Handmade virtual messages to promote foreign fashion brands in Instagram

The purpose of this paper is to assess whether a handmade message communicated on the social media network can enhance brand love to a handmade fashion brand and how brand love can lead to different consumer responses including enhanced perceived country of origin image of the brand, higher social media engagement and increased purchase intention towards the brand. An experimental online design was used to measure the effect of handmade product descriptor cues in an Instagram post, which generated 287 valid responses. The data was analyzed using partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS). The results mainly support the model by confirming that positive attitudes to handmade fashion products enhances brand love. The study’s findings also suggest positive associations between brand love and macro-country image, social media engagement and purchase intention. Social media engagement and micro-country image were also found as antecedents of purchase intention. This research adds further insights in the study of brand love towards international fashion brands considering the role that social media and the use of handmade product descriptor cues play in the international promotion of Spanish Fashion Small Medium Enterprises.