A Consumer-based Taxonomy of Digital Customer Engagement Practices

Abstract

Consumers can engage with brands online in a variety of ways, ranging from playing a branded game to writing a review or viewing branded content. This work presents a consumer-based taxonomy of these digital engagement practices. By means of a literature review and expert surveys, we created an overview of the ways in which consumers digitally engage with brands across different media formats and platforms. A consumer sample then classified all practices into five distinct types of digital engagement practices (for fun practices, learning practices, customer feedback, work for a brand, talk about a brand). A subsequent survey on another consumer sample showed that the five types of practices are differently related to the three motivational states of customer brand engagement (cognitive, emotional and behavioral). The taxonomy of digital engagement practices integrates prior research. We provide implications for managing digital customer engagement.