashion capitals as ecosystems conductive to the fashion creation and consumption, an exploratory study of: Which context related variables affect new Chinese luxury brands identity and value and how the China fashion capital ecosystem affects Chinese luxury consumers brand perception. The paper will show an insight of the instrumental relation of the "brandscape" Shanghai and the impact on the Chinese luxury brands value and identity acquisition with respect to Chinese consumers.

Over the last decades, the global luxury business has become dominated by large conglomerates. Backed by the financial power of their parent companies, formerly small and often family-owned brands have expanded their presence around the globe. They have established themselves in some of the most expensive shopping districts, acquired illustrious testimonials, and sponsored prestigious events. Almost overwhelmed by the omnipresence of luxury, consumers are said to have begun looking for the “genuine” and “unique,” favoring smaller, less homogenized and more intimate luxury brands not necessarily known to the larger public. This study thus looks beyond the well-known players in the luxury market and explores the differentiating strategies used by independent niche luxury companies. It aims to identify factors contributing to their success in a global market otherwise dominated by ever-growing luxury giants.

A growing number of authors state that in recent years the notion of luxury has become all too common. Many say that authenticity is the real rare good in today’s luxury marketplace. Overwhelmed by the omnipresence of luxury and its homogenization, consumers are said to start looking for the genuine and unique, favoring smaller, more intimate and independent luxury brands. This study looks beyond well-known global players in the luxury marketplace, exploring the identities of independent niche luxury companies, their differentiating characteristics and in particular the role of authenticity. Keywords: corporate identity; corporate image; authenticity; luxury brand management; niche luxury brands; independent luxury brands

Some clothing manufacturers and retailers use attractive endorsers on their advertising. However, according to recent research, consumers with low body esteem evaluate the clothing items more negatively when they try them on in the fitting room and find that they are inferior to the attractive advertising endorser wearing the same items (Dahl, Argo, & Morales, 2012). Is it always true? Should clothing companies not use attractive endorsers? When Dahl, et al. (2012) emphasized the negative impact of an attractive endorser and discussed body esteem, they implicitly assumed body-related consumption, in which consumers wear clothing items to enrich their physical appearance. However, other research on fashion has suggested that consumers often wear clothing items for self-expression (e.g., Piacentiti & Malier, 2004). Luxury fashion brands have been particularly regarded as symbols of wealth, so consumers wear luxury fashion clothing items to show off their high status (Shavitt, 1989; Wilcox, Kim & Sen, 2009). Thus, status-related consumption should be considered in addition to body-related consumption. Considering status-related consumption, this research introduces another kind of self-esteem, i.e., status esteem, which refers to how confident consumers are in their status. Assuming that there are two types of self-esteem, body esteem (or external esteem) and status esteem (or internal esteem), both of which are related to clothing, we hypothesize that consumers low in status esteem will evaluate a status-related product more positively than consumers high in status esteem when their consumption aligns (vs. when it does not align) with an attractive endorser even though they are low in body esteem. To test the hypothesis, we conducted three laboratory experiments. The result of multiple regression analysis showed that our hypothesis was supported. By suggesting that even consumers with low body and status esteem can evaluate status-related product positively, when finding that they are inferior to the advertising endorser in terms of body, this research expands our understanding on how attractive advertising endorsers affect consumer evaluation of clothing items focusing on two kinds of selfesteem, body and status esteem.

