Luxury Brand Experience in Social Media: An Exploration and Comparison with High-Street Retail Brands
(A2019-9887)

AUTHORS

Doa'a Hajawi, Durham university ; Sarah Xiao, Durham University ; Gopalkrishnan Iyer, Florida Atlantic University, 777 Glades Road Boca Raton, FL 33431, United States

KEYWORDS

luxury retailing; digital luxury brands experience; social media activities

ABSTRACT

While it is acknowledged that social media contributes to consumer brand engagement, research on specific mechanisms of consumer-brand interactions is still in its infancy. This study examines luxury brand experience in the digital space and explores how social media activities. Online data were collected from the Facebook and Twitter accounts of two top luxury brands and two high-street fashion brands. Analysis of the posts reveals that luxury brand experiences are enhanced by the immersive content and fulfillment of consumers’ desires. Also, in contrast to traditional luxury brand experience, digital luxury brand experiences are comprised of aesthetic, entertaining, informational, and fandom elements. On the other hand, for high-street fashion brands, brand experience primarily consists of promotional, aesthetic and immediate service satisfactory elements. Our study contributes not only to the sparse research on luxury brand experience literature in the social media context, but also on how such experience differs from high-street brand experience in the same context. Key words: digital luxury brands experience, social media activities, luxury retailing Track: Retailing & Omni-Channel Management