The Art of Selling Dreams: The Expression of Charisma and Longevity in Luxury Brand Storytelling

<p dir="ltr">Luxury brand marketing campaigns sell dreams. At the heart of luxury branding strategies is the creation of an extraordinary psychological and emotional impact that stimulates consumer aspiration for identity signalling, social recognition, self-esteem, and achievement signalling, and consumer inspiration involving the spontaneous simulation of new ideas. However, extant research offers limited empirical evidence on reasons that inspire and aspire luxury customers through luxury brand storytelling.</p><p dir="ltr">This study explores the role of expressed charisma and expressed longevity as key ingredients in luxury brand storytelling. Although it is known that crafting stories in luxury branding is a complex process and there is no single best way to tell a story, more clarity is needed on how key ingredients of luxury brand storytelling affect customer outcomes. This research also investigates the role of narrative transportation in explaining the mechanism of the luxury brand storytelling. Narrative transportation is a measurable mental state that indicates the impact of a story on the minds of story-receivers. This research is important because creating and selecting the right brand story, among many possibilities, not only saves valuable time, effort and resources but also adds psychological and emotional meaning to the brand.</p><p dir="ltr">This research involved a field observation (video collection and analysis), three cross-sectional surveys, and two online experiments. The data collected was analysed using FsQCA (for preliminary qualitative analysis); Regression, ANOVA, PROCESS macro, and SEM (for hypotheses testing); CFA (for CMV marker variable test); and multi-group analysis (for robustness check).</p><p dir="ltr">First, the findings from the qualitative comparative analysis demonstrated that expressed charisma in luxury brand storytelling can be conveyed using different combinations of behavioural attributions. Second, using surveys and validated scales, this research showed that expressed charisma and expressed longevity have a significant positive impact on both psychological and intentional customer outcomes. These findings were further confirmed by manipulating expressed charisma and expressed longevity in an online experiment. Third, findings demonstrated a significant mediation effect of narrative transportation on psychological outcomes. The analysis of the mechanisms of these storytelling effects also showed that the intentional customer outcome, inspired-to engage online, is impacted through serial mediation of narrative transportation and psychological customer outcomes (inspired-by story and luxury brand aspiration).</p><p dir="ltr">Marketing professionals can benefit from this research as it offers a systematic guide to understanding, creating, and measuring customers’ mental states when they are exposed to luxury brand stories. By placing emphasis on key story ingredients, i.e., expressed charisma and expressed longevity, marketers can craft stories to transport minds, that lead to positive psychological and intentional customer outcomes.</p>