How Luxury Fashion Brands and Mass Market Retailers Use Twitter Differently in Order to Achieve Marketing Objectives

By Melanie Richtman

Fall 2013

University of Minnesota

Introduction

Kaplan describes social networking sites as “applications that enable users to connect

by creating personal information profiles and inviting friends and colleagues to have access to

those profiles. These personal profiles can include any type of information, including photos,

video, audio files, and blogs” (Kaplan 2010). Social networking sites have changed the way

many brands think about their marketing strategies. Brands are no longer able to control what

information and news the public receives through a strategically written press release or a

strong public relations team. With the internet being a huge part of our daily lives, brands

have had to adapt and incorporate social media into their public relations and marketing

strategies. Social media can be used for a variety of different purposes, and each brand must

choose a strategy to best fulfill its marketing and sales goals.

This new means of communication works better for some brands than others. Since

social media sites are made for individuals, it is much more difficult for a business-to-

business company to leverage social media to increase sales. Business-to-consumer

companies, however, have the advantage of being able to provide relevant content to and

directly interact with their target market, potential customers, and fans of the brand. Some

common goals for brands on social media include cultivating brand awareness, promoting

products or sales, interacting with potential customers, positioning themselves as thought

leaders, sharing interesting content, linking to great reviews, and showcasing different events,

products, and ideas through multimedia elements.

Fashion brands have a particular advantage when it comes to social media since their

product sales rely heavily on word-of-mouth buzz, visual appeal, and online sales, all of

which can be easily optimized on social networking sites. However, there are different types

of fashion brands, and each type will use social media in different capacities in order to

achieve their goals. For this paper, I focused on luxury fashion brands and mass market

retailers, since I believe they will have the most distinct strategies.

For the purpose of this study, luxury fashion brands are defined as brands “whose ratio

of functional utility to price is low while the ratio of intangible and situational utility to price

is high. Luxury brands compete on the ability to evoke exclusivity, a well-known brand

identity, brand awareness and perceived quality” (Radon 2012). Luxury brands intentionally

try to create a distinction between those who are consumers and those who are not. This is

achieved through having high prices and exclusive distribution. This will keep the brand from

being consumed by the masses. Marketing a luxury fashion brand focuses on perceived

exclusivity (Radon 2012).

Whereas luxury brands focus on selling limited quantities to exclusive customers,

mass market retailers focus on selling affordable products to a wide variety of customers.

Mass market retailers sell reasonably priced goods that meet the customers’ needs. These

brands thrive on high sales volumes and low priced items. Mass market retailers’ marketing

efforts are going to be centered on maximizing sales and constantly offering products that are

in demand.

For my research, I chose to analyze the social media strategy, specifically on Twitter,

for ten different fashion brands — five luxury fashion brands and five mass market retail

brands. The five luxury brands I analyzed are Louis Vuitton (@LouisVuitton), Dior (@Dior),

Chanel (@Chanel), Fendi (@Fendi), and Burberry (@Burberry). The five mass market

retailers I chose to analyze are Forever 21 (@Forever21), H&M (@hm), Target

(@TargetStyle), Urban Outfitters (@UrbanOutfitters), and Victoria’s Secret

(@VictoriasSecret). I selected these ten brands based on their active presences on Twitter.

Based on my preliminary research, I predict that luxury fashion brands will use

Twitter to fulfill different objectives than those of mass market retailers. I believe luxury

fashion brands will use social media in order to create and maintain brand awareness, evoke a

feeling of exclusivity by posting behind-the-scenes content that a typical consumer would not

be able to see, position themselves as thought leaders through owned content, create the

perception of being unattainable by showing the elite — wealthy individuals and celebrities

— interacting with the brand, and by making the executive decision not to interact with

followers on Twitter.

On the other hand, mass market retailers will use social media in order to increase

sales through product promotion, create a feeling of inclusivity by interacting with customers

by responding to complaints and retweeting positive mentions of the brand from followers,

and encourage interactions through contests and promotions. The strategy of mass market

retailers differs from the strategy of luxury fashion brands because mass market retailers want

to increase their customer base, whereas luxury brands want to keep their customer base small

and exclusive. Because of their differing goals, each type of brand will use Twitter in a

different way. There will be some overlap, but I believe that the majority of luxury brands’

posts will be categorized as brand awareness, owned media and self promotion, and behind-

the-scenes. On the other hand, I think mass market retailers’ posts will mainly be categorized

as product promotion, customer relations, and content curation.

Methodology

After preliminary research about luxury fashion brands, mass market retailers and

their social media usage, I monitored each brands’ Twitter accounts from October 1, 2013

through October 31, 2013 and classified each tweet according to seven different categories.

