Impacts of luxury fashion brand's social media marketing on brand equity

Luxury brands were concerned about harming their brand equity by social media marketing and had difficulties to adapt social media. However with developing communication technologies, they had to keep up with times, and most importantly, they had to be included in social media platforms because of the increased online availability of their customers in these platforms. The study investigate the impact of luxury brands's marketing on brand equity, and also their prestige and scarcity values that are vital to them. Within the scope of the research, Vakko was chosen as a representative of luxury brands because of its high awareness and being the only luxury brand in the list prepared by Brand Finance, "Turkey's Most Valuable Brands". In the creation of the sample, the convenience sampling and snowball sampling methods were used. The thesis is a quantitative research to compare the brand equity difference between consumers that are followers and non-followers of Vakko brand. In the research, survey method was applied from quantitative data collection methods. The obtained data were analyzed statistically using SPSS program. T-test was applied from difference tests in order to determine the difference in brand equity, scarcity and prestige values of the brand in between these two groups of participants. In addition, regression tests were used to determine the relationship between social media perceptions of the participants and brand equity, scarcity and prestige values. According to the findings, brand equity of the Vakko brand is higher for its followers than for its non-followers. It is seen that there is an important difference between the two groups of participants, especially in terms of brand associations and awareness of brand equity. In addition, followers of the brand have a positive relationship with social media perceptions and brand equity, prestige and scarcity values.