Despite an extensive literature in scarcity, limited studies have examined how scarcity appeal may deter consumers in obtaining luxury brands. This study aims to understand consumer perception towards luxury brands as underpinned by the theory of agonistic behaviour from biology literature. Introduction The luxury brand industry has long strived to achieve the perception of scarcity. Luxury brands are defined as the highest level of prestigious brands including physical and mostly intangible elements in which price and quality ratios are the highest in the market (Nueno & Quelch 1998; Vigneron & Johnson 1999). Only the wealthy are able to afford the products (Radon, 2012). Its exclusivity, rarity/scarcity, identity, perceived quality, and awareness have become the selling point of luxury brands (Pantzalis 1995; Phau & Prendergast 2000). As Smith (1776, 112) stated, “the merit of an object, which is in any degree either useful or beautiful, is greatly enhanced by its scarcity. . .”. According to literature, scarcity effect can only be created when the product is desirable yet achievable to be possessed by consumers (Verhallen 1982). It can be initiated due to low supply or high demand (Verhallen 1982, Verhallen and Robben 1994). Scarcity to high demand indicates that there is a high number of individuals who have purchased the products. This may appeal to the consumers who wish to assimilate themselves with others or called as followers (Worchel 1992; Amaldoss and Jain 2008). On the other hand, limited edition product is an example of scarcity due to low supply. In this situation, the firm intentionally limits the quantity of potential owners of the product (Gierl, Plantsch, and Schweidler 2008). Research has shown that low supply scarcity cue increases product desirability as it signals exclusivity to the owner and provides consumers with a unique image (Lynn 1989). As a result, low-supply scarcity is more appealing for leaders who wish to distinguish themselves from the group (Amaldoss and Jain 2008). Further, scarcity is often associated with perceived expensiveness (e.g. Lynn 1989; Wu and Hsing 2006). In other words, the scarcer the product, the more expensive and valuable the product is seen (Chen and Sun 2013; Gierl, Plantsch, and Schweidler 2008). This explains why numerous luxury brands companies create limited edition product at a higher price to increase the product appeal. However, in the recent years, interest in luxury goods is growing among mainstream consumers (So, 2015). The exclusivity of luxury brands starts to fade, and the circle of luxury brands owner has expanded significantly throughout the years (The Economist 2015; Yeoman & McMahon- Beattie 2014). Based on that rationale, one of the aims of this paper is to manage and improve the perception of scarcity in luxury brand industry by looking at the most basic concept of how consumers respond to scarcity. This study adopts a biology theory, specifically on animal behaviour to understand better how consumers react on scarcity. After decades of observing animal behaviour, ethologists found that there is a common pattern in the way animals respond to and compete for scarce resources (McGlone, 1986; Scott & Fredericson, 1951). Instead of fighting one another, animals tend to perform certain behaviours to scare the opponent without physically damaging the others. This behaviour is referred to as agonistic behaviour. Coined by Scott & Fredericson (1951), the term is defined as “the group of behavioural adjustments associated with fighting, which includes attack, escape, threat, and defence” (McGlone, 1986, 1130). It comprises several stages, namely threats, thought process, aggression, and submission. In the first stage, threat, the animals perform a species-specific behaviour, in term of vocalisations, facial expression, postures, and movements that signal the intention to be aggressive (McGlone, 1986). For example, when competing for food, monkeys create a threatening voice following with open-jawed and head bobbing. The threat is continued with the thought process where the animals examine the value of the resources and the internal and external factors influencing their decision. It is then led to two possible scenarios. In the first scenario, the opponent decides to withdraw the fight after being threatened, which is called as submissive behaviour. The second scenario happens when neither animal retreats. Therefore, they perform aggressive behaviours, and it stops when one party submits (submissive behaviour). Agonistic behaviour can be observed in human behaviour when competing for luxury brands. For example, when the Kanye West x Adidas Yeezy limited edition trainer shoes was released, it was sold out within 15 minutes (Tewari, 2015). Shortly after, the shoes were sold at $ 10,000 on Ebay, which originally priced for $200 a pair in a retail store (Tempesta, 2015). Similar to the agonistic behaviour in animals, although some choose to fight for the product, which means they perform the aggressive behaviour, there are those who prefer to be submissive. They opt to give up and purchase alternatives instead of pursuing the desired products. This phenomenon shows how consumers can be aggressive or submissive in competing for scarce products. Despite the similarities behaviour pattern between animals and consumers, limited research has identified the agonistic behaviour of consumers. There are research gaps within the scarcity literature. Firstly, limited studies have identified the effectiveness of different scarcity cues (supply-driven and demand-driven) in the context of luxury brands (e.g., Lynn, 1991; Worchel, Lee, & Adewole, 1975). Additionally, limited studies investigate the opposite effect of scarcity appeal (except Gierl and Huettl 2010). As identified, some consumers prefer to give up and purchase alternative such as mimic brands yet it has not been well understood in theory. As a result, this paper aims to (1) develop a framework to explain consumer behaviour towards scarce luxury products as underpinned by the theory of agonistic behaviour, (2) investigate the influence of the different type of scarcity cues (supply-driven and demand-driven) towards the purchase intention of the desired brands or alternatives. Theoretical framework and hypothesis developments Underpinning Theoretical Framework The theory of agonistic behaviour is the underpinning theoretical framework for the study which is supported by Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) model. Developed by Mehrabian & Russell (1974), S-O-R model has been widely used in a retail environment (Buckley, 1991; Chang, Eckman, & Yan, 2011) and to study different types of involvement (Arora, 1982). Stimulus is defined as any external stimuli that influence the internal states of an individual (Bagozzi, 1986; Eroglu, Machleit, & Barr, 2005). Organism is defined as the internal response which then leads to behaviour action, which is the Response from S-O-R model (Bagozzi, 1986). It is the final decision of consumers which lead to a certain action (Chang et al., 2011). The S-O-R model is outlined below: Stimulus The perceived scarcity and competition are the Stimulus which are influenced by the different scarcity cues presented. As mentioned, scarcity effect can be caused due to high demand or low supply. Hence, there may be no difference in term of the perceived scarcity. However, supply- driven scarcity is found to be more efficient for conspicuous consumption products while demand- driven scarcity is more efficient for non-conspicuous consumption products (Gierl and Huettl 2010). Therefore, luxury brands, being conspicuous consumption product by nature, are more likely to be perceived highly competed when it is presented as being scarce due to low supply. As such, the following hypotheses are developed: H1. Perceived scarcity do not differ in both scarcity conditions but differ to no scarcity condition H2. Perceived competition differs across scarcity conditions Stimulus-Organism The stimulus, perceived scarcity and competition, influence the Organism, namely perceived value. This relationships are supported by commodity theory, which describes that scarce products have relatively higher value and desirability compared to non-scarce products (Byun & Sternquist, 2012; Lynn, 1991). Further, consumers are more likely to feel a sense of competition when the stores sell unique or scarce items (Aggarwal, Jun, & Huh, 2011). As such, the following hypotheses are developed: H3. Perceived scarcity has a positive influence towards perceived value in all scarcity conditions H4. Perceived competition has a significant influence towards perceived value in all scarcity conditions Organism – Response The internal response, namely the perceived value, influence the response which is the intention to purchase. Numerous studies have found that high perceived value leads to a willingness to buy (Dodds and Monroe 1985; Monroe and Chapman 1987) and purchase (Zeithaml 1988). In this study, the intention to purchase is a representation to measure the aggressive and submissive behaviour. Purchasing the desired brand is considered as an act of aggression while choosing neither handbag or purchasing the alternative brand is seen as an act the submissive behaviour As such, the following hypothesis is developed: H5. Perceived value has a positive influence towards purchase intention of the desired brand compared to alternative brand Methodology Survey Instrument A self-administered pen and paper questionnaire was used for the survey instrument. The measurement used in the study are established scales with Cronbach Alpha higher than 0.8, fulfilling the criteria by Hair et al. (2010). The scales was presented in seven points Likert Scales, in which 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree. Purchase intention, however, is a continuum scale in which option 1 represents a strong intention to buy the mimic brand, 4 accounts for neither mimic nor desired brand, and 7 accounts for a strong intention to buy the desired brand. Experimental Design There are three experimental conditions (scarcity condition: demand-driven; supply-driven; control) between subjects factorial design. To measure the purchase intention of the desired brand, a well-known luxury branding company was selected as the stimuli for the study. The brand, Bottega Veneta, was chosen as the brand is considered as a super-premium brand (Willett 2015) and the pre-test conducted with the University students showed that the brand is well-liked and adored. A non-fictitious brand, De Lux, is also selected to measure intention of purchase of the mimic brand. Each respondent was given two different pamphlets, one of the desired brand with a chosen scarcity condition and another of the mimic brand. Therefore, a total of 8 versions of a retail pamphlet were created (3 scarcity conditions with desired brand + 1 mimic brand x 2 genders). Product description and price information are also included (Lynn 1992). The pamphlets are created as identical as possible across different versions. The signal for supply-driven scarcity was portrayed by phrases and words such as “limited edition; supplies are limited; and unique”; while demand-driven scarcity “popular; bestseller; and highly in demand, almost sold out” (Gierl and Huettl 2010). Data Collections The data were collected from a sampling frame containing undergraduate students at a University in Western Australia. A total of 932 data were collected, but 305 data were discarded. Each respondent must have purchased luxury brands priced more than AUD 1500 within the last 3 years to ensure that the students are luxury consumers. The numbers were set after pre-test was conducted to identify the amount of money spent for luxury brands among the students. Out of 627; 250 students for supply-driven scarcity, 211 students for demand-driven scarcity, and 166 students for control were collected. The respondents had an average age of 20 and were divided into males (36%) and females (64%). Results and discussion One way ANOVA was conducted to compare means across different experimental conditions in terms of the perceived competition and scarcity (H1, H2). The result shows that there is a significant difference between perceived scarcity across experimental conditions. Luxury brands with “nearly sold out” scarcity cue (M = 5.49, SD = 1.19) are seen to be scarcer compared to luxury brands with “limited edition” scarcity cue (M = 4.92, SD = 1.16). Furthermore, luxury brand with no scarcity cue (M = 3.34, SD =1.4) is perceived to be not as scarce as the other two experimental conditions. On the other hand, although there is significant difference between the control condition (M = 2.7, SD = 1.40) and the two experimental conditions, there is no significance difference between “limited edition” scarcity cue (M = 3.99, SD = 1.58) and “nearly sold out” scarcity cue (M = 4.12, SD = 1.61). Therefore, H1 and H2 are not supported. Structural Equation Modelling was used to test model fit across different experimental conditions (H3, H4, H5). The final model revealed very good fit indices with the empirical covariances, as it fits the recommended criteria (Hair et al 2010): Normed Chi Square = 1.007, RMSEA = 0.004, AGFI = 0.940, GFI = 0.959, CFI = 0.990. The model shows that there is no significance relationship between perceived scarcity and perceived value in all 3 experimental conditions (limited edition β= 0.03, p = 0.735; nearly sold out β = -0.10, p = 0.244; control β = 0.09, p = 0.315). However, as hypothesised, there is a positive relationship between perceived competition and perceived value in all 3 experimental conditions (limited edition β = 0.43, p < 0.001; nearly sold out β = 0.57, p < 0.001; control β = 0.57, p < 0.001). In turn, in all 3 experimental conditions, there is a positive relationship between perceived value and purchase intention (limited edition β = 0.18, p = 0.030; nearly sold out β = 0.23, p = 0.014; control β = 0.45, p < 0.001). Therefore, H3 is not supported but H4 and H5 are supported. The findings demonstrate that different scarcity cues create a different level of perceived scarcity, in which “nearly sold out” are seen to be the scarcest, followed by “limited edition”, and no scarcity cues. However, instead of perceived scarcity, perceived competition is the important factor that affects the perception of luxury brands value. This can be explained as perceived competition creates a cue to consumers that the product is desirable by many yet only a handful can get the product. This is consistent with the statement by Verhallen (1982). The results also show that perceived value leads to positive purchase intention of the desired brands in all scarcity conditions. Surprisingly, the finding suggests that the relationship is strongest when there are no scarcity cues, followed with “nearly sold out” and “limited edition”. This can be explained due to a few reasons: (1) limited edition products are perceived to be more expensive (Chen and Sun 2013), (2) the respondents may not be leaders in purchasing luxury brands hence prefer to buy the normal or popular luxury brands to follow the crowd (Amaldoss and Jain 2008), (3) there are other variables, such as, self-efficacy and personality traits which are not taken into account. Conclusion This study contributes in several ways to the body of literature. Firstly, it extends the theory of agonistic behaviour from biology to marketing. By using agonistic behaviour as the underpinned theory, the study takes into consideration the option of consumers being submissive and prefer not to purchase the desired brands. Secondly, this study includes perceived competition as one of the main variable to analyse consumer behaviour towards luxury brands. Methodologically, the application of non-fictitious brands helps to capture real consumers’ response. Managerially, this study provides insights to luxury brands marketers on how to manage scarcity cues. Firstly, luxury brands marketers should develop strategies to strengthen the exclusivity and scarce image as currently normal luxury brands are not perceived as being scarce. The strategies may include to (1) limit the distributions channel of the luxury brands; (2) provide limited stock in every retail store to emphasise product scarcity; (3) introduce alternatives (premium brand extension or different product tiers) to consumers, allowing consumers, who are not able to purchase the desired brands, to choose the alternatives. Secondly, luxury brands managers must ensure that the products are desired by many to increase the perceived competition among consumers. Despite contributions, there is some limitation in the study. Firstly, this study used student sample hence future studies should consider using consumer panel to participate in the study. Secondly, there are some variables not taken into account, such as personality factor (self-esteem, status consumption, the need for uniqueness, etc.), self-efficacy, leader vs. followers. In addition, this study focuses on two scarcity conditions (supply-driven and demand driven scarcity cues), luxury brand industry, and public luxury product (handbag). Future studies should look at time-restricted scarcity cues, retailing, and private luxury products (e.g. undergarment). This study also did not measure the actual purchases and different behaviour of aggression when consumers are competing for products. Future studies should observe consumer behaviour during purchase in real time.

