Drivers of brand community engagement

Brand community engagement is evolving as a prominent relationship marketing variable that yields promising outcomes for the firms. Drawing upon the relevant premises of social exchange theory, this paper proposes a theoretical model portraying the role of online brand community based benefits (experience based and self-esteem based) and the community relationship investment in predicting the levels of brand community engagement.Data collected through a survey questionnaire technique from 925 members of the firm created online brand communities was employed to test the measurement and structural theory using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling respectively. The empirical results reveal that the customers’ experiential and self-esteem based benefits drive their brand community engagement. The perceived community relationship investment of the members also drives their brand community engagement positively. The sequential structural model also supported a positive impact exerted by brand community engagement on brand community commitment and brand loyalty. Additionally, it is observed that the focal brand ownership moderates the effect of community benefits and community relationship investment on brand community engagement.This study contributes to the nascent academic research on online brand communities and to the existing understanding of the brand community managers in managing customer engagement in online brand communities, thereby of profound theoretical and managerial relevance.     

The role of customer online brand experience in customers' intention to forward online company-generated content: The case of the Islamic online banking sector in Palestine

The purpose of this study is twofold: Firstly, to assess the impact of customer online brand experience (COBE) with online banking on customer's intention to forward online company-generated content (CGC). Secondly, to explore the role of online brand community engagement (OBCE) and the perceived trust of brand community page (BCP) as mediating variables between COBE and the intention to forward online CGC. This research conducted an online survey among various Islamic bank customers in Palestine who were members of online brand communities (fan pages) on Facebook. 375 valid responses were collected and results revealed that COBE exerts a dual influence on intention to forward CGC. This study is a pioneering empirical research on the role of OBCE in customers' intention to forward online CGC within the fast-growing Islamic banking industry. This study contributes to fill this research gap by assessing the effect of COBE on OBCE and intention to forward online CGC within the context of the Islamic online banking sector in Palestine. In this sense, this study is a first-of-its-kind research on the role of experience on customer engagement with regard to online brand communities of Islamic banks.     

Role of customer perceived brand ethicality in inducing engagement in online brand communities

In recent times, ethical consumerism has motivated firms to behave ethically to garner various benefits for their brands. More specifically, firms have become more conscious of consumers' perceptions of brand ethicality. Thus, recent research on this topic attempts to explore the factors that can lead to the formation of perceptions of brand ethicality and its favorable outcomes for the brand. This research contributes to the existing literature on brand ethicality by examining the role of perceived brand marketing communications in engendering perceptions of brand ethicality among consumers. Further, this research explores online brand community engagement as the outcome of perceived brand ethicality. The study's results based on the analysis of 397 responses exhibit that various elements of brand communications tend to generate favorable perceptions of brand ethicality. Such perceptions of the brand ethicality further induce an inclination towards engaging with online communities of such brands. The study offers specific implications for academicians and practitioners.     

How brand communities emerge: The Beamish conversion experience

Abstract

This paper explores the processes contributing to the genesis of a brand community. This ethnographic study focuses on the Beamish brand community. The Beamish beer product is a niche brand only available consistently in the locality of Cork city, Ireland. Evidence from this study shows that a collective conversion experience is foundational to the emergence of this brand community. Following this initial conversion experience, the brand community attempts to maintain the transcendent experience through practices of sacralisation maintenance. Sacralisation is maintained through the playful rituals and virtual play the community members enact. The mutual willingness of the converted to participate in these various forms of playful rituals has been a key role in the reification of the Beamish brand community. Finally, suggestions are made as to how brand management should best approach the initial attempts at brand-community formation.     

