Social media interactions and brand luxuriousness: the role of materialism

Purpose – This research is aimed at investigating how the level of brand-consumer interaction between luxury brands and consumers on social media may affect the perception of brands’ luxuriousness. In particular, the study is focused on the moderating role of consumers’ materialism. Design / Methodology / Approach – The study adopted a quantitative approach. Data were collected with two online experiments. Study 1 was run to test whether a luxury brand’s product description was perceived as more luxurious when published on a social media platform versus the brand’s website, and if consumers’ materialism influences this effect. Study 2 explains the underlying psychological mechanism by underlining the mediating role of psychological distance. Findings – The results show that branded luxury products are perceived as more luxurious when they are communicated on a social media platform (vs. on the brand’s webpage) and consumers are high (vs. low) in materialism, due to high psychological distance. Originality/value – Previous literature has neglected the relationship between materialism and social media communication, as well as the potential differential effect that a high versus low level of brand-consumer interaction may have, for luxury brands, in the online context. This study fills this gap by investigating the role of a consumer-related characteristic (i.e., the level of materialism) that represents an important dimension in luxury consumption. Moreover, the study sheds light on the mediating role of psychological distance in the context of luxury brands’ online communication.