Impact of social media marketing on purchasing intentions of luxury brands: the case of millennial consumers in the UAE

The proliferation of social media has created unparalleled opportunities for marketers. This paper studies the effectiveness of social media marketing in driving purchase intentions of luxury brands by exploring the key drivers of luxury brand consumption. Primary research was carried out amongst the millennial generation consumers residing in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which generates the highest demand for luxury products in the world (Trade Arabia, 2018). To our knowledge, this is the first study to evaluate the social media marketing aspect of luxury brands in the UAE and makes important conceptual and empirical contributions to the existing literature through a multi-dimensional quantitative framework. Our results revealed that social media marketing has been effective in driving purchase intentions of luxury brands through the stimulation of materialism, hedonism, the need to seek social approval, or a combination of these factors. Our study has strong recommendations since consumers were found to be strongly influenced by celebrities and advertisements on social media platforms, which sends signals to marketers to enhance brand knowledge through 'role model' influencers and through innovative interactive features of networking sites.