Branding in the age of social media firestorms: how to create brand value by fighting back online

ABSTRACT

Leading research on social media firestorms typically advises managers to quickly quell the backlash by appeasing brand critics. Drawing on crisis communications and branding research, we offer a radically different perspective and argue that brands can benefit from fighting back online. Through a netnography of a moral-based firestorm, we contribute to the marketing and crisis communications literatures by identifying the escalation strategy as a way to build brand value; explaining how brands can activate supporters; and providing guidance on how to assess these morally steeped events. We advance branding research by identifying how managers can provoke consumer-generated brand stories; and uncovering the hidden benefits of negative consumer voices. Finally, we outline a new perspective on how brands are dialogically constructed through a process we call ‘flyting’.     

A conceptual analysis of brand intimacy on social media platforms

The nature of brand intimacy in the context of social media-based brand communities (SMBBCs) remains unclear. This paper aims to explore whether reciprocal factual and emotional self-disclosure can lead to brand intimacy in such a community; whether brand intimacy generates valued marketing outcomes, including attitudes, intentions and behaviours; and what external and internal factors motivate and enable reciprocal factual and emotional disclosures on social media platforms. A review of the relevant literature suggests that reciprocal disclosure may lead to brand intimacy in this context. For marketers, brand intimacy is important for strengthening resistance to negative information, and enhancing positive word-of-mouth, loyalty intentions, purchase intentions and brand passion, as well as developing effective marketing strategies. The degree of anonymity and the special interactivity features of SMBBCs are key external enablers of disclosure. In situations where community members internally seek relations and/or emotional support from other members, they tend to disclose their emotions. Members who internally seek social validation and/or self-expression tend to both disclose, factually and emotionally. Such a conceptual understanding of the importance of brand intimacy, paired with a number of propositions for empirical work, can serve to guide future research into this important field.     

Perceived brand authenticity and social exclusion as drivers of psychological brand ownership

Firms strive hard to make their brands imbibed in consumers’ lives. Psychological brand ownership is one of the best ways to make consumers psychologically own the brand to generate favorable behavior. Thus, it becomes imperative for firms to know about the ways through which psychological brand ownership can be induced. To this end, the current study primarily examines perceived brand authenticity and social exclusion as the important antecedents to psychological brand ownership. In total 407 responses were collected through online mode. The results demonstrate that both perceived brand authenticity and social exclusion engender a sense of psychological brand ownership. In addition, the findings also lend support to positive word of mouth and purchase intentions as the outcomes of psychological brand ownership. The study presents some important implications to both academicians and practitioners.     

Does justice affect brand advocacy? Online brand advocacy behaviors as a response to hotel customers’ justice perceptions

This study focuses on customers' information-sharing behavior in the context of online brand advocacy behavior regarding hotel brands. We aim to explain hotel customers' online brand advocacy behavior through three-sided justice evaluations (i.e., justice for employees, justice for the self, and global belief in a just world), and their hotel satisfaction. Hypotheses are tested by using survey data acquired from 688 individuals on Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk) through partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings show that customers' perceptions of justice for the self positively affect their hotel satisfaction, perceptions of justice for employees and the global belief in a just world positively affect online brand advocacy behavior, and hotel satisfaction also positively affects online brand advocacy behavior. We expand current research efforts on online brand advocacy research and provide theoretical and managerial implications for the development of marketing and management research and practice.     

Influence of consumer attitude toward online brand community on revisit intention and brand trust

This study proposes to illustrate the relationships between perceived benefits in using online brand communities, attitudes, revisit intention, and brand trust, and it also assesses the moderating role of two types of online brand communities: marketer- and consumer-created communities. The research model is tested by regression analysis using a random sample of 242 respondents. The study finds that social and informational benefits have positive impacts on attitude, which, in turn, significantly influence revisit intention and brand trust. The moderating effect of the type of online community was significant in predicting the relationship between attitude and brand trust but not between attitude and revisit intention. The study concludes the importance of managing online brand communities through managerial implications.     

