Whilst the role of influencers in luxury brand marketing has been extensively explored, lesser attention has been paid to the value of micro-influencers as a digital marketing strategy, particularly within the luxury industry. With the luxury market awakening to the power of influencer marketing, Dior has been unique in its use of micro-influencers for its strategy. This research builds on a growing body of research considering the affordances of Instagram within the luxury strategy and adds the lesser explored research concerning video marketing and spreading brand information. Through a digital ethnography and computational network analysis approach, this study holistically depicts micro-influencers as intermediaries between the consumer and the organization by defining their position within the luxury brand management strategy as brand extensions and brand advocates with impacts on consumer purchase intention, consumer-brand relationships and product consumption experience. This study also examines how micro-influencers internalize and interpret the brand logic within their content production and how this affects their position within digital communities through a consumer-centric and platform-embedded perspective. Additionally, this study provides an understanding of the influencer’s self-brand as an entrepreneurial subject, manifesting the potential of user-generated content whilst inserting the individual within the market logic. Finally, the value of micro-influencers is contextualized within a broader technological and digital culture landscape in accordance with particular platform affordances. The multidimensional approach of this study uniquely captures how micro-influencers exist within, communicate and perpetuate the myths of the aspirational economy. Overall, micro-influencers are depicted as uniquely powerful tools of digital storytelling and relational monitoring within the luxury brand management strategy, aiding the prestige and creativity positioning of luxury brands whilst emulating the “ideal luxury consumer” to sustain brand interest beyond seasonal product launches.

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Dr. Christian Ritter
hdl.handle.net/2105/64953
Media & Creative Industries
Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication

Cherisse Dsouza. (2022, June 27). Designer Bags and Designing Me: An Exploration of the Role of Micro-Influencers within the Luxury Brand Management Strategy. Media & Creative Industries. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/2105/64953