Are Social Media Influencers the Right Choice for Luxury Brands

With the popularity of social media, more and more companies have started to employ social media influencers as brand endorsers. The rise of this new type of brand endorsers has fundamentally altered contemporary business practices. However, luxury brands still prefer to hire traditional celebrities over social media influencers. This paper attempts to address this counterintuitive phenomenon by investigating the congruence between celebrities and luxury brands. Specifically, based on construal level theory, we develop a conceptual framework to study the impact of celebrity endorsement type on consumer engagement with luxury brands. The managerial implications of our results are also discussed.