Social media marketing in luxury brands

Can new healthy luxury food products accelerate short food supply chain formation via social media marketing in high-income countries?

Social media marketing is a promising tool for successful product placement of new healthy luxury food products, a subcategory of superfoods. Despite its growing popularity, no studies have investigated how social media marketing affects consumers' quality perception process for such superfoods and whether this provides opportunities for farmers to gain a competitive advantage in direct marketing channels. Therefore, we integrate media richness theory into the food quality guidance model, compile a data set of 697 German fruit consumers from May to June 2020, and analyze this sample via partial least square analysis. Results show that social media marketing is a viable tool for new healthy luxury food products if media content is highly experience providing. Furthermore, it offers opportunities for the formation of shorter food supply chains as farmers could, through the provision of engaging social media marketing content, sell new healthy luxury food products directly to the final consumer. This research provides implications to farmers, retailers and policy makers to exploit the social media marketing potential of new healthy luxury food products.

Factors Influencing Saudi Young Female Consumers’ Luxury Fashion in Saudi Arabia: Predeterminants of Culture and Lifestyles in Neom City

Saudi Arabia has been taking various initiatives (such as improving women’s rights for reduced dependency on male guardians, and creating training opportunities for skills improvement among Saudi locals) for creating an integrated community with diverse cultures and lifestyles as a part of transforming into a knowledge-based economy (Vision 2030). As a part of these initiatives, a new city, the NEOM project, is being constructed in the country, which includes diverse cultures, innovative technologies integrated into the ways of living and working, or simply put, as a new model for sustainable living, working and prospering. This never-before-attempted model in the country may have an impact on the local Saudi culture and lifestyles. In this context, the perceptions towards luxury fashion among the Saudi citizens were identified to be one of the important areas in lifestyles, which may be influenced by progress and development. Therefore, this study identifies and evaluates factors influencing Saudi young female consumers’ luxury fashion in Saudi Arabia, which can act as predeterminants of culture and lifestyles in Neom city. An online questionnaire-based survey was used for collecting data related to the various influencing factors classified from the literature review. A random sampling and snowball sampling approach was adopted to select the female participants across all the regions. A final sample of 775 participants was achieved after filtering the incomplete and ineligible responses. The results revealed that both motivational factors and store factors positively influenced the perceptions towards luxury brands, while significant differences were observed between the groups (educated and uneducated; employed and unemployed), while no differences were observed in relation to external factors. It can be concluded that the perception that luxury is intended for the wealthy and affluent was identified to be irrelevant, and there is a strong influence of external factors, such as social norms, religion, culture, and family on young female consumers’ luxury fashion in Saudi Arabia.

Role of Social Media Marketing Activities in Influencing Customer Intentions: A Perspective of a New Emerging Era

The aim of this study is to explore social media marketing activities (SMMAs) and their impact on consumer intentions (continuance, participate, and purchase). This study also analyzes the mediating roles of social identification and satisfaction. The participants in this study were experienced users of two social media platforms Facebook and Instagram in Pakistan. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from respondents. We used an online community to invite Facebook and Instagram users to complete the questionnaire in the designated online questionnaire system. Data were collected from 353 respondents, and structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the data. Results show that SMMAs have a significant impact on the intentions of users. Furthermore, social identification mediates the relationship between social media activities and satisfaction, and satisfaction mediates the relationship between social media activities and the intentions of users. This will help marketers how to attract customers to develop their intentions. This is the first novel study that used SMMAs to address the user intentions with the role of social identification and satisfaction in the context of Pakistan.

The Common Values of Social Media Marketing and Luxury Brands. The Millennials and Generation Z Perspective

As consumers spend more time on social media, brands can take advantage of this opportunity to better serve and communicate with their followers. Still, given the characteristics of luxury, luxury brands may be reluctant to use social media. To determine the extent to which Millennials and Generation Z consumers perceive compatibility between social media marketing and luxury brands, a purposive sampling technique was employed. We collected data from 303 Romanian visitors of the Facebook page entitled Do You Like Luxury? This page, with postings from luxury producers, was specially created and sponsored in order to raise interest in completing the questionnaires. For data analysis, we used statistical tests, including confirmatory factorial analysis, regression, and independent-samples t-test. Our research shows that, for Millennials and Generation Z, luxury brands are compatible with social media apps as marketing channels. Even in the case of inadequacy, managers can still use the facilities of digital technologies to depict exclusivity, emotions, and sensory experiences specific to luxury. Unlike other studies, which only focused on a few dimensions, we proposed a multidimensional approach of the perceived value of luxury and social media marketing. Moreover, this is one of the few studies to focus on Eastern European consumers.

Analysis of the Role of Digital Influencers and Their Impact on the Functioning of the Contemporary On-Line Promotional System and Its Sustainable Development

Along with the increasingly high level of digital media consumption, organizations’ expenditure on online promotional activities is constantly and dynamically growing. At the same time, together with the growing expenditures on digital promotion, it can be clearly seen that the effectiveness of activities carried out in the electronic space in its current form is decreasing. Therefore, in the new market situation, when the promotion of products and services has never been so difficult, organizations have started to look for other methods of influencing consumers. One of the most important trends is the use of the influencer marketing concept. In this context, the aim of this article is to analyze the role, place and significance of digital influencers in the overall functioning of the online promotional system, and the impact of the influencer marketing concept on its sustainable development. In order to implement it, a literature analysis was carried out on the origins of this phenomenon, and its scale, causes and impact on the functioning of the digital promotion system. After the completion of this stage of the research, a questionnaire survey was conducted on a group of individual Internet users in order to obtain primary data. The results of the research indicate that there is a great potential for activities involving digital influencers. This potential relates primarily to the effective transmission of information about a product or service, the impact on increased brand awareness, and the impact on the sales level of products and services offered by companies. The study also identified the most important threats that may affect the future development of the concept of influencer marketing.