Exploring the role of visual aesthetics and presentation modality in luxury fashion brand communication on Instagram

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the strategic importance of visual aesthetics and presentation modality for consumer responses to fashion luxury brand content posted on Instagram. Design/methodology/approach - A content analysis of 40,679 posts on the official Instagram accounts of 15 global luxury brands was conducted. Findings - Brand posts using expressive aesthetic image received more likes and comments on Instagram than those with classical aesthetics. Brand video content received more likes and comments than static content. There was also a significant interaction between visual aesthetics and presentation modality in generating likes and comments. Brand content adopting expressive aesthetic and audio-visual modality generated more responses when using audio-visual modality, while content using classical aesthetics produced more responses in a visual-only format. Practical implications - As visual aesthetics and modality resulted in different responses to Instagram ads, luxury marketers should consider using appropriate approaches when creating brand posts on Instagram. Originality/value - This is one of the few studies examining the effectiveness of visual aesthetics and presentation modality in Instagram advertising, especially in luxury fashion brand context.