Last week, Peeter Verlegh, Professor of Marketing at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, gave a talk in the frame of the Research Seminar Series at the Department of Marketing. He presented his ongoing research project on consumers’ use of brands for self-presentation purposes in social media. Drawing on the literatures on self-presentation and conspicuous consumption, Professor Verlegh examined how consumers use brands in the pictures they post online in order to present themselves in a more favorable light. The results of his study show that consumers tend to feature more prestigious brands more prominently in the pictures as well as stage the setting more when featuring more prestigious brands compared to less prestigious ones. The research examined also how these pictures are perceived by others and whether they induce favorable or unfavorable evaluations of the persons posting these pictures. This research is among the first ones looking into the visual aspects of creating and sharing information online and provides novel insights into the world of social media.

Michail Kokkoris