Profiling Customer Engagement with "Snuggie" Experience in Social Media

Abstract

In order to understand meaningful customer experience in social media, this study profiles customer engagement by exposing the essential brand experience rooms in hyper-reality contexts. This study selects Snuggie as a target brand as it uses multiple contact points, including social media, to provide meaningful experience to customers. With their unique marketing strategy, Snuggie became a popular brand among the U. S. customers beyond just a wearable blanket. Upon analyzing a total of 364 customer reviews about Snuggie in Amazon.com, five experience rooms were exposed; "Physical artifacts" and "customer involvement" are influential experience rooms which signify interactions between products and customers, while "intangible artifacts", "technology" and "customer placement" reflect a lower degree of experiential engagement. This approach suggests a theoretical foundation in understanding the customer engagement concepts by the means of brand experience dimensions in social media. The ability to create compelling engagement in social media depends on the successful facilitation of relationships and information, which lead to a creative, communicative and interactive experience.