Not all celebrity endorsements have been successful on social media. However, our understanding of the effectiveness of luxury brand celebrity endorsement advertising are limited. On the basis of Self-Congruity Theory (Sirgy, 1985), Meaning-Transfer Model (McCracken, 1989), and Match-Up Hypothesis (Kamins, 1990; Kamins & Cupta, 1994), this study investigates whether three components of image congruity (i.e., brand-celebrity, brand-self, celebrity-self) would influence brand attitudes, ad attitudes, and self-brand connection, and subsequently, influence consumer engagement and purchase intentions. This study also tests the moderating role of consumer type (followers vs. unfollowers of the social media brand page) in these relationships. After conducting a series of pretests to select a focal brand and celebrities, responses from 219 US female adults were used to data analysis. The results of structural equation modeling showed that brand-celebrity congruity was positively related to ad attitudes and brand attitudes. Brand-self congruity was positively related to ad attitudes, brand attitudes, and self-brand connection. Self-celebrity congruity was positively related to ad attitudes and self-brand connection but was negatively related to brand attitudes. Ad attitudes were positively related to brand attitudes and engagement intentions but were not related to purchase intentions. Brand attitudes were positively related to engagement intentions and purchase intentions. Self-brand connection was positively related to engagement intentions, and engagement intentions were positively related to purchase intentions. Finally, the results of a multi-group analysis showed that for unfollowers (n=125), ad attitudes were positively related to engagement intentions but brand attitudes were not. On the contrary, for followers (n=94), brand attitudes were positively related to engagement intentions but ad attitudes were not. This study highlights that self-brand connection is the key to cultivating consumer engagement on social media, along with the consumer’s positive attitudes toward the celebrity endorsement ad and the brand per se. If luxury brands wish to interact with their followers and increase their engagement, they need to focus their efforts on improving brand attitudes and self-brand connection through their brand pages. Our findings suggest that celebrity endorsed advertising contributes to creating self-brand relationships (Dwivedi et al., 2016) but it should be considered as a long-term investment.

