This study answers an important question for university social media advertising. Does processing fluency of the brand and brand identity (e.g., name, logo, symbol etc.) of the university affect the behavior intention of target customers for the university? The results show that name processing fluency (especially pronunciation), advertising processing fluency, brand awareness, brand value, and brand ranking significantly impact behavior intention. In addition, target audience’s individual social media behavior (e.g., general attitude toward the social media, frequency of social media use and involvement) explains the attitude toward the university advertising in social media.

This study attempts to investigate consumers’ perceptual process of influencer advertising and its impact on brand attitude formation on social media. Perceived congruence between the influencer and the product and sponsorship disclosure are manipulated as key independent variables. In so doing, this study examines whether consumers can infer two types of motives (affective vs. calculative) from different levels of perceived congruence (high vs. low) and sponsorship disclosure (present vs. absent). The impact of multiple motive inference on brand attitude is also examined in this study. The result indicates that perceived congruence of influencer and posting has a significant effect on the affective motive inference. When the posting is perceived to be relevant to and expected from the influencer, the participants infer the affective motive of the influencer. However, the participants do not infer calculative motives from the incongruent posting of the influencer. As native advertising can obfuscate the boundary between editorial and commercial contents (Conill, 2016), perceived congruence is significant to successfully cover the posting as a natural posting by influencer and induce affective motive inference. In addition, the disclosure of sponsorship did not reveal any effect on the calculative and the affective motive inferences. Even though the disclosure of sponsorship can make viewers recognize an advertising intent (Boerman, Willemsen, & Van Der Aa, 2017), the message did not induce motives inference behind it. It is significant to investigate whether there are intervening variables that moderate the linkage between sponsorship disclosure and motive inference processing. Furthermore, affective motive inference impacted the attitude for the brand whereas calculative motive inference exerted no significant effect. These findings suggest that when the product promoted in influencer advertising is congruent with the influencer, consumers form positive attitude toward the brand through affective inference processing. To successfully implement influencer advertising, marketers should design a content congruent with the influencer’s original postings and encourage audience to engage in affective motive processing.

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).