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This study aims to discover and assess the different marketing tactics used by luxury brands, sponsored, and non-sponsored influencers to promote luxury fashion products on Instagram. The proposed research questions focus on the analysis of comparing various independent variable of types of Instagram accounts and the dependent variable of the marketing tactics they use in their posts, therefore, content analysis is the chosen methodology for this study since it allows for an analysis of media text.
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Content Analysis
Content Analysis
According to Davis (2017), content analysis in media research is, “a quantitative methodology that allows researchers to quantify content, including the content of participant responses or the content of media texts,” (p. 222) which is a strength of the methodology that is essential to this study since the number of marketing tactics that the various accounts used will be analyzed. For this particular study, content analysis is favored in answering the research questions because it is quantitative in nature rather than qualitative meaning that it is easier to,“ make judgment calls concerning exactly how to approach the content in question, what to look at, how to approach the content in question, what to look at, how to look at it, and how to make sense of the data” (Davis, 2017, p. 225).
Research Sample
Research Sample
This study analyzed 200 Instagram posts that pertained to luxury fashion products posted in the time period between January 1, 2021, to January 1, 2023. The two-year timespan allows for the media content that is being analyzed to be more diversified. According to Caïs, (2021), Instagram is widely used by luxury fashion brands as a way to connect to new and diverse consumers through user-generated content which is why for this study Instagram is the social media platform that will be used for the content analysis.
There are multiple levels of analysis for this research study. The first type of Instagram posts that will be studied is 10 Instagram posts across 5 different luxury fashion brand accounts, which means that 50 Instagram posts from luxury fashion brands will be analyzed in total. The 5 luxury brand Instagram accounts that were chosen for this study were Chanel, Dior, Louis Vuitton, Valentino, and Gucci because according to Luxe Digital (2023), these are the top five performing luxury fashion brands worldwide. Secondly, ten different sponsored influencers from each of the five brands will be randomly chosen and two posts promoting the brand will be chosen from their Instagram accounts and coded. This will result in a total of 100 sponsored influencer posts being coded for in total. Half of the sponsored Instagram posts (n=50) will be compared to posts by the selected luxury brand accounts and the other half (n=50) will be compared to luxury fashion posts by non-sponsored influencers. Lastly, ten different non-sponsored influencers from each of the top five brands will be randomly selected and one of their posts promoting the luxury fashion brand and its products will be coded for. Overall, there are two sponsored and two non-sponsored influencer accounts being analyzed for each of the five brands. Further operational definitions of what determines a sponsored versus non-sponsored influencer can be found in the codebook.
50 Official Luxury Brand Accounts Instagram posts
50 Official Luxury Brand Accounts Instagram posts
100 Sponsored Influencer Accounts Instagram posts
100 Sponsored Influencer Accounts Instagram posts
50 Non-sponsored Influencer Accounts Instagram Posts
50 Non-sponsored Influencer Accounts Instagram Posts
LUXURY BRAND ACCOUNTS SAMPLED FOR THIS STUDY
Research Process
Research Process
All of the sample media posts posted by luxury fashion brand official accounts will be randomly selected as long as they meet certain inclusion criteria such as falling within the timeline of January 1, 2021, to January 1, 2023. Sponsored influencers' posts will be chosen by a search for the top paid influencers for each of the five brands and their Instagram account handles can be found in Appendix B. In order to analyze content from non-sponsored influencers, the hashtags of each brand such as “#Dior,” “#Chanel,” “#LouisVuitton,” “#Valentino, and “#Gucci,” will be used in the Instagram search bar order to find their accounts. After searching the hashtag, non-sponsored influencers will be chosen at random depending on if their post contains apparel from one of the selected brands, Luxury fashion brands typically have a makeup line, however, this study is based solely on fashion rather than cosmetics so any posts promoting luxury brand cosmetics will be excluded from the sample set of media posts being coded for.
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Codebook
Codebook
The codebook is used by the primary and secondary coder and contains operational definitions of the marketing tactics used by influencers and official brand accounts in the Instagram posts that are a part of the sample.
Sample Instagram Accounts
Sample Instagram Accounts
Appendix B lists the specific Instagram handle accounts of all the luxury fashion brand accounts and influencer accounts.
To view the full Key Findings, click below.
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