Brand Contamination in Social Media: Consumers’ Negative Influence on Luxury Brand Perceptions—A Structured Abstract

Abstract

The development of social media on the Internet poses a challenge for luxury brands, as managers need to walk a fine line to keep the balance between ubiquity and exclusivity in social media (Hennigs et al. 2012). Luxury brands are increasingly using social media to raise brand awareness and build relationships with their customer base and try to enhance brand experiences online (Kim and Ko 2010; Phan et al. 2011). The emergence of Web 2.0 (the development of interactive web pages) and social media thus challenges luxury brands’ marketing strategies on the Internet, if these brands need to embrace mass marketing media and try to highlight the exclusivity dimension of their products at the same time (Kaplan and Haenlein 2010; Okonkwo 2009).