Consumer-brand Interactions Research Articles

Word-of-mouth generation and brand communication strategy

PurposeEmerged from a theoretical contradiction, the purpose of this paper is to investigate whether perceptions and behaviors toward new brands depend on the priority assigned to promote the company’s intentions (warmth) vs its abilities (competence).Design/methodology/approachThe research uses a two-level single factor experiment to test the effects of launch communication strategy (warmth-competence vs competence-warmth) on people’s perceptions and behavioral intents, and applies partial least squares structural equation modeling to explore the collected data.FindingsResults offer valuable insights into the usage of communication strategy with a view to favor brand perception, referrals, and sales, laying stress on the underlying mechanisms. Research finds that warmth-competence communication strategy has a higher positive influence on brand perception than the reversed strategy. Revealing people’s proneness to promote the new companies perceived as warm and competent, results indicate that perception of warmth mediates word-of-mouth propensity.Research limitations/implicationsThe present study brings novel insights for corporate communication, showing that people’s propensity to advocate on behalf of new brands is driven by the perception of company’s warmth. Explaining connections between communication strategy, brand perception, and WOM propensity (supportive or denigrating), the current study adds contributions to the previous findings on warmth and competence stereotypes applied to consumer-brand interactions.Practical implicationsFrom a managerial perspective, findings offer practical hints about how to use launch communication to improve brand perception and consumer supportive behaviors.Originality/valueThe present study brings novel insights for corporate communication, showing that people’s propensity to advocate on behalf of new brands is driven by the perception of company’s warmth. Explaining connections between communication strategy, brand perception, and word-of-mouth propensity, the current study adds contributions to the previous findings on warmth and competence stereotypes applied to consumer-brand interactions.

Social Media Brand Communities and Brand Loyalty

The dynamic, omnipresent, and frequent on-the-go consumer-brand interactions via social media platforms are significantly changing the branding landscape. A profound comprehension of this change is crucial in assessing brand loyalty. Considering the enormous fame of social media and inherent capabilities of brand communities, the purpose of this paper is to exhibit the contributory role of Social media brand communities (SMBC) towards brand loyalty. A Survey-based empirical study involving young consumers was conducted in the selected cities of Bangalore, Kolkata, and Pune. In contrast to prior works (Algesheimer et al., 2005; Laroche et al., 2012), the authors have incorporated Analytical Hierarchy Process (hereafter AHP) in the study to implement and validate new scales. The outcomes of AHP methodology found shared consciousness and social networking as the most-preferred component and activity respectively. These outcomes would assist brand managers in the optimized allocation of communication budget and formulation of competitive branding strategies to tackle intense competition.

“Don't pretend to be my friend!” When an informal brand communication style backfires on social media

Social media are now essential platforms for marketing communications, and the volume of consumer-brand interactions on these platforms is exploding. Even so, it remains unclear how brands should communicate with consumers to foster relationships and, in particular, to gain their trust. A fundamental decision in this regard is the choice of a communication style, specifically, whether an informal or a formal style should be used in social media communications. In this paper, we investigate how adopting an informal (vs. formal) communication style affects brand trust and demonstrate that using an informal style can either have a positive or negative effect on brand trust, depending on whether consumers are familiar with the brand or not. We further show that these effects occur because consumers expect brands to behave according to social norms, such that the use of an informal style is perceived to be appropriate for familiar brands and inappropriate for unfamiliar ones.

Brand jealousy and willingness to pay premium: The mediating role of materialism

In recent years, there has been an emerging literature with regard to brand jealousy and its impact on consumer–brand interactions. This research attempts to explain how brand jealousy influences the motivation of consumers to pay premium prices to specific brands as a means of self-expression theory and social exclusion theory which emphasize the role of social anxiety in explaining the individuals’ behaviors on their purchasing decision-making process. Therefore, the aim of the paper is to examine the mediating role of the materialism on the relationship between brand jealousy and willingness to pay premium. A questionnaire-based quantitative approach is applied to analyze the conceptual model that outlines the relationships between brand jealousy, materialism, and willingness to pay premium through structural equation modeling. The findings of this research reveal that brand jealousy and materialism both have a positive influence on willingness to pay premium. Also, this study provides empirical evidence for the full mediation impact of materialism on the relationship between brand jealousy and willingness to pay premium. The results also ensure applicable insights for marketing practitioners to motivate customers pay premium prices to specific brands by evoking jealousy-inducing strategies and materialistic values in their marketing communication programs.

