Un’Analisi sui Commenti in Inglese nelle Web-Community dei Luxury Brand: Spunti per le Strategie del Marketing del Lusso "Made in Puglia"

Luxury brands are increasingly interested in developing digital marketing strategies that are able to attract new customers and improve brand perceptions. At the same time, however, the online context has become untrusted by luxury brands, due to the potential risk of losing control over brand image because of intense interaction with customers through the Web. In spite of this criticality, only few academic studies have investigated the way consumers interact with luxury brands within online dedicated platforms, such as luxury brands’ web communities. Thus, this research, by focusing on the length of English comments left by consumers in the online brand community of luxury brands, investigates the role of engagement (emotional involvement) and valence of comments (positive or negative). In particular, the analysis of comments left on the Facebook official page of the brand Chanel sheds light on a quite counter-intuitive phenomenon, demonstrating that the length of comments is influenced, at the same time, by both the valence of the comments and the level of engagement of the commenter. Results demonstrate that the effect of the engagement on the length of a comment is moderated by the valence of the comment itself. In particular, the study shows that in a luxury brand online community, a high level of engagement is associated with shorter comments, but only when the valence of the comments is negative. This research has both theoretical and managerial implications. In particular, from a practical point of view, the results may be useful to Made in Puglia luxury companies, since they offer interesting insights to companies from Apulia which need to understand how to better use social media for their branding strategies.