Despite the positive outcomes of brand-consumer interactions on social media documented in the literature, an important question still remains: Are active brand-consumer interactions always beneficial to luxury fashion brands? This study argues that such interactions may undermine the core perceptions of the brands by making consumers feel too close to the brands. Drawing upon construal level theory of psychological distance, the purpose of this study is to examine the negative effects of brand-consumer interactions on perceptions of luxury fashion brands (i.e., social perception, uniqueness perception, quality perception) in a social media context. Two experimental studies were conducted. The purpose of Study 1 was to test the hypothesis that luxury brands, compared to mainstream brands, will be perceived as more psychologically distant and abstract. Study 1 used a 2 (brand category: luxury vs. mainstream) x 2 (brand replicates) mixed-model design in which the brand category was a between-subject factor and the brand replicates were a within-subject factor. Fifty-nine subjects recruited from Amazon MTurk participated in the study. The results of Study 1 revealed that luxury brands are inherently psychologically distant than mainstream brands. The purpose of Study 2 was to test the impact of brand-consumer interactions (i.e., high vs. low) and the mediating role of psychological distance on the three perceptions of luxury brands (i.e., social perception, uniqueness perception, quality perception) on social media. A single factor between-subjects design was used, and a total of 74 participants were recruited from Amazon MTurk. To manipulate the level of consumer-brand interaction (high vs. low), two versions of a luxury brand’s mock Facebook pages were created. For the high interaction condition, the brand responded to consumers’ posts in a friendly way and displayed the images of user photos. For the low interaction condition, the brand did not respond to consumers’ posts and displayed no images of users. As predicted, the results showed that participants indicated lower brand perceptions when the brand’s social media page displayed a high level of interactions than a low level of interactions. Moreover, formality, a measure of psychological distance, partially mediated the relationship between brand-consumer interactions and all the three brand perceptions. The findings of this study provide empirical evidence that active consumer-brand interactions on social media do not necessarily benefit luxury fashion brands, rather they can damage consumer perceptions of the brands. This study provides important implications that luxury fashion brands should maintain a sacred distance on social media; otherwise it will undermine important perceptions of the brands such as status signaling, exclusivity, and quality.