Online brand community within the integrated marketing communication system: When chocolate becomes seductive like a person

This study proposes brand communities as an effective tool within the integrated marketing communication (IMC) system. The paper utilizes the Brand Concept Map quali-quantitative technique in order to represent and compare mental association texture within one group of non-members of a brand community versus one group of people engaged in the same community. Brand stimulus is Nutella (chocolate cream) which boasts a crowded and lively online brand community: Nutellaville. Results show that brand community is effective in terms of contribution, commonality, and complementarity within the IMC system. In particular, Nutella brand image within the online community participants is composed of some mental associations overlapping other communication tools (commonality), and by new mental associations (complementarity) referred to the brand image dimension named ‘brand as person’ (seductive, popular, reassuring); second, this anthropomorphism effect solves the issue of sense of guilt excited by chocolate (contribution).     

The short- and long-term impact of brand placement in an advertiser-funded TV program on viewers' attitudes toward the sponsor brand and its main competitor

The present research investigates how viewers' liking of an advertiser-funded television program (AFP) influences viewers' attitude toward the brand that sponsors the program and its main competitor through a field study at two points in time (N_wave1 = 529 and N_wave2 = 256). An AFP is a television program which is fully sponsored by and built around a sponsoring brand. We test how the perceived program-sponsor brand fit moderates the effect of program liking one week and one month after the program finale. Program liking positively impacts brand attitude for the sponsor, and this effect becomes weaker over time. Program-sponsor brand fit reinforces the positive effect of program liking on brand attitude, especially in the longer term. In the longer term, program liking of an AFP also positively impacts viewers' attitude toward the main competitor of the sponsor.     

Managing higher education brands with an emerging brand architecture: the role of shared values and competing brand identities

ABSTRACT

Corporate branding is a strategic issue for universities as the global higher education (HE) marketplace is becoming increasingly competitive and there is pressure to differentiate. Yet it is unclear how universities develop and manage brand strategies, and whether they draw upon any meaningful connections to the multiple stakeholders and sub-cultures engaged with a university’s brand. Using qualitative data gathered from an education faculty within an established UK university, this study found the faculty and university had competing brand identities and images. A strong faculty brand emerged co-created through the shared teacher related values of staff and external partners. This study contributes to the brand strategy literature by applying branding concepts to the under-researched HE context and proposing a new, more nuanced brand architecture model not yet reported in the branding literature which more accurately reflects the management of sub and corporate HE brands.     

在线品牌社群社会资本对消费者品牌幸福感的影响机制研究

文章从社会资本的视角，探讨在线品牌社群对消费者品牌幸福感的影响机制。基于680份有效问卷，运用偏最小二乘法对假设进行检验。研究结果表明：在线品牌社群社会资本会通过促进社群幸福感（社群主观幸福感、社群心理幸福感和社群社会幸福感）进而促进品牌幸福感；在社群幸福感内部，社群社会幸福感会促进社群心理幸福感，而二者都会促进社群主观幸福感；在线品牌社群访问频率在社群主观幸福感与品牌幸福感之间起到正向调节作用。研究结论丰富了在线品牌社群和品牌幸福感理论，且对品牌建设实践具有指导价值。     

Leveraging Online Communities to Support the Brand and Develop the Community

While numerous organizations and consumers utilize interactive online marketing activities (e.g., creating discussion forums, having brainstorming sessions, and running surveys) to interact with the brand and fellow brand users, there is little research that addresses how important it is to offer community members activities based on their motivations to participate in the community. This research is an important first step at examining the degree to which marketers need to match marketing activities in online communities with community member motivations to affect brand and community outcomes. Using a longitudinal study of 256 members from 9 marketing research online communities in 3 different industries, this research finds that online communities can be used to positively influence a broad range of brand assessments, brand-supportive behaviors, and community-supportive behaviors. Furthermore, leveraging marketing activities in online communities is more complex than previously thought.     

