Antecedents of participation in online brand communities and their purchasing behavior consequences

This study intends to fill some gaps in knowledge about online communities and their influence on consumers’ purchase decisions. A review of the extant literature on online brand communities reveals that most prior studies have focused on identifying the factors associated with joining and participating in online communities. However, limited studies examine the implications of participation in online brand communities in terms of consumer behaviors, such as brand liking and intention to purchase the brand. In addition, these few studies have either focused on the influence of operational elements of the online community on purchase intention or on the influence of community members’ characteristics regarding purchase intention. Therefore, this study aims to provide an integrated framework for operational and user characteristics’ antecedents associated with consumers’ participation in online brand communities and their effect on purchase decisions. Structural equation modeling was used to test the conceptual model. Data were collected via a survey of the Facebook pages of 282 members of Egyptian telecommunication companies. The findings provide insights into how these antecedents should be managed to enhance participation in virtual telecommunication communities.     

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.     

From active participation to engagement in online communities: Analysing the mediating role of trust and commitment

The advent of new media and the internet has brought social media to the fore of all brand communications. Marketers are looking at leveraging social media and all its capabilities to their advantage so as to build and manage customer relationships while also co-creating brand experiences. Online communities are one of the most preferred choices of marketers, from among all the tools and features that social media offers. The present study aims to understand how user’s active participation in online communities is instrumental in influencing their engagement with the community. The above relationship is tested on a sample of 203 respondents, using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM), where trust and commitment are explored as mediators. While trust is found to partially mediate the relationship between active participation and engagement, commitment acts as a full mediator. The influence of personal characteristics (membership duration, gender) is also explored as an ancillary outcome to the study.     

Effect of social support on customer satisfaction and citizenship behavior in online brand communities: The moderating role of support source

Customers often join online brand communities to seek support from others when they encounter product problems. Some customers who receive good social support exhibit customer citizenship behavior. This study develops a theoretical model to investigate how social support influences customer citizenship behavior through customer satisfaction with firms in online brand communities. Moreover, the moderating role of support source (i.e., firms vs. other customers) is measured. The research model is tested by using the Partial Least Squares technique. The results show that informational and emotional support significantly affects the customer citizenship behavior of providing feedback to the firm, recommendations, and helping other customers through customer satisfaction in online brand communities. Moreover, informational and emotional support from firms and other customers exert different effects on customer satisfaction.     

Managing customer experiences in online product communities

Many companies have established online product communities or forums as a vehicle to extend product support services to their customers. Customers' interactions in such online forums with peer customers and vendor representatives resolve their product-related queries as well as inform on their product purchase decisions. Despite the significance of such interactions, there has been limited theoretical attention so far on how companies can manage customer experiences in online product communities. Drawing on theories and concepts from diverse areas including computer-mediated communication, consumer psychology, and online communities, this study proposes a four dimensional construct - Online Community Experience (OCE) - to capture customer experiences in such online product communities, and examines its impact on customer attitudes regarding the product, the company, and the quality of service. Data collected from customers in online product forums offered by four companies is used to test the study hypotheses. Implications for research on online consumer behavior and marketing are discussed.     

An ecological niche theory approach to the measurement of brand competition

Marketers have long advocated the use of ecological theory to study markets, but the abstract definitions of key constructs have hampered empirical applications. We take a first step in applying ecological theory to product markets by quantifying concepts such as niches, niche breadth, and niche overlap. We propose a new approach for measuring competitive intensity and identifying competitive submarkets. This measure defines competition between brands as the extent to which brands compete for the same customers. The approach is suitable for both durable and nondurable goods, for markets with many brands, and it can be used to assess competition between existing and hypothetical brands. We illustrate our approach using data on the magazine market and offer suggestions for future research.     

新网络广告效果标准：网站品牌价值系数

截至2008年11月底,网民数量达到2.9亿,网民规模跃居世界第一位。根据中国互联网络信息中心（CNNIC）发布的《第22次中国互联网络发展状况统计报告》数据显示,目前中国网站数量已达191.9万个,年增长率达到46.3%。继续保持快速增长的势头。中国网站的人均拥有水平为76个/万网民,与2007年12月相比,增长了4个。     

Environmental dialogue in online communities: negotiating ecological citizenship among global travellers

The aim of this paper is to investigate how web‐based online communities bring about new forms of environmental dialogue. We suggest that these online sites play an important role in setting the stage for new forms of cultural production, dissemination of environmental knowledge and environmental dialogue, through which particular forms of ecological citizenship and consumer culture are being created and sustained. Based on an empirical study of an online community of ‘global travelers’ carried out using netnographic methods, the study shows how environmental knowledge is being disseminated, negotiated and made sense of in the online environments of the global marketplace. Our findings illustrate, in particular, how online communities may work out an agenda for sustainable consumption practices and lifestyles, and create new forms of consumer citizenship. Regarding the environmental policy implications of our study, we argue that there is a need to facilitate the creation of online environments where consumers can participate in the construction of active consumer citizenship.     