Given the recent modest growth of the personal luxury good market and the urge to face difficulties through innovative brands’ marketing communication strategies, this paper examines the potentialities of tactical associations between luxury fashion brands and furniture design. Results indicate that there can be positive repercussions deriving from luxury fashion brands and furniture design interconnections. In particular, associations with collectable furniture design may help to define and enhance brands’ luxury values whilst providing consumers with innovative and creative luxury brand experiences. Future expectations in this market show a compound annual rate (CAGR) of 3% to 4% through 2020, to just about €280 billion. This is dramatically slower than the past fast growth experienced from the mid-1990s to the late 2000s. In this scenario, luxury fashion managers and marketers must envision new strategies to succeed and surpass competition. In order to be competitive and successful, luxury brand managers must take into account current market dynamics and find pertinent and substantial solutions. This paper shifts its attention to the identification of how in such a difficult scenario different cultural industries can meet in order to mutually enhance their circuits of value. Some studies have demonstrated that in order to meet such new global challenges, luxury fashion firms may discover strategic opportunities in art (Codignola, 2016). Given their symbolic connotation and aesthetic value, high-end furniture design items are more and more perceived as art works exchanged in art auctions or fairs, collected and purchased by collectors, exhibited in galleries or museums. At the same time, furniture design goods show some divergences from conventional art works (i.e. functionality, reproducibility, etc.) and some correspondences with fashion goods. By observing the luxury fashion sector, one may then find--for different sets of reasons--more than one interesting intersection with the furniture design sector. By taking into account the furniture design sector within its specific market features and goods, this paper argues that through furniture design LFBs can develop engaging creative and innovative brands’ marketing communication strategies. Compared to art, such strategies would be able to add value and strengthen LFBs’ luxury features even in a more effective way.

