The interplay of nostalgic ad content types, narrative person, social belonging, and brand identification in shaping masstige brand passion

Abstract

Despite in-feed social ads continuing to surge in global prominence, there is a surprising lack of focus on how brands nostalgically present their advertising language and content strategy. This study aims to investigate whether and how selecting a narrative perspective (first-person vs. third-person) in the ads that link nostalgic content types (personal vs. historical nostalgia) drives consumer passion for masstige brands within the framework of Facebook timeline ads. Based on six experimental studies, our findings confirm that aligning first-person narration with personal nostalgic ad content promisingly boosts consumers' passion for masstige brands, since it strengthens the urge for social belonging. Conversely, third-person narration matched with historical nostalgic ad content drives stronger consumers' passion for masstige brands by eliciting brand identification. Moreover, the results provide strong evidence that a pertinent individual variable (self-monitoring) plays a moderating role in influencing the impact of various alignments on masstige brand passion. Theoretically, this study contributes substantially to the field of advertising language and content strategy, demonstrating how strategic ad content management on social media platforms can strengthen consumers' passion for masstige brands. Managers in the B2C luxury sector will find this research invaluable if they: (i) seek clarity on the impact of in-feed social ads on social media, (ii) aim to leverage narrative-person and nostalgic-content matches to heighten passion for masstige brands but are uncertain which combination to prioritize, and/or (iii) intend to boost consumers' self-expression motivations, such as social belonging and brand identification, yet need guidance on the specific interaction between 2 (narrative person: first vs third) x 2 (nostalgic content: personal vs historical) that best drives consumers’ passion for masstige brands.