Article Summary: Godey, B., Manthiou, A., Pederzoli, D., Rokka, J., Aiello, G., Donvito, R., & Singh, R. (2016). Social media marketing efforts of luxury brands: Influence on brand equity and consumer behavior. Journal Of Business Research, 69(12)
Keywords: Social media marketing, Brand equity, Preference , Loyalty, Price premium Luxury brands, International
Main idea: The article describes how brand equity creation and consumers behavior according to a brand is due to social media actions. This research focuses on presenting a comprehensive framework that shows the benefits of social media marketing efforts on brand equity and consumer behavior towards five luxury brands in four countries.
Development:
Social media is a big change for companies. It requires them to be more interactive with their consumers and increasing the engagement rate. Although social media activities have many benefits, it has been hard measuring the success (or not) of social media activities.
This study’s objective is to have a deeper understanding on the relationships between social medias activities, brand equity and the consumer behavior regarding the brand. It also focuses on evaluating the importance of the mechanism used for social media marketing efforts in order to measure if it creates the brand value we want to offer and if consumers are more attracted to the brand. This study is to understand if those social media marketing efforts have an effect on brand loyalty and if it creates a love mark brand to a consumer.
Social media marketing effort is to to reach consumers in a personal way. It changed the way advertising a product works.
In fact, it is a new way of creating entertainment as they are more amused and enjoy the experience. The interaction between the brand and the consumer completely changed the definition of communication.
In this study, it is highlighted that social media generates new updates that are trending in the moment on different platforms and it covers four sub-motivations: surveillance, knowledge, purchase intention and inspiration.
Also, brands have the choice to customize their content their consumer depending on whom they are trying to target. This study describes customization social media as a channel that helps personalize information search.
All of these features help create the word of mouth, which builds more credible and relevant information for customers.
The author found out that:
– The effect on brand equity is more on the luxury brand image than on its awareness.
– Marketing efforts on social media (SMMEs) have a positive and direct influence on the consumer preference, brand loyalty and likely willing to pay a premium price.
-While including the comparison of the countries on the effects of SMMEs, he found out that:
Chinese consumers appreciate their interaction with a luxury brand as it hels reinforce it’s image but do not respond the same way as the other countries. (Probably due to internet control in the country).
Indians are more interested in this new trend of brands being present on social media and affects them in all ways.
On the other hand, Italians are not very reactive on to SMMEs but very responsive but seem to react more regarding loyalty and price premium.
The French were the most balanced out of all the countries regarding. All the components are effective just moderated.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, social media content includes entertainment, interaction, trendiness, WOM, and customization all contribute to building brand equity. Content should be engaging and creating relationships.
Brands should perceive social media as a brand image-building tool.
Social media marketing activities influence more on brand loyalty and preferences but less on the willingness to pay a premium price, therefore brands should focus more on “traditional” ways to convince their customers to pay the difference.
The author noticed few differences between the markets studied. Most of social media marketing activities are similar and have the same effect but in the core-content and context, there are variations between countries.
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