Social Media and Value Creation: The Role of Interaction Satisfaction and Interaction Immersion

This research examines the effects of social media brand–consumer interactions on three types of customer value: customer lifetime value (CLV), customer influencer value (CIV) and customer knowledge value (CKV). By examining the differential effects of consumers' satisfaction and immersion with social-media brand interactions on CLV, CIV and CKV, the authors identify conditions under which interaction satisfaction and interaction immersion create value for brands. Results suggest that whereas interaction satisfaction positively influences both CLV and CIV, interaction immersion impacts both CIV and CKV. The authors identify social media strategies for brands related to interaction satisfaction and immersion that are based on the three types of customer value studied. The findings reported offer important managerial and theoretical implications with respect to the effects of discrete social media interactions on customer value creation.

Hashtags and handshakes: consumer motives and platform use in brand-consumer interactions

Purpose – The current increase in social media activity related to brand–consumer interactions is progressively influencing the manner in which brands and their customers communicate. Whereas this attention to social media is warranted, researchers and brand managers must also recognize that consumers connect and engage with brands across other communication platforms as well. Accordingly, this study aims to examine brand–consumer interactions taking place across social, online and physical platforms, as well as consumer motives for initiating these brand interactions across various platforms. Design/methodology/approach – A mixed-method approach integrating quantitative and qualitative data was used. We administered a written diary to 102 individuals over a two-month period, in which study participants recorded their motivations and platform use in their interactions with a brand. We evaluated latent-class mixture models for complex data and multi-level latent-class mixture models to identify classes of interactions based on participants’ motivations and platform use as well as customer segments based on the identified motives-by-platform classes. Findings – The findings reveal ten categories of motives for interacting with brands, including promotions and incentives, timely information, product information, engagement, browsing, purchase, customer service, branded content, entertainment, and personalization/exclusivity. Furthermore, six motives-by-platform interaction classes are identified. The findings suggest three consumer segments differentiated by their motives-by-platform profiles. Research limitations/implications – This study adds to past research investigating the motives behind brand–consumer interactions in social media by investigating both social media and non-social media-related interactions, and offering a typology of interaction profiles that considers interaction motives and platform preferences. Practical implications – This study illustrates that consumers are driven to interact with brands based upon the ten motive categories. These motives, in turn, are associated with different platform uses. Thus, it is important for brands to adopt ambidexterity across multiple communication platforms. Originality/value – This research adds to the understanding of brand–consumer interactions conducted on online and offline communication platforms.

Motivations to interact with brands on Facebook – Towards a typology of consumer–brand interactions

In recent years, Facebook and other social media have become key players in branding activities. However, empirical research on consumer–brand interactions on Facebook is still in its infancy. Therefore, the aim of this research is to provide additional insights to brand managers on how to adapt their approaches to increase consumers’ interactions with brands on Facebook. In this study, we apply the uses and gratification theory proposed by Katz to develop a new typology of consumers based on consumer motivations to interact with brands on Facebook, and explore the type and intensity of these interactions. We identify five main motivations that might influence consumers’ interactions with a brand on Facebook: (i) social influence, (ii) search for information, (iii) entertainment, (iv) trust and (v) reward. Building on these five motivations, a classification using clustering techniques reveals four different groups of consumers: (i) ‘brand detached’, (ii) ‘brand profiteers’, (iii) ‘brand companions’ and (iv) ‘brand reliants’. Our results provide valuable and applicable insights for social media marketing activities, which will assist brand managers to develop strategies for effectively reaching and influencing the most desirable groups of consumers.

Consumer brand enmeshment: Typography and complexity modeling of consumer brand engagement and brand loyalty enactments

The study here presents a revolutionary new perspective in the consumer brand engagement (CBE) literature. The models advance a radically enhanced CBE and customer loyalty theory, grounded in complexity and sense-making theories. It describes how the use of set theoretic models and asymmetric analytics using Boolean algebra, rather than normative matrix algebra and symmetric analytics provide the means for testing major principles of complexity theory in CBE and presents a thought experiment of complexity theory tenets that provides alternative logic of asymmetric testing of variables affecting positive or negative consumer behavior. Aided by various graphics and complex multi-dimensional property space models, thought experiments, evidenced by netnographic cases, consumer brand enmeshment (CBEM) theory offers a reality-based expansion of consumers' responses to brand inter-actions and delivers a set of complex recipes that is likely to lead to a variety of opposable consumer brand inter-actions and brand enmeshments that simultaneously differ in direction and intensity.