The seven different categories were brand awareness, product promotion, customer relations,

owned content and self promotion, behind-the-scenes, content curation, and multimedia. Each

post could be placed into more than one category, but posts typically did not overlap with

each other, the exception being multimedia. In most cases, multimedia elements were used in

order to fulfill the original purpose of the tweet. Each category will be explained in detail

below.

Brand Awareness

Posts placed in the brand awareness category are the most difficult to define. Brand awareness

is when a company posts something that is not relevant to sales, but is more about creating a

brand identity – values, personality, interests, et cetera. Typically brand awareness posts are

positive towards the brand and they are supposed to be inspirational.

Product Promotion

The product promotion category involves any efforts to directly sell a specific product,

product line, or sales promotion. In most cases, product promotion posts have a link included

that pushes users directly to the website in order to encourage them to make a purchase. This

is the most upfront type of promotion on a brands’ Twitter account. One indication that a

brand is trying to promote a product is when the specific product is displayed as a flat-lay

image, rather than a model wearing an item. Product promotion is promoting a product, rather

than a lifestyle, unlike brand awareness. (Figure 2)

Customer Relations

The customer relations category refers to any effort from a brand to directly interact with a

potential customer on the social media platform. This includes responding to followers on

Twitter, retweeting tweets in which the brand has been mentioned by a consumer, a post that

encourages fan interaction — including contests or questions — and promoted hashtags (that

the company intends for followers to use when interacting with the brand). The ultimate goal

of customer relations is to build a relationship with a potential customer. (Figure 3)

Owned Content & Self Promotion

This category consists of tweets that promote the brand as a thought leader in its respective

ecosystem and any efforts that promote the company — rather than a specific product —

through traditional public relations tactics. This would occur when a brand tweets links to its

own blog, posts pictures of celebrities or public figures who are supporting the brand (either

by wearing the brand or attending an event), or when a brand promotes its own

communication platforms, such as other social media accounts. (Figure 4)

Behind-the-scenes

Behind-the-scenes posts can be classified by any material that the general public would not

have seen if it were not for the brands Twitter account. Behind-the-scenes posts typically

include images, videos, or quotes from an exclusive event, such as backstage at the brands

fashion week show or photo shoot. These exclusive sneak peeks are typically posted in real

time, rather than being scheduled. (Figure 5)

Content Curation

This category involves any content that the brand did not create itself, but rather it curated

content from different sources. Typical curated content includes press mentions, blogs about

the brand, retweeting tweets from media outlets discussing the brand, and any other relevant

outside news about the brand. This is earned media. (Figure 6)

Multimedia

The multimedia category includes any post that features a photo or video. This is the most

straight forward category and also the most common category. (Figure 7)

Figure 1: This tweet from H&M is an example of a “brand awareness” tweet. It is focused on a lifestyle, rather than the brand itself.

Figure 2: This tweet from Chanel is an example of Product Promotion.

Figure 3: This tweet in which Victoria's Secret has responded to a follower is an example of Customer Relations.

Figure 4: This is an example of Self Promotion since Forever 21 is promoting its own Pinterest account.

Figure 5: This is a good example of behind-the-scenes from Dior's Ready-to-Wear Fashion show.

Figure 6: This is an example of Content Curation. Victoria's Secret is tweeting Allure Magazine's review of its new perfume.

Figure 7: This tweet from Chanel is a good example of multimedia since it features a video.

Company Information

The following table compares various facts about the brands whose tweets I analyzed.

I recorded the number of followers each brands’ Twitter account has, the number of Twitter

accounts each brand is following, the year each company was founded, the country in which

each company was founded, and the category (luxury or mass market) for each company.

There are several interesting items to note about the comparison between the luxury brands

and the mass market retailers, especially when it comes to the number of accounts each brand

is following, the year each company was founded and the country in which each brand was

founded. Luxury brands followed fewer Twitter accounts than mass market retailers. In fact,

Chanel does not follow anyone on Twitter. My assumption is that Chanel intentionally does

not follow anyone in order to maintain distance between its symbolic audience and its real

audience who can afford its products.

It is also important to note that luxury brands are significantly older than the mass

market retailers (with the exception of H&M, which was founded in 1947, only one year after

Dior). Luxury brands often use their history and age as a way to differentiate themselves from

non-luxury brands. The fact that they have been around for decades gives them an added

element of credibility and helps consumers rationalize their high prices. Similarly, it is

interesting to point out that all of the luxury brands are from European countries, whereas all

of the mass market retailers are from the United States, other than H&M. From this

information, it can be gathered that luxury brands and mass market retailers differ in ways

other than their pricing, production and sales strategies, and that their different backgrounds

will influence the ways they use Twitter as a marketing tool.

