Media Selection

Increased new media use worldwide has been accompanied by a shift in advertising spending from traditional to new media with little inquiry into the differences in efficacy. One sector experiencing growth in new media advertising is the luxury products and services industry. Through in-depth interviews with ten professionals belonging to'Generation Y', the segment of the Chinese population driving the growth in new media and luxury consumption in China, this paper investigates audience perceptions of luxury advertisements in different media channels, with a focus on traditional versus new media. While this paper can confirm that much of the findings of previous research on luxury consumption and media use in China can also be applied to Generation Y, it finds that despite frequent use of new media in their daily lives, advertisements of luxury brands are more positively perceived in traditional media channels. It also finds that while theories on uses and gratifications, media richness, usage situation and product/brand type can, when taken together, be useful in understanding the reasons for preferences of advertising in media channels, what is currently lacking in this field is a unifying and comprehensive theory.