Luxury market is changing with new competitors to the market, more modest growth, and new types of customers (Kim and Ko 2012). To stay relevant, luxury houses need to develop experience-based marketing strategies that emphasise interactivity, connectivity and creativity (Atwal and Williams 2009). Subsequently, with the rise of digital marketing of luxury (Okonkwo 2009), consumers have been granted a more active role in the value co-creation of luxury brands. Indeed, adopting more inclusive and consumer-oriented marketing strategies has proven successful to iconic luxury brands such as Burberry (Phan, Thomas & Heine 2011), and Hermes (Robins 2016). Previously, value co-creation has been studied from consumer perspective following resource-based view (Arnould, Price and Malshe 2006) and practice theory (Schau, Muniz, and Arnould 2009). However, in the field of luxury marketing, research on co-creation has been limited to one case study of value co-creation processes (Tynan, McKechnie & Chhuon 2010). In addition, no previous research exists on the role of space and spectacular environment in value co-creation in luxury. This article extends these streams of researchby analysing 42 narratives (Polkinghorne 1995) from consumers that have attended two branded exhibitions of Louis Vuitton: SERIES3 held in London in the fall 2015 and Volez, Voguez, Voyagez in Paris in Spring 2016. In essence, luxury is about seduction; recreating a dream and providing meaningful, personal experiences for its consumers (Kapferer and Bastien 2009). Here, a branded exhibition provides a way to invite consumers to feel, see, and experience the brand in its full splendour. These encounters, in turn, transform the value-creation logic between the brand and the consumer from a one-way affair to a co-creational relation. This article demonstrates how exhibition context allows the consumer to participate in the value co-creation for Louis Vuitton, a prestigious luxury brand. Here, the brand provides a context and props for the consumer’s processes of value co-creation. This, in turn, then results into four types of value; utilitarian, experiential, relational, and symbolic. The contribution of this study is three-fold. First, this study extends the literature on value co-creation (Arnould et al. 2006) by demonstrating the role of space in the process of value co-creation. Second, our results extend previous research on luxury (Tynan et al. 2010) by illustrating the value co-creation from consumer perspective. From managerial perspective, the results show how brand exhibitions may act as platforms for content creation and enable rich self-expression with the brand.

This paper attempts to bring the rather dated concept of Cultural Capital (CC) from the sociology literature to luxury retailing; it argues that Visual Merchandise Display (VMD) can enhance the consumers’ intentions to purchase luxury brands but this influence is stronger for consumers with higher CC than for those with lower CC. In particular, we develop a psychometric scale to measure CC and empirically and quantitatively investigate in two experiments the impact of VMD on consumer purchase intentions and the moderating role of CC. Walking first into TK Maxx and then into Harvey Nichols, one could assume that brand perceptions are affected not by the merchandise but rather by the store environment and particularly the way in which the products are visually presented to the consumers. In 2013, Karen Miller announced a substantial remodelling of its stores, including a change in their look to communicate ‘affordable luxury’ (Felsted, 2013). Although the luxury marketers seem to understand the importance of the display in influencing consumer perceptions, academics yet admit to knowing very little about the role of visual merchandising and display on the mechanisms of luxury brand consumption (Joy, Wang, Chan, Sherry, & Cui, 2014). Emerging research in the luxury retailing literature focuses on and explores qualitatively the role of ‘museological’ product presentation techniques in building and sustaining a luxury brand image (Dion & Arnould, 2011; Joy et al., 2014). However, till now, it has not considered that people can differ in their ability (i.e., ‘connoisseurship’) to decode and appreciate such display techniques, which often require substantial investment in fixtures, expensive materials, or complicated designs or architecture. This paper argues that the success of many newly introduced marketing communication techniques, including the tendency of contemporary branding to ‘subtly’ communicate the understated cleverness of a brand, can be subject to the consumers’ level of CC. CC refers to human culture and constitutes an individual characteristic that encompasses consumer’s intangible cultural assets and resources, such as knowledge, personality traits, and values, which manifest via consumers’ lifestyle choices and affect the way they think and act (Bourdieu, 1984; Blackwell, Miniard, & Engel, 2001). We argue that in luxury retailing, where ‘brand museums’ (Hollenbeck, 2008), ‘museological’ product presentation techniques or simply ‘museum like displays’ (Joy et al., 2014) and collaboration with contemporary artists and creative directors (Dion and Arnould, 2011) have been pointed out as new formats of in-store communication, CC can play a crucial role in explaining whether and how much consumers’ purchases can be actually affected. The marketing literature, to date, however, misses a contemporary continuous measure to assess consumers’ CC. In their effort to avoid limitations embedded in prior conceptualisations of CC— which mostly concern its supposed static and inherited nature (McQuarrie, Miller, & Phillips, 2013) —, many studies of consumer behaviour tend to assess CC qualitatively and set criteria to dichotomise a sample into two groups who are somewhat arbitrarily classified as people with either high or low CC; or, they only approximate CC by assessing the participants’ knowledge in a specific field of consumption, which is often a crude proxy for CC and pre-supposes the consumers’ interest-involvement in the investigated field of consumption (McQuarrie et al., 2013). For example, the literature on luxury brands tends to replace CC with fashion knowledge (e.g., Berger & Ward, 2010). Nevertheless, the researchers recognise this replacement as a limitation of their studies and a poor operationalisation of the concept of CC (Berger & Ward, 2010). The present research has three objectives. First, rather than dichotomising people into high and low CC groups, it acknowledges CC as a continuous variable and develops a contemporary psychometric scale to measure the extent to which people within the same culture differ in it. Second, it aims to provide a conceptual framework for understanding a set of mechanisms that explain how consumers’ purchase intentions for a luxury brand can be affected by specific VMD cues which are used for displaying it. Last and more importantly, we want to validate the newly introduced scale in a final experiment that tests whether the process whereby VMD indirectly increases the purchase intentions for luxury brands, depends positively on the consumer’s CC. The first study, which incorporates a qualitative inquiry as well as a purification and a validation study and uses multiple samples, succeeds in developing and validating a psychometric CC scale. In the second study, by conducting an experiment, we develop a model which explains how a combination of specific high-image VMD cues that form a museum-like display affects the consumers’ luxury brand purchase intentions by increasing consumers’ perceptions of luxury and by decreasing their perceived personal risk. This study’s model is, then, re-estimated in the final study after introducing into it the measure of CC. In this experiment, the strength of the basic relationships was found to be contingent on CC, suggesting that consumers with higher CC tend to be more strongly influenced by the store environment cues. Although we recognise that for many consumer behaviour studies in the marketing literature, consumers’ knowledge in fashion represents sufficiently well the concept of CC (e.g., Berger & Ward, 2010; McQuarrie et al., 2013; Parmentier, Fischer, & Reuber, 2013), we show that this might not be the case in the context of store atmospherics. In particular, we test the influence of both CC and fashion knowledge by introducing them together into the same model. Interestingly, CC is found to behave differently and to some extent oppositely to fashion knowledge in influencing consumers’ store-induced perceptions and purchase intentions for the luxury brand on display. The identification of specific VMD cues that form what the luxury retailing literature rather vaguely describes as a ‘museological presentation’ and the measurement of their combined effect as a ‘museum-like display’ on the consumer’s perceptions and behavioural intentions can have important implications for both the offline and online retailers. Our findings can also inform the contemporary brand communication methods, such as the brand’s representation in social media (e.g., in pinterest). Moreover, the measurement of consumer’s level of CC can allow brand managers and retailers to identify receptive segments and make more efficient resource commitments to VMD. Investment in VMD elements can then be better matched to the anticipated target market to avoid either over- or under spending on it. Sales forecasts can also become more accurate if CC could be assessed and considered along with the employed in-store and digital product presentation methods.