Table 1: This table shows the differences between luxury brands and mass market retailers

Company Followers Following Year Founded Country of Origin

Category

Chanel 3,642,365 0 1908 France Luxury Dior 3,727,940 101 1946 France Luxury Fendi 17,421 124 1925 Italy Luxury Burberry 2,449,458 160 1856 England Luxury Louis Vuitton 2,170,497 189 1854 France Luxury H&M 2,972,021 209 1947 Sweden Mass Market Forever 21 1,307,686 545 1984 USA Mass Market Victoria’s Secret 3,106,739 1,123 1977 USA Mass Market Target Style 114,681 1,827 1962 USA Mass Market Urban Outfitters 803,301 2,048 1970 USA Mass Market

Data Analysis

From October 1, 2013 until October 31, 2013, I analyzed 852 tweets — 524 tweets

from five mass market retailers (Forever 21, H&M, Target, Urban Outfitters, and Victoria’s

Secret) and 328 tweets from five luxury brands (Chanel, Dior, Fendi, Louis Vuitton, and

Burberry). Tweets that did not fit into a defined category were discarded. Due to the relatively

small sample size, I chose to forgo a statistical analysis because the margin of error could be

significant. Instead, I directly compared the number of tweets from luxury brands and mass

market retailers for each category, in addition to comparing the quantity in relation to the

sample size (based on percentages). Tweets that were coded twice were coded for multimedia

as well as an additional category. The three post categorizations that had sizable differences

between mass market retailers and luxury brands were customer relations, multimedia and

behind-the-scenes. The other four categories — brand awareness, product promotion, owned

content and self promotion, and content curation — were comparable in frequency among

luxury brands and mass market retailers.

Among the 328 tweets from luxury brands, there were 62 tweets categorized as brand

awareness, 103 tweets categorized as product promotion, six tweets categorized as customer

relations, 57 tweets categorized as owned content and self promotion, 79 tweets categorized

as behind-the-scenes, 40 tweets categorized as content curation, and 260 tweets that contained

multimedia elements. From the 524 tweets from mass market retailers, there were 79 tweets

categorized as brand awareness, 185 tweets categorized as product promotion, 85 tweets

categorized as customer relations, 113 tweets categorized as owned content and self

promotion, 31 tweets categorized as behind-the-scenes, 58 tweets categorized as content

curation, and 244 tweets that contained multimedia elements.

Table 2 displays the total number of tweets per category for mass market retailers and luxury brands.

Total Number of Tweets Post Category Mass Market Retailers Luxury Brands

Brand Awareness 79 62 Product Promotion 185 103 Customer Relations 85 6 Self Promotion/PR 113 57

Multimedia 244 260 Behind-the-scenes 31 79 Content Curation 58 40

Based on percentages for a more accurate comparison, 19 percent of tweets from

luxury brands were categorized as brand awareness, compared to 15 percent of tweets from

mass market retailers. 31 percent of tweets from the luxury brands fit into the product

promotion category and 35 percent of tweets from the mass market retailers were classified as

product promotion. Only two percent of luxury brands’ tweets were focused on customer

relations, whereas 16 percent of mass market retailers’ tweets were categorized as customer

relations. 17 percent of luxury brands’ tweets were classified as owned content and self

promotion, compared to 21 percent of mass market retailers’ tweets. 24 percent of luxury

brand tweets were labeled as behind-the-scenes, whereas only six percent of mass market

retailers’ tweets were labeled behind-the-scenes. 12 percent of tweets from luxury brands

were categorized as content curation, compared to 11 percent of tweets from mass market

retailers. 79 percent of luxury brands’ tweets had multimedia elements and 46 percent of

tweets from mass market retailers had multimedia elements.

Table 3 displays percentages of tweets per category for mass market retailers and luxury brands.

Percentage Comparisons Post Category Mass Market Retailers Luxury Brands Predicted Leader

Brand Awareness 15% 19% Luxury Product Promotion 35% 31% Mass Market Customer Relations 16% 2% Mass Market Self Promotion/PR 21% 17% Luxury

Multimedia 46% 79% No prediction Behind-the-scenes 6% 24% Luxury Content Curation 11% 12% Mass Market

Figure 8 compares the percentage of tweets per category for mass market retailers and luxury brands.

