Role of Self-Regulatory in Luxury Brands’ Social Media Advertising

Abstract

Luxury brands are increasingly using social media messages as their ads to consumers. This paper investigates the impact of regulatory focus on brand attitudes after research participants viewed a luxury brand’s message on social media. The research question is whether promotion-focused consumers and prevention-focused consumers have different responses to messages that emphasize either innovation or tradition. Based on an online experiment, this research findings show that the framing of the message interacts with regulatory focus. An ad that emphasizes innovation yields more favorable brand attitudes than an ad that emphasizes tradition among promotion-focused consumers. However, this does not happen among prevention-focused consumers. This research provides theoretical implications and practical suggestions for industry practitioners.