Despite its innovative and avant-garde reputation, the luxury industry initially began showing a very low commitment to new online marketing tools and it held a conservative approach to selling when compared to other sectors. Nowadays, the context has dramatically changed and luxury brands are approaching with an increasing interest social networks as well as the online selling. This research aims to clarify the current strategic approaches of the players in the different luxury markets towards the social commerce phenomenon, from both a theoretical and an empirical point of view. The purpose is to test a framework that can be used to classify luxury companies’ strategies regarding social media adoptions based on actual theories on social media. Four strategies related to the social media adoption by luxury brands have been identified: the Social brand ambassadors strategy class (low promotional content percentage and low social commerce score) includes those brands that use social media for entertainment and user engagement; the Social showcases strategy (high promotional content percentage and low social commerce score) includes those brands that use their social accounts as online catalogues; the Social infotainers strategy (low promotional content percentage and high social commerce score) includes those brands that scored high in social commerce, mainly because of the provision of informative content and brand–consumer interactions, but they were linked to more entertainment-oriented actions rather than product-related ones. Finally, the Social sellers strategy (high promotional content percentage and high social commerce score) includes those brands that have integrated social commerce into their online strategies and have subsequently exploited the potential of social media to drive online and offline sales. The database is built using original data from a content analysis of 100 luxury brands’ postings on five different social media platforms – namely Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and Pinterest. The total final sample included 12,132 Facebook posts, 21,216 tweets on Twitter, 1,105 YouTube videos, 10,138 Instagram pictures/videos, and 117,359 Pinterest pictures. The main findings are the following: luxury brands adopt at this stage the Social brand ambassadors and Social showcases approaches; brands belonging to the perfumery, cosmetics, jewelry and watches markets show a more developed attitude towards the social commerce; in other luxury markets, such as wine and spirits, brands still adopt a Social Brand Ambassador strategy, while managers should increase the promotional content in order develop the social commerce. The Fashion & Accessories brands show a positive relationship between the percentage of promotional content and social commerce score. This means that social commerce adoptions depend on the single brand’s strategic choices, ranging from low adoption to best practices. In general, social commerce is still not widespread; many luxury fashion brands, while presenting new collections during fashion weeks, focused on fashion shows, backstage events, and celebrities, rather than really promoting the new product lines with materials, availability, and purchasing indications. This social media approach is mainly focused on increasing brand awareness rather than increasing social commerce. If managers aim at increasing social commerce they should add direct call to action and link the contents to e-commerce market place. Automotive brands are concentrated in the Social showcases area; This sector encounters natural limitations in the introduction of social commerce due to the difficulty of selling products through the digital channel; many brands have, however, devised strategies to approach their users during the purchasing process prior to the actual transaction to take advantage of the increasing ROPO phenomenon. Conversely, the Perfumes & Cosmetics sector shows a highly fragmented approach to social commerce. The content analysis based on single post contents has shown that actually the contents are based on pictures of the products, or the brand, information on events, and a large and increasing presence of video posts based storytelling about the history of the product and the brand heritage; the most social commerce oriented posts are picture or video focused on the product. The commercial contents that aim at developing the see now, buy now approach are mainly based on video shows.