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%

Percentage Comparisons

Mass Market

Luxury

Results

I predicted that luxury brands would have more tweets categorized as brand awareness

than mass market retailers because “luxury brands compete on the ability to evoke

exclusivity, a well-known brand identity, brand awareness and perceived quality” (Radon

2012). Therefore, I predicted that they would use brand awareness as a way to evoke brand

identity. However, the data shows that luxury brands do not put as much emphasis on brand

awareness as I previously thought. 19 percent of luxury brands’ tweets were classified as

brand awareness and 15 percent of mass market retailers’ tweets were classified as brand

awareness. The difference between the two is not very large when you look at the percentage

comparison. This supports my original hypothesis that luxury brands would focus on brand

awareness more than mass market retailers, but I thought the difference would be much

greater than four percent.

A similar phenomenon occurred with the product promotion category. I predicted that

luxury brands would focus less on product promotion in general, because their audiences on

Twitter are mostly a symbolic audience, or individuals who cannot actually afford the brand’s

product offerings but aspire to become a part of the real audience. However, luxury brands

spent almost as much time promoting products as mass market retailers. Luxury brands’

tweets were categorized as product promotion 31 percent of the time and mass market

retailers’ tweets were categorized as product promotion 35 percent of the time. I am very

surprised that the percentages were so similar, differing by only four percent.

Mass market retailers and luxury brands also had very similar percentages when it

came to the owned content and self promotion category and the content curation category. 21

percent of tweets from mass market retailers were owned content and self promotion,

comparatively 17 percent of tweets from luxury brands were owned content and self

promotion. I expected that luxury brands would have a percentage slightly higher than 17, but

I’m not surprised that the numbers were similar for mass market retailers and luxury brands.

Self promotion is important, regardless of your audience. Content curation was even more

similar for the two, with 12 percent of tweets for luxury brands being classified as content

curation and 11 percent of tweets for mass market retailers being classified as content

curation.

The categories with the most significant differences between mass market retailers and

luxury brands were customer relations, behind-the-scenes and multimedia. I predicted that

mass market retailers would focus more on customer relations than luxury brands. The data

shows that 16 percent of tweets from mass market retailers are intended for customer

relations, whereas only 2 percent of tweets from luxury brands are considered customer

relations. I predicted this difference because “luxury brands intentionally try to create a

distinction between those who are consumers and those who are not” (Radon 2012).

Therefore, luxury brands are not going to respond and interact with their following, since

most of their Twitter audiences are symbolic, whereas mass market retailers’ Twitter

audiences are real consumers, so interacting with customers is a realistic way to increase

sales.

Behind-the-scenes is a great way for luxury brands to show the symbolic audience

what it is like to be a part of the exclusive real audience. Mass market retailers lack

exclusivity since their products are available for almost everyone in mass quantities. Since

“marketing a luxury fashion brand focuses on perceived exclusivity,” behind-the-scenes

tweets can separate the symbolic audience from the real audience (Radon 2012). 24 percent of

tweets from luxury brands offered a behind-the-scenes look at the activities of the brand,

compared to only six percent of tweets from mass market retailers.

The percentage of tweets with multimedia elements greatly differed between mass

market retailers and luxury brands. 79 percent — an overwhelming majority — of luxury

brands’ tweets had a multimedia element (video or image), whereas 46 percent of tweets from

mass market retailers had a multimedia element included. According to Brafton, a content

marketing agency, “data from Buffer shows pictures garner 18 percent more clicks on Twitter

than text-only tweets” (Griwert 2013). This data suggests that multimedia is an important part

of social media strategy for both mass market retailers and luxury brands. Images and videos

are especially important for product promotion and behind-the-scenes.

Discussion & Conclusion

Overall, luxury brands and mass market retailers used Twitter in a similar capacity and

had fewer differences than predicted. With the exception of the customer relations,

multimedia, and behind-the-scenes categories where the numbers reflected my original

predictions, all of the other categories had very similar percentages between luxury brands

and mass market retailers. However, in the case of brand awareness and product promotion,

the data supports my hypothesis, but in a much smaller margin than I would have originally

predicted. The category that was the most surprising was product promotion. I initially

thought that luxury brands would have focused less of their efforts on product promotion than

they actually did. In fact, luxury brands spent the most time on product promotion compared

to the other categories (with the exception of multimedia). Although luxury brands had more

tweets categorized as brand awareness (19%), mass market retailers had a similar percentage

(15%) of tweets categorized as brand awareness, so the difference is not significant enough to

conclusively determine that it supports my hypothesis. Similarly, luxury brands had a lower

percentage of tweets (31%) categorized as product promotion than mass market retailers, but

the difference was not significant enough (since 35 percent of mass market retailers tweets

were categorized as product promotion) to conclude that it supports my hypothesis. However,

in conclusion, my hypothesis was fully supported by the data for the customer relations and

behind-the-scenes categories.

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