Masstige collaborations, temporary collaborations among fast fashion and luxury brands, are becoming increasingly popular. Despite this, no research so far has analyzed consumers’ reactions towards this new fashion practice. The aim of this research is to investigate the emotions and relevant linguistic elements associated with consumers’ reactions to masstige collaborations.

Recently there has been debate in popular media on brands that used other cultures’ elements in their advertising (Green & Kaiser, 2017). For example, the Dutch brand “Rituals Cosmetics” attempted to promote their Asian-inspired product lines called “Samurai” and “Namasté” by hiring a Caucasian model dressed in a supposedly traditional Asian costume, while posing in a Chinese temple-like setting (Peters, 2018). Because the company’s European origin and the ethnicity of the model did not align with the Asian setting, props and apparel, this marketing activity can be considered an act of cultural appropriation. The advert has since sparked controversy on social media as cultural exploitation or unethical cultural appropriation (Bryanboy, 2018). To avoid such controversy, marketers need to achieve cultural sensitivity while effectively managing culturally overlapping situations (Usunier & Lee, 2005; De Mooij, 1998). A mismanagement of cultural appropriation is potentially eliciting a negative customer response. Hence, it is integral to understand how do customers respond to culturally appropriated elements in advertisement?

This research seeks to unveil how YouTube influencers and digital interaction can contribute to the process of customer-brand relationship and engagement. Based on in-depth interviews of female Youtubers devoted to the lifestyle categories, we aim to comprehend the engagement factors that influencers should rely on to promote engagement between their followers and the brands they advocate.