在线品牌社群成员关系如何促进品牌忠诚——基于强弱连带整合的视角

文章从强弱连带整合的视角,探讨在线品牌社群成员强关系和弱关系数量对品牌忠诚的促进机制。借鉴社会资源理论的研究框架,基于品牌社群相关理论,本文提出了研究假设,并采用偏最小二乘法进行实证检验。结果显示：弱关系数量不会增强品牌社群信息价值和社群社交价值;强关系数量则对两种社群价值都有促进作用;品牌社群信息价值只能促进持续性社群承诺,而品牌社群社交价值会促进持续性社群承诺、情感性社群承诺和规范性社群承诺;情感性社群承诺和持续性社群承诺都会促进品牌忠诚,规范性社群承诺则不能。研究结论从连带强度的视角丰富了品牌社群理论,同时对在线品牌社群建设具有指导意义。     

How virtual brand community traces may increase fan engagement in brand pages

Brand pages in social media are a great way to foster consumer gathering around a brand, but it can be challenging to keep fans engaged and coming back to see updated content. Brands with millions of fans on Facebook have seen organic reach fall below 2% of their base. In this article, we describe how the creation of virtual brand communities can help brand managers increase fan engagement. We suggest the steps, conditions, advantages, and limitations involved in nurturing a brand page as an online social gathering that assumes some of the characteristics of a virtual brand community. The results of our study show that a brand page can have some of the characteristics of a virtual brand community—topical information exchange, identity communication, and establishment and internalization of cultural norms. We also show the importance of having celebrities among fans in order to foster social interactions and legitimate social practices on brand pages.     

Transforming visitors into members in online brand communities: Evidence from China

Using observational learning theory, this study investigates how simply viewing posts can affect visitors' intentions to join an online brand community. The study finds that the viewing of posts leads to informational value and perceived social value, which in turn increases visitors' intentions to participate in the community. For visitors with brand ownership, both informational value and perceived social value play full mediating roles; for visitors without brand ownership, both values play partial mediating roles. In addition, for visitors with brand ownership, informational value is just as important as perceived social value in shaping their participation intentions; for those without brand ownership, perceived social value is more important than informational value. The findings enrich the brand community literature and provide implications for brand community development.     

Customer brand personality perception: A taxonomic analysis

Abstract

The brand personality concept has received considerable attention. However, researchers have paid little attention to how homogeneous consumer brand personality perceptions are. This study attempts to fill this gap by analysing survey data (n?=?603) collected from respondents evaluating seven mass-market consumer brands. Using cluster analysis, it identifies four typical brand personality constellations. The authors find variance among brand personality perceptions across brands, but more interestingly also within perceptions of individual brands. This result points to issues in implementing brand personalities in marketing practice. The article concludes with theoretical and managerial implications.     

Exploring the drivers of customer engagement behaviours in social network brand communities: towards a customer-learning model

Customer learning is regarded as a process that alters either individual cognition or the outcomes of socialisation. Understanding how the learning process works enables a brand firm to identify a customer’s latent needs. Prior studies have primarily focused on effectively positioning brand knowledge in the minds of customers, but that linear learning process does not apply to the interactive and proactive social media setting. Based on the uses and gratifications perspective, this study proposes a customer-learning model and analyses 373 online questionnaires using partial least squares structural equation modelling. The empirical results confirm that learning motivation and collaborative learning are two core components of customer learning that have positive influences on satisfaction, which in turn has a positive influence on customer engagement behaviours (CEBs) and loyalty. In addition, learning motivation is the driver of collaborative learning. Finally, CEBs also have a positive influence on loyalty. This study also concludes that the social network brand community is an informative customer-learning platform that is characterised by interactivity, collaborative learning and co-creation. Theoretical and managerial implications are also discussed.     

Branded product information search on the Web: The role of brand trust and credibility of online information sources

Drawing upon the cost–benefit framework and trust mechanism as a risk reducer, this study examines the influence of brand factors and source credibility on branded product information Web searches. The online survey was conducted within the pre-purchase context of digital camera brands. The results revealed that brand factors did not influence overall branded information search efforts. However, brand trust and source credibility appeared to influence the different types of online information sources sought.