Influence of community design on user behaviors in online communities

While the question of how community design influences user behavior in online communities has recently attracted considerable research, few studies have empirically evaluated the influencing factors of specific user behavior. Building on a conceptual framework of identity-based vs. bond-based attachment in online communities, this study evaluates the influence of several antecedents on user attachment as well as attachment's mediating role for explaining consumer behavior. Results of a survey reveal that network effects, intergroup comparison, and social categorization have a positive and significant effect on common identity attachment, whereas this is not the case with in-group interdependence. Conversely, collectivism, interpersonal similarity, and social interaction drive common bond attachment, while personal information has no effect. Most importantly, the results show that common identity attachment is the primary driver of user behavior in online communities.     

An integrated retailer image and brand equity framework: Re-examining,extending, and restructuring retailer brand equity

Retailers are amongst the world's strongest brands, but little is known about retailer brand equity. In spite of their extensive use, we argue that current operational models are too abstract for understanding the uniqueness of the retail industry and too simplistic to understand the interrelationships among the dimensions in the retailer brand equity building process. This study contributes to the existing and largely generic retailer equity frameworks in three ways: first, by incorporating retail specific dimensions from the retailer image literature; second, by re-examining and developing the structures and relationships between the dimensions of retailer equity by testing alternative structures commonly used in the more general brand equity literature; and finally by creating a short and parsimonious scale for assessing retailer brandequity in different contexts. Three alternative models are compared and tested on six brands in both convenience and shopping goods categories, ranging from discount to middle range price levels. The outcome is an operational framework supporting the main building blocks of the conceptual brand resonance model presented in Keller (2001) with seven dimensions structured in a four-step sequence as awareness → pricing policy, customer service, product quality, physical store → retailer trust → retailer loyalty, thereby describing retailer brand equity as a four-step process. The extended, although parsimonious, 17-item retailer equity scale can be used by academics as well as practitioners to examine the underlying values of retailer brands and has the potential to incorporate additional dimensions and attributes to investigate specific retail contexts without creating lengthy questionnaires.     

An investigation of brand placement effects on brand attitudes and purchase intentions: Brand placements versus TV commercials

Brand placements are gradually becoming an important part of promotional toolkit of many major companies. However, despite the increasing volume of research on brand placements during the last decade, several important questions still remain unanswered. The purpose of this research is to investigate the effectiveness of brand placements in television sitcoms and contrast it with the effectiveness of 30-second commercials. The authors administer a quasi-natural experiment to a sample of research panel participants to investigate how brand placements in television sitcoms affect their attitudes and purchase intentions. Results of the study suggest that people have a more positive attitude toward brand placements than toward traditional television commercials. Moreover, placements can be more effective than 30-seconds commercials when targeting audiences with low attitude toward advertising. Finally, a combination of a brand placement and a commercial within one program doesn't significantly increase brand attitudes and purchase intentions compared with sole exposure conditions.     

An investigation of B-to-B brand value: evidence from manufacturing SMEs in Taiwan

Purpose: The importance of brand value has been increasingly recognized in business-to-business (B-to-B) marketing settings. Leek and Christodoulides (2012) proposed a comprehensive B-to-B brand value framework based on qualitative examination, which has yet to be quantitatively examined. As such, the objectives of this study are twofold: first, to quantitatively investigate Leek and Christodoulides’ (2012) B-to-B brand value framework and reveal the relative importance of the various attributes/elements; second, to explore whether the attribute/element priority in Leek and Christodoulides’ (2012) value framework differs for various types of buyers with respect to supplier characteristics, environmental factors, and situational factors. The research context is small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Taiwan. For industrial marketers, a better understanding of attribute/element priority pertaining to brand value is helpful in terms of marketing efficiency and success probability.

Methodology/Approach: Based on data from 22 SME buyers in Taiwan, a cluster analysis was performed to classify SME buyers into different buyer groups based on supplier characteristics, environmental factors, and situational factors, while an analytic hierarchy process was used to indicate the preference structure under different buyer groups.

Findings: The results reveal that the functional value items outperformed emotional value ones; further, quality, technology, and after-sales service were the top three elements of brand value. However, the attribute/element priority varied across different buyer groups. In general, the importance of functional value items was greater than that of emotional value items for most SME types. Top attributes/elements that exceeded 10% importance weight were almost all function-related, aside from emotion-related credibility—the primary concern (20.3%) of forced SMEs that held pessimistic perceptions regarding the economic environment, and procured within a highly concentrated market structure.

Originality/Value: This research study contributes by indicating the relative importance of brand value attributes/elements in the SME context and examining whether the attribute/element priority varies for distinct types of buyers. Based on the results, a target marketing strategy is provided for B-to-B marketers to effectively design marketing offerings and create brand value for their business buyers.     

