Visual communication of luxury fashion brands on social media: effects of visual complexity and brand familiarity

Marketers of luxury brands have embraced new strategies to convey their brands to consumers using visual communication via social media. Although social media posts have the potential to improve marketing efforts for luxury brands, there is a dearth of research on the effect of visual communication strategies on luxury brands. This study investigated the effect of visual complexity of social media images on consumers’ brand perceptions in a luxury fashion context. Results of two experiments revealed that when respondents were familiar with a classical style luxury brand, their perception of luxury was greater for a less than a more complex image. However, when the brand was unfamiliar, they reported a greater perception of luxury for the complex image than for the simple one. Further, the results indicated sequential mediating effects of perceived luxury and product attitude on the relationship between visual complexity and behavioral intentions (i.e., purchase intentions and intentions to share images). The results of this study suggested that, to increase positive perceptions of luxury brands, marketers should determine the visual complexity of social media images they use by determining consumers’ degree of familiarity with the brand first.