The study builds and tests a framework investigating the determinants of customer engagement with luxury brands on social media platforms.

The study builds and tests a framework investigating the determinants of customer engagement with luxury brands on social media platforms.

Mobile channels have dramatically revolutionized how brands connect with consumers. Indeed, smartphones, tablets or any portable device present marketers the possibility to contact consumers at any time and any place. Notwithstanding the opportunities deriving from being constantly in touch with consumers, two major challenges are anyway represented by the need of avoiding consumers’ annoyance with too much information and by the one to differentiate from competitors’ messages. Hence, how to catch recipients’ attention is fundamental to develop effective mobile communication strategies. In this perspective, gamification could be a competitive hedge in current digital environments. Namely, gamification has been identified as the use of attractive and addictive characteristics of games in different context such as advertising messages. As of today, extant literature on the topic mostly focused on the analysis of different motivations to use gamified mobile channels (i.e. hedonic, utilitarian motivations) as well as the factors amplifying the effects of gamification on the persuasiveness of marketing messages (i.e. the design of the gamified mobile advertising). Accordingly, we argue that gamification could help to catch consumers’ attention and influence their engagement with the message and purchase intention. Previous studies, indeed, have not analyzed the factors -such as engagement- potentially mediating the relationship between consumers’ intention to use mobile channels and advertising effectiveness. Next, whether gamified advertising could influence consumers’ purchase intention has yet to be assessed. Moving from such two gaps, this research focuses on the importance of gamification in advertising research. In detail, this research develops and tests a model where consumers’ perceived gamification (measured thanks to the GAMEX scale) as well as consumers’ engagement mediate the relationship between consumer motivations to use a mobile channel, advertising effectiveness and consumers’ purchase intention. Consumers’ expertise in mobile technologies is considered as a moderating variable in the relationship. Structural equation modelling with a sample of 590 Italian millennials, the most technology savvy consumers cohort (thus, the one mostly using mobile channels), has been used to test the hypotheses of the study. Results of the analysis allowed to proposed several implications for advertising theory and practice.

This research has adopted Word-of-Mouth (WOM) and social support theory along with a social media (SM) perspective to investigate why consumers enjoy using SM and interacting with luxury brand. Focusing on fundamental human needs, this study aims to examine fulfilment of which type of needs enhances interactivity on SM, encouraging in turn WOM adoption and brand-self connection. Our results have shown that consumers’ cognitive and integrative needs drive social interactivity and lead to WOM adoption and brand-self connection. However, no relationship is found between social needs and interactivity. Such relationship can only be strengthened with the presence of emotional support as perceived from the company and its brand.