The role of sponsorship fit for changing brand affect: A latent growth modeling approach

Using a latent growth modeling (LGM) approach, this study examines the controversial role of perceived sponsor–event fit in inducing changes in brand affect. On the basis of two longitudinal studies related to the 2010 FIFA World Cup and the 2012 London Olympics, the authors determine that fit and brand affect increase linearly over time. Resolving an apparent conflict in the marketing literature, the results show that the initial level of fit relates positively to the initial level of brand affect, but relates negatively to the subsequent increase in brand affect. Moreover, a significant and positive association emerges between the change trajectories, such that a steeper increase in perceived fit results in a faster rate of brand affect improvement. Furthermore, the initial level of brand affect is associated with subsequent increases in neither brand affect nor fit. Therefore, incongruence resolution is key to ensuring that sponsorship improves brand affect. Finally, both attitude toward the sponsorship and event involvement have positive impacts on subsequent increases in both brand affect and perceived fit.     

Managing brand extension via licensing: An investigation into the high-end fashion industry

Brand managers are increasingly confronted with the option of licensing their brands when pursuing brand extensions. Such decisions are typically based on evaluation of the risks associated with such a contractual form, and with the nature of the asset at stake, i.e., the brand. Drawing on transaction cost economics and the brand extension literature, the authors investigate how managers balance the advantages of rapidly accessing new product categories through licensing with the risk of negative reciprocal effects and licensees' opportunistic behavior. Our results suggests that firms tend to be strategically conservative when examining how to extend their brands, as managers see the risk of negative effects on the parent brand as outweighing the advantages associated with licensing.     

An evaluation of consumer participation in hospital breast services

Community expectations and research demonstrate that consumers play an important role in shaping services for women with breast cancer. Consumer contribution has been mandated recently in Victoria, Australia, to ensure the inclusion of consumer involvement in the planning and decision‐making processes within health organizations. As part of the redevelopment of breast services in Victoria, Southern Health has been funded to plan local improvements to care co‐ordination for women diagnosed with breast cancer in the southern metropolitan area of Melbourne. The establishment of effective consumer participation in breast services is an integral aspect of this project and a range of initiatives has been undertaken to achieve meaningful consumer involvement including the appointment of a consumer advisor; appointment of staff with extensive knowledge in women's health and community development to the project; establishment of a consumer reference group; and plans made to improve the receptivity of health service systems to consumer input. A preliminary evaluation of this ongoing project has indicated that a productive role for consumers in service practice review and policy and planning activities has been established and some change and engagement of staff has occurred. There is still work to be done to promote the involvement of a wider range of health professionals and to increase the level of trust between consumers and staff.     

Political brand identity: An examination of the complexities of Conservative brand and internal market engagement during the 2010 UK General Election campaign

This paper seeks to build an understanding of the importance of internal communications when building a strong political brand. Using Kapferer's brand prism as a conceptual framework, the paper explores UK Conservative Party members' attitudes towards the development of the Conservative brand as personified by David Cameron. There are clear implications for political strategists as the findings suggest that it is crucial to engage the internal market in the co-creation of the marketing communications strategy for as brand evangelists they interpret the brand promise at the local level.     

电视媒体在品牌传播中的背书效应分析——以中央电视台为例

本文将研究视角聚焦于电视媒体的背书效应,以中央电视台为例,力图通过分析消费者品牌偏好与媒介偏好之间的关系,探讨新营销传播图景之下传统大众媒体在广告主品牌传播活动中的角色与价值,以期为广告主更好地控制品牌信息、提高传播效率提供借鉴。     

Personalized ads on Facebook: An effective marketing tool for online marketers

A growing number of researchers have examined the effects of personalized advertising in traditional media, however, little has been known about personalized advertising on Facebook. The primary objectives of this research are threefold: (1) Develop a comprehensive model that captures the effects of perceived personalized ads on Facebook on customer attitudinal and behavioral reactions (ad credibility, ad avoidance, ad skepticism, ad attitude, and behavioral intention) to the ad; (2) Test hypothesized relationships using two data sets collected through an online survey; and (3) Develop appropriate customer segments based on personal views of personalized ads on Facebook. The paper reveals that eleven out of thirteen hypotheses are supported and that three market segments are identified including Ad Lovers, Ad Accommodators, and Ad Haters. The paper concludes with conclusion and discussions highlighting managerial and research implications.     

Reduce product counterfeiting: An integrated approach

There is substantial interconnection between the reduction of product counterfeiting and quality management. This article seeks to demonstrate how integrating anti-counterfeiting initiatives into quality management strategies can reduce risk in the supply chain. We explore issues pertaining to product counterfeiting, the practical application and constraints of anti-counterfeiting initiatives within the supply chain, and the intersection of anti-counterfeiting initiatives with quality management programs. Gaps in current management strategies to address these issues are identified, and a potential remedy to address these deficiencies is proposed. Practical suggestions regarding the application of quality principles to offset counterfeiting should reduce risk in the supply chain.