Leveraging marketer-generated appeals in online brand communities: An individual user-level analysis
Abstract
Purpose
The proliferation of online brand communities has shifted control over brands from firms to consumers. Demonstrating how marketers can stimulate consumers to use these opportunities and engage with the brand in such communities, the purpose of this paper is to address the effectiveness of normative and utilitarian appeals commonly employed in practice for enhancing engagement intensity and brand equity in turn.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper presents two studies at an individual user level. The first study builds on matched data on marketing actions, user behavior, and user perceptions from a Facebook brand community. The second study uses an experiment with members of a firm-hosted online brand community. The authors employ seemingly unrelated regressions while controlling for self-selection.
Findings
Marketer-generated appeals have a positive effect on brand equity that is mediated by engagement intensity. However, the strength of these effects depends highly on community, user, and relationship characteristics.
Practical implications
Generally speaking, marketer-generated appeals are effective tools for marketers to build brand equity through enhanced user engagement. However, their effectiveness can be improved when managers use a targeted approach. To offer precise managerial guidance, this paper shows how entertainment value, content consumption asymmetry (e.g. whether a user prefers user-generated content over marketer-generated content), and membership duration increase or lower the impact of appeals in building the brand through engagement intensity.
Originality/value
The authors provide evidence that appeals designed to drive user engagement in online brand communities are effective tools for boosting brand equity.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the firms that supported the studies and Ronja Lamers, Danny Rodenstock, and Marina Tlausin for their helpful research assistance. The authors are also thankful to Editor Jay Kandampully, Associate Editor Werner Kunz, the review team, Linda Hollebeek, and the numerous participants of both the 2015 HEC Thought Leaders in Customer Engagement and Customer Relationship Management Conference and the 2016 Winter Marketing Educators’ Conference for their valuable comments and suggestions for improvement.
Citation
Weiger, W.H., Wetzel, H.A. and Hammerschmidt, M. (2017), "Leveraging marketer-generated appeals in online brand communities: An individual user-level analysis", Journal of Service Management, Vol. 28 No. 1, pp. 133-156. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOSM-11-2015-0378
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2017, Emerald Publishing Limited