To the extent that luxury products and services become more easily accessible, luxury brand marketers must make luxury even more exclusive by making the consumer feel special and unique. Art lends itself willingly to this mission, because its accessibility is complex and its comprehensibility difficult. From an in-depth analysis of the practices of the major worldwide brands in the luxury industry we identified that four main types of collaboration between a luxury brand and art exist, which are Business collaboration, Patronage, Foundations and Artistic mentoring. The underlying mechanisms of these modes of connection between art and luxury brands are presented. A model is presented which allows assessing the relevance of each of the ‘art to luxury brand’ binding modes, in accordance with the brand time perspective and the intensity of its engagement.

This research explored how experiencing a country’s cultural heritage influences consumers’ authenticity evaluation of its luxury brands. It showed authenticity was culturally constructed and perception was influenced by marketing means selectively exposing the consumers to different brand attributes. It contributes to transcultural research by linking cultural attributes to brand authenticity attributes.

We propose to extend the research in responsible luxury by identifying situations where Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR) could actually promote luxury brands evaluation. By using social consensus as one of the determining factor, we argue that when CSR with higher social consensus is communicated through right channel, this information can have positive influence on brand evaluation. This research could contribute to literature on consumer responses to CSR, and to responsible luxury in particular and demonstrate how social consensus and CSR information of luxury brands affects consumers’ evaluations of luxury brands. Our research highlights that responsible luxury brands should carefully evaluate how their CSR communication strategy affects brand evaluations.

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.

Consumers nowadays are looking for luxury brands that are able to fulfil their values. Luxury fashion marketers have spent enormously on advertising and adopted sex appeal extensively as their major selling technique. Little empirical evidence, however, has been presented with regards to the effectiveness of using sex appeal in luxury fashion advertising. Consumer responses to sex appeal in luxury brand advertisements are also poorly understood and under-investigated. The massive use of sex appeal in luxury brand advertising suggests the strong need for empirical research to determine the relationship between sex appeal and perceived luxury values. Based on the luxury value framework and adopting a quasi-experimental design, this study examines the influence of sex appeal in advertising on the relationships between attitude towards the advertisement and luxury value perceptions. Results show that the increase of sex appeal level increases the favourability of the advertisement which results in significant changes in luxury value perceptions. The influence of gender is found to be prominent in this study, which highlights the importance of gender consideration when adopting sex appeal strategy for any luxury brand advertising. Implications for luxury brand marketers and advertisers are discussed.

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.

Many information sources have reported that celebrity endorsements of luxury fashion brands are considered one of the success factors that enhance the growth of luxury markets. Yet two contrasting views are held as to whether or not celebrity endorsements are necessary for luxury brands. One view in support of celebrity endorsements for luxury brands insists that the use of celebrities generally provides many beneficial advantages, serving as a good communication tool. Specifically, the celebrity endorsements are effective in increasing ad viewers’ attention, polishing brand images, introducing new brands, and repositioning existing brands (Erdogan, 1999), enhancing message recall (Friedman & Friedman, 1979), and generating favorable attitudes toward ads and brands (Atkin & Block, 1983). Above all, brands endorsed by celebrities often obtain high brand awareness, resulting in a rapid sales increase (Ruiz, 2008). In contrast, the other view is more concerned with the diminished luxuriousness that is overshadowed by celebrities, rather than realizing an immediate increase in sales (Dubois, Laurent, & Czellar, 2001). Celebrity endorsements in ads are expected to increase brand awareness and simultaneously reduce the brand rarity impacting a qualification for status, which is central to brand luxuriousness in particular (Berry, 1994). The publicly recognized brand names would draw more attention from average consumers than from rich consumers, as the wealthier are the less influenced by celebrity endorsements (Gaudoin, 2013). In addition, considering that luxury brands are already constructed with well-defined brand meaning and personalities, using non-celebrity endorsers with luxurious images would be as effective as using celebrity endorsers in terms of improving brand luxuriousness (Okonkwo, 2007). As such, celebrity-endorsed luxury branding strategies seem to be questionable, though they are popularly being adopted. The current study aims to reveal the overall effectiveness of the use of celebrity versus non-celebrity endorsers on consequential consumer evaluations and highlight the importance of congruence between the brand and the endorser (match-up).