- Title
- Understanding what motivates luxury customers to engage with social media platforms of luxury brands
- Creator
- Aldhamiri, Ali
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2022
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- Strengthening consumer–brand relationships is seen as a key cornerstone of successful contemporary businesses. Therefore, the prospect of social media marketing (SMM) offers significant opportunities to strengthen customer relationships with brands through facilitating a range of customer engagement behaviours (CEBs), including direct contributions to the brand, non-direct contributions and customer-to-customer interactions. Brands worldwide are making substantial investments to rapidly deploy social media brand communities as important mechanisms for strengthening customer–brand relationships. However, an important challenge facing marketers in the luxury brand sector is that despite the widespread use of social media (and SMM) to engage consumers for brand community, its full exploitation has lagged. Luxury brands have been slow to exploit the opportunities of social media and new digital marketing activities. This slow response by luxury brand managers has been attributed to exclusivity as well as the lack of insights into their luxury customer needs and motives for interactions on social media, given it has been a relatively new phenomenon in luxury branding. Additionally, the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has forced luxury customers to use social media and other digital channels to interact with their favourite luxury brands even more. What is missing in the luxury branding literature is a clear and overarching framework that can help better clarify why and how luxury customers are increasingly using social media to connect with luxury brands. Luxury brand managers lack insights from empirical studies on how they can appeal to consumers’ motives to participate in CEBs and outcomes on social media brand pages. While it is imperative that luxury brand managers must manage and deploy compelling customer experiences in traditional channels (e.g. magazines and TV), failure to provide optimal digital-based experiences on social media that meet customer needs is a priority, particularly among emerging digital-oriented customers. There is a lack of empirical and theoretical evidence on the range of (luxury) intrinsic and extrinsic consumer motives for engaging with social media of luxury brands and their behavioural outcomes, and there is a lack of empirical and theoretical evidence on the influence of intrinsic and extrinsic customer motives on luxury customers’ attitudes and behaviours towards luxury brands. Additionally, there is limited empirical and theoretical evidence on identifying customer characteristics and situational variables on the linkage between consumer motives and behaviours towards the brand. To address this gap, this study sought to conceptualise the set of motives luxury customers have to participate in social media luxury brand communities, and to assess their influence on consumer behaviour outcomes. This helps in understanding the mechanisms through which customer motives for participation in social media luxury brand communities influence customer attitudes and behaviours towards luxury brands to strengthen consumer–brand relationships. An exploratory multi-method two-stage research design was adopted. Therefore, this research collected data through two research phases. In Phase One, a qualitative exploratory study through the use of netnography was adopted that sought to accurately determine what motivated each luxury customer to engage with Facebook pages of luxury brands. This was achieved by using 11 luxury brands and 280,000 netnography posts/comments/shares belonging to luxury customers. Phase One explored seven intrinsic motives that directly stimulate luxury consumers to engage with luxury brands’ Facebook pages: (1) brand experience sharing, (2) brand gratitude, (3) brand love, (4) brand nostalgia, (5) entertainment, (6) product aesthetic (beauty) and (7) seeking customer service assistance. Phase One also explored three extrinsic motives: (1) remuneration, (2) seeking social support and (3) self-status seeking. Additionally, in the context of Facebook pages for luxury brands, Phase One identified two fundamental ‘luxury-based’ CEBs that directly reflect luxury consumer actions when they engage with luxury brands’ Facebook pages: (1) active engagement and (2) passive engagement. Further, Phase One identified one customer outcome, which is online and offline ‘purchase intention’. Phase Two was a quantitative stage targeting customers of luxury brands who use social media to follow their luxury brands. Therefore, an online survey was adopted to test the relationships in the proposed theoretical framework. Overall, the quantitative stage used two procedures. The first procedure was a pilot testing using 50 respondents. The pilot testing survey used both quantitative and qualitative (open-ended questions at the end of survey) approaches. Quantitative questions were directly related to variables identified in Phase One. In addition, the qualitative questions focused on understanding if there are any new constructs/concepts that luxury customers may add. Open-ended questions allowed luxury customers (respondents) to express their opinions freely on this research’s subject. After testing data from pilot testing survey, the second procedure involved a ‘final survey launch’ using 568 usable respondents. Drawing on self-determination theory, the findings indicated that the luxury-based social media construct is formed by intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. These motives reflect significant needs that influence different customer attitudinal and behavioural outcomes. In addition, moderating effects (i.e. consumer-brand identification and materialism) were detected in relation to (1) intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, (2) active engagement, and (3) purchase intention. Further, analysis of control variables (i.e. gender and income) showed some significant differences for some path relationships in the theoretical framework. Some new insights were gathered from this research. For example, this study investigates what drives higher active customer engagement in luxury brands' social media. Further, contrary to what is commonly found in existing literature, findings (from both qualitative and quantitative explorations) indicated that important motives, such as brand gratitude, brand nostalgia, seeking customer service assistance and remuneration, are significant motives, even in the world of luxury brands. Findings also revealed that Facebook pages (social media) of luxury brands have become an ideal place for luxury consumers where they can practise and demonstrate their luxury products (e.g. ‘online’ self-status seeking and ‘online’ signalling wealth). This takes such luxury consumption concepts beyond the ‘offline’ setting. Also, findings indicated that online and offline ‘purchase intentions’ are significant customer outcomes in the theoretical framework. Managerially, this research informs practitioners to shape digital content marketing initiatives on social media that appeals to, and gratifies, customer needs that influence positive customer attitude and behaviours towards the luxury brand from a theoretical perspective. This research conceptualises a multidimensional dual-facet model that specifies an extended set of intrinsic and extrinsic motives.
- Subject
- motivations; luxury customers; social media platforms of luxury brands; customer engagement behaviours; COBRA; self-determination theory
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1505256
- Identifier
- uon:55655
- Rights
- Copyright 2022 Ali Aldhamiri
- Language
- eng
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