Digital flow in fashion FOOH content: insights from Csikszentmihalyi’s flow theory

Fashion brands increasingly employ immersive digital content to engage audiences within platform-based communication environments. This study examined manifestations of digital flow in fashion brands’ fake out-of-home (FOOH) content on Instagram and observable audience responses. A theory-informed grounded theory approach was adopted, with Csikszentmihalyi’s flow theory used as a sensitizing framework rather than as a set of predetermined coding categories. The analysis drew on 115 Instagram Reels from 20 fashion brands and 8,794 text-bearing public comments, with videos, captions, and comments examined as complementary case-level materials. The findings identified novelty, enjoyment, and curiosity about production technologies as conditions relevant to flow-related engagement, while familiarity with digital media and recognizable landmarks constituted contextual conditions. Users’ recognition of marketing intent emerged as an important evaluative condition. Across the cases, visual shock and fantastical representation, concise messaging, and feedback and prompts for user communication and participation were identified as key action/interaction strategies. Observable audience responses included enjoyment, reported repeated viewing, comment-based interaction, product interest, purchase-oriented inquiry, and critical evaluation. Critical responses were particularly evident when users raised concerns about authenticity, sustainability, ethical responsibility, or creative originality. At a higher interpretive level, the findings were synthesized across cognitive, multisensory, and affective dimensions. The study proposes an interpretive relational model that organizes the empirically developed categories and their conceptual relationships, offering a theoretical basis for understanding digital flow in FOOH-based fashion communication and informing future research and strategic practice in platform-based media environments.