A mixed-method approach to examining brand-consumer interactions driven by social media

Purpose – Online social media are dramatically changing the ways in which firms and their consumers interact. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter among younger consumers (“digital natives”) in their interactions with brands. To investigate this, the authors conduct a mixed-method study including latent class analysis (LCA) to examine the role of social media among younger consumers (referred to as “digital natives”) in their interactions with brands. Design/methodology/approach – A mixed-method approach including both qualitative analysis and LCA was used to analyze daily interactions between consumers and specific brands across two primary social media platforms (Facebook and Twitter). Data were collected by means of a social media platforms (Facebook and Twitter). Data were collected by means of a social media diary collected over a one-week period. Findings – The findings from this study suggest that brand-consumer interactions driven by social media can be characterized by five primary motivations or themes: entertainment, brand engagement (specifically identification with or connection to the brand), timeliness of information and service responses, product information, and incentives and promotions. The authors also identify relationships among these themes related to respondents' age, gender, and social media use. Research limitations/implications – Although social media have become a widespread form of communication and interaction between brands and consumers, research regarding the nature of social media-driven brand-consumer interactions is only now developing. Drawing on the perspectives of consumer online engagement and uses and gratifications theory, the results from this study are important to guiding future brand-customer interaction research. These findings help extend previous research by identifying consumer motivations that underlie social media usage in brand engagement. Practical implications – These results highlight the role of social media in helping brands to be proactive in their consumer communications and interactions, in areas such as communicating product information, addressing customer service issues, engaging consumers with content relevant to the brand, providing timely information regarding promotions and new product launches, and fostering consumer-generated comments. Managers should also recognize that younger digital natives interact with brands via social media differently (e.g. for pure entertainment) than older individuals. Originality/value – This study provides new insights to the nature of brand-consumer interactions, engagement, and outcomes driven by social media.

Leveraging sponsorship to achieve consumer relationship objectives through the creation of ‘marketing spaces’: An exploratory study

This paper explores the emergence of sponsorship-linked events as a strategy to leverage relational outcomes through sponsorship investment. The growing use of sponsorship-linked events reinforces the need to understand the potential of such leverage strategies, thus the findings contribute to the body of literature on effective sponsorship practices. Findings from semi-structured interviews with Sponsorship and Marketing Managers suggest a shifting orientation among sponsors towards the pursuit of relational objectives. The privileged access to consumers afforded through sponsorship allows sponsors to manufacture opportunities to create intimacy with customers through sponsorship-linked events in relaxed, comfortable environments; thus sponsorship-linked events are positioned as a rich environment to add value to consumer–brand interactions and achieve relational objectives. Hosting specifically designed events affords sponsors an increased modicum of control over consumer–brand experiences in sponsorship environments characterised by a lack of control over sponsored property actions. However, this control may be eroded by social media technologies, which facilitate consumer–consumer communication around sponsorship-linked events. Social media, however, is proposed as a useful tool to elicit consumer feedback, addressing the misalignment between current sponsorship evaluation practices and emergent relational objectives revealed in the empirical findings. Therefore, successfully activating the sponsorship-linked marketing space demands an integrated and strategic approach.

Brands as intentional agents framework: How perceived intentions and ability can map brand perception

Building on the Stereotype Content Model, this paper introduces and tests the Brands as Intentional Agents Framework. A growing body of research suggests that consumers have relationships with brands that resemble relations between people. We propose that consumers perceive brands in the same way they perceive people. This approach allows us to explore how social perception theories and processes can predict brand purchase interest and loyalty. Brands as Intentional Agents Framework is based on a well-established social perception approach: the Stereotype Content Model. Two studies support the Brands as Intentional Agents Framework prediction that consumers assess a brand's perceived intentions and ability and that these perceptions elicit distinct emotions and drive differential brand behaviors. The research shows that human social interaction relationships translate to consumer–brand interactions in ways that are useful to inform brand positioning and brand communications.

Revisitando a identidade do relacionamento marca-consumidor: repensando as estruturas nessas relações comerciais

Na literatura de marketing de relacionamento, o construto identidade é vital para compreendermos a(s) maneira(s) pela(s) qual(is) as relações comerciais são iniciadas, desenvolvidas, mantidas e dissolvidas ao longo do tempo. Este artigo visa desvelar o significado da identidade do relacionamento marca-consumidor, com vistas a compreender que propriedades relacionais são consideradas relevantes pelos parceiros que pretenderem se engajar em uma relação dessa natureza. O estudo foi realizado por meio de abordagem qualitativa, inspirada no método fenomenológico, efetuando-se entrevistas em profundidade com gerentes de uma grande rede de fast-food. No plano analítico foi utilizada a redução fenomenológica visando à identificação da essência da identidade desse relacionamento e à interpretação de seus significados. Nas interações marca-consumidor, as propriedades relacionais identificadas com o construto identidade foram: identificação, valência e relevância, marca-signo, convergência de valores e reconhecimento. Em suma, ao proporcionar aos parceiros o emergir da confiança, do espaço social da "casa", da identificação, por exemplo, a identidade do relacionamento assegura a longevidade do mesmo.