Instagram fashionistas, luxury visual image strategies and vanity
| Date | 14 September 2019 |
| Pages | 355-368 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JPBM-08-2018-1987 |
| Published date | 14 September 2019 |
| Author | S. Venus Jin,Ehri Ryu |
| Subject Matter | Marketing |
Instagram fashionistas, luxury visual image
strategies and vanity
S. Venus Jin
Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA; Education City, Doha, Qatar and
Sejong University Business School, Seoul, Republic of Korea, and
Ehri Ryu
Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, USA
Abstract
Purpose –Luxury fashion brands harness the power of Instagram and fashionistas for strategic brand management. This study aims to test
interaction effects among luxury brand posts’Instagram source type (brand versus fashionista), visual image type (product- centric versus consumer-
centric) and consumers’characteristics (vanity, opinion leadership and fashion consciousness) on brand recognition and trust.
Design/methodology/approach –A quantitative 2 (source type: brand versus fashionista) 2 (branded visual image type: product-ce ntric luxury
versus consumer-centric luxury) between-subjects online experiment (N males = 195 and N females = 182) was conducted by recruiting participants
from MTurk.
Findings –Logistic regression analyses indicated two-way interaction effects between sources and visual images on brand recognitio n. Brand
recognition was higher for product-centric images when the source was the fashionista, whereas brand recognition was equivalent regardless of the
image type when the source was the brand. Logistic regression and multiple regression analyses revealed the moderating effects of sources and
visual images on the association between consumer traits and branding outcomes.
Practical implications –Meticulously choosing effective methods of showcasing branded content and persuasive luxury visual image strategies via
Instagram is more important for fashionistas than for established brands in increasing brand recognition. Instagram fashionistas are more effective
in increasing females’brand trust through delivering product-centric visual images when targeting women with high vanity, opinion leadership and
fashion consciousness. Brands as the Instagram profile source are more persuasive in increasing males’brand trust throu gh delivering product-
centric visual images when targeting men with high vanity.
Originality/value –This experiment provides theoretical discussions and empirical findings about social media influencer mark eting and
managerial implications for Instagram-based luxury branding. This research revolves around the overarching theme of the int eractive effects of
multifaceted branded contents and market segments in social media influencer marketing environments.
Keywords Fashion marketing, Brand communication, Trust, Social media, Luxury branding, Instagram, Brand recognition, Brand trust,
User-generated content
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
A luxury brand is defined as a branded product or service that
has the following characteristics delineated by Tynan et al.
(2010, p. 1158): “high quality, expensive and non-essential
products and services that appear to be rare, exclusive,
prestigious and authentic, and offer high levels of symbolic and
emotional/hedonic values through customer experiences.”
Thus, with regard to traditional market segmentation, luxury
brands are expected to evoke uniqueness and exclusivity through
high quality, premium pricing and controlled exclusive
distribution. Recently, however, luxury brands and fashionistas
(“designers, promoters or followers of the latest fashions,”
Merriam-Webster, 2019) increasingly leverage Instagram for
strategic marketing communication. Due to the strong impact of
its curated visual content and image-filtering interface,
Instagram has become a go-to-advertising platform for brands’
integrated marketing communication (Statista, 2017) and a tool
for fashionistas’strategic self-promotion (Adler, 2016).
Prominentluxury fashion brandsboost their Instagrampresence
to connect with consumers, create new luxury value, and to
ultimately increase brand equity. Fashionistas feel gratification
through Instagram followers’acknowledgment of their fashion
sense when sharing pictures of accessorizing themselves with
luxuryitems and postingbrand hashtagssuch as #Chanel.
A variety of sources (commercial brands, fashionistas and
consumers with opinion leadership) post multifarious types of
luxury brand visual images(product images, brand logo images
and images of people wearing luxury products) on Instagram.
Luxury brands’and fashionista influencers’Instagram-based
Thecurrentissueandfulltextarchiveofthisjournalisavailableon
Emerald Insight at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/1061-0421.htm
Journal of Product & Brand Management
29/3 (2020) 355–368
© Emerald Publishing Limited [ISSN 1061-0421]
[DOI 10.1108/JPBM-08-2018-1987]
Received 15 August 2018
Revised 26 August 2018
28 January 2019
1 June 2019
Accepted 17 July 2019
355
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