Author(s):
Mariam Naqvi*, Zeeshan Afzal
Corresponding Author: mariamnaqvi72@gmail.com

Abstract:

Influencer marketing has become a major component of digital brand communication, yet its compatibility with luxury branding remains unsettled. Luxury brands traditionally derive value from scarcity, controlled access, symbolic distance, heritage, and exclusivity, whereas influencer marketing is built around frequent exposure, accessibility, personal interaction, and repeated visibility. This tension raises a strategic question: does increasing influencer marketing continuously improve public engagement, or does it eventually weaken the engagement advantage by making luxury communication appear too available and commercially repetitive? The present study examines this issue through what is termed the luxury brand dilution paradox. The analytical framework uses 712 post-level observations nested within 60 brand-month observations representing 10 global luxury-brand profiles across six months. Influencer marketing frequency was operationalized as the percentage of a brand’s monthly Instagram posts involving influencer collaboration. Public engagement was measured through engagement rate, likes, comments, and supplementary content indicators. Descriptive statistics, Pearson and Spearman correlations, Welch independent-samples t-tests, one-way analysis of variance, linear regression, quadratic regression, and post-level robustness models with heteroskedasticity-robust standard errors were applied. Influencer frequency showed a significant negative bivariate relationship with engagement rate, r = −.529, p < .001. More importantly, the quadratic brand-month model provided substantially better fit than the linear model, R² = .973 versus .648. The squared influencer-frequency coefficient was negative and highly significant, B = −0.000408, p < .001, indicating an inverted-U relationship. Engagement was estimated to peak when influencer collaborations represented approximately 36.08% of monthly brand posts, 95% CI [33.75, 38.41]. Post-level robustness models produced the same curvature pattern. Posts containing exclusivity cues generated higher engagement, whereas influencer-collaboration and paid-partnership posts showed lower unadjusted engagement. The findings suggest that influencer marketing may benefit luxury brands when used selectively, but excessive reliance can be associated with declining public engagement. The study extends digital luxury research by treating influencer exposure as a frequency decision rather than merely a question of influencer selection, credibility, or sponsorship disclosure.

Keywords:
luxury brands, influencer marketing, engagement rate, brand dilution, exclusivity, social media marketing, influencer frequency, consumer engagement

Acceptance Date:
September 17, 2026

Copyright (c) 2026 Mariam Naqvi, Zeeshan Afzal. Published by Falcons Journal of Advanced Research (FJAR).

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) .