Determinants of online brand communities’ and millennials’ characteristics: A social influence perspective

Wilson Ozuem,Michelle Willis,Raye Ng,Kerry Howell,Geoff Lancaster

doi:10.1002/mar.21470

Abstract

AbstractOnline communities have evolved to allow larger numbers of individuals to interact with other users to form a collective virtual environment influenced by members within the community. Existing studies on online brand communities (OBCs) tied millennials’ participation and interactions to a unidimensional view. Specifically, OBCs scholars generally aggregate individual millennials’ participation and commitment, ignoring the variance among the demographic cohort. Our exploration challenges not only the existing ensemble interpretation within studies of OBC but also the characterisation of millennials’ burgeoning participation in OBCs. Unlike other competing epistemologies, the authors developed a conceptual framework that links a holistic set of OBCs’ characteristics (brand sentiment, identification with source, affirmative experience, conspicuous effect) to consumers’ perceptions in the fashion sector. Drawing on social influence theory along with a constructivist perspective, we conducted fine‐grained in‐depth interviews to explore millennials’ participation in online communities and brand perceptions in the fashion industry. The main findings reveal four categories of customer engagement in OBCs (bias situators, sugar‐coaters, rationalisers, judgmentalists). These key categories are explored to create a framework for future research in this area, and further contribute to the field of online brand engagement, particularly in the fashion industry.

Highlights

With the advancement of the digital 21st century, the ontological concept of community acceptance and influence remains similar to what it was decades ago
Online brand communities (OBCs) have evolved to allow larger numbers of individuals to interact with other users to form a collective virtual environment that is influenced by the members within the community
The fashion industry is subject to consumer individualism, yet for every fashion brand, there is a following of consumers who promote their social identity through fashion

Summary

| INTRODUCTION

With the advancement of the digital 21st century, the ontological concept of community acceptance and influence remains similar to what it was decades ago. Ibrahim et al.'s (2017) research provided insights into the role that participation and engagement play in millennial consumers’ and companies’ perceptions of online brand strategies This is important, given that customers’ involvement and engagement vary depending on individuals’ insights and participation in OBCs due to several contextual factors Ibrahim et al.'s (2017) study remains a valuable tool for understanding patterns of engagement between companies and customers on social media platforms; it failed to capture the unavoidable complexity of customer‐level involvement and the millennials’ characteristics in the OBCs. OBCs scholars generally aggregate individual millennials’ participation and commitment, ignoring the variance among the demographic cohort (Helal et al, 2018). We discuss our study's conclusions, implications for theory and offer directions for future research

| LITERATURE REVIEW

| METHODOLOGY AND DATA COLLECTION

Key issues

| LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH