Dans quelle mesure un leader d'opinion des réseaux sociaux peut être intégré à une stratégie marketing d'une marque de luxe dans le secteur de la mode et la cosmétique

Abstract

The Web 2.0 and social media have substantially modified the way the brands promote their products and services. Indeed, today’s consumers have the tendency to turn themselves towards the recommendations of their peers, to the detriment of traditional media. That is the reason why more and more brands collaborate with influencers in order to generate viral marketing into their Web communities. Nowadays, influencer marketing also seems to be successful among luxury brands in the fashion and cosmetic industry. That could be surprising seen as the exclusive nature of a luxury brand does not seem to match with the primary image of an influencer who was first characterized as an accessible person or even a relative. The purpose of this research thesis is to understand how to conciliate the management of a luxury brand in the fashion and cosmetic industry with influencer marketing. Our work starts with a review of the current literature regarding the opinion leaders and their characteristics, the viral marketing and the influencer marketing followed by the management of luxury brands. Then, the interviews of six fashion influencers, three brands’ representatives and three communication agencies allow us to go further in our analysis. The four objectives of the qualitative study were to check that the influencer is characterized the same way as an opinion leader described in the theory, to validate the use of influencers in the marketing strategies of luxury brands, to determine the strategies actually implemented with influencers by luxury brands and to determine in which ways these strategies are pleasing for luxury brands and if they have a promising future. We discover that, under certain conditions, the influencer marketing has a positive impact on the visibility, the brand image and the engagement rate of the brand. Nevertheless, we find that the balance of the influencer marketing and the relationships between the brands and the influencers is really fragile. Indeed, influencers generally want to be better paid, whereas he is not a publicist and must give objective advice to keep the trust of his community. On the other side, luxury brands play on their prestige to not pay the influencers. This could create a risk of negative word-of-mouth from the influencers who feel harmed in this collaboration. To avoid any risk that could damage the brand image, the luxury brand has to work with the influencers who share the same values and who show sympathy to the brand itself.