The Role of Social-Interactive Engagement and Social Identity in the Development of Brand Love Through Facebook Fan Page

Abstract

Social technologies allow brands to build digital platforms that stimulate consumer engagement by enabling customers to connect with one another, to freely discuss a brand, to conduct product and price comparisons, to personalise product features and ultimately to make purchases (Pagani and Mirabello 2012). Moreover, online network-based communities (Dholakia et al. 2004) – such as social networks and micro-blogs – not only enable users to express their identity and satisfy social needs through the sharing of brand-related experiences (Christodoulides 2009, p. 143) but also allow them to satisfy self-definitional needs by developing their social identity (Tajfel 1978). Within such interactive, personalised and participatory communication environments, increasing attention is being given by marketing scholars and practitioners to different types of online experiential engagement (Calder and Malthouse 2004; Calder et al. 2009) and to self-definitional issues (Sicilia et al. 2013). However, there is a lack of theoretical and empirical research efforts to develop an integrative perspective between experiential engagement and social identity theory (Brodie et al. 2013). In addition, empirical research on online network-based communities, specifically Facebook brand fan pages, and its role in the consumer-brand affective relationship building process is in its early stages (Gummerus et al. 2012). In particular, an emerging issue in this field is related to the consequences of these virtual networks in terms of brand love. Brand love is the more recent construct in the branding literature and is defined as “the degree of passionate emotional attachment a satisfied consumer has for a particular trade name” (Carroll and Ahuvia 2006, p. 81). To address all of the above concerns, the aim of this study is to propose a social identity approach to consumer-brand affective relationships in online network-based communities by integrating social identity theory, experiential engagement and brand love literature. Specifically, this study develops a conceptual model in which social-interactive engagement influences social identity directly and brand love indirectly through the mediating effect of social identity. The model was empirically validated by conducting a survey on the Facebook fan pages of 21 leading international brands. A total of 387 responses were collected from consumers living primarily in Europe and the US. Structural equation modelling was performed to assess the significance of the hypothesised linkages. The results obtained confirm the positive effects of social-interactive engagement and social identity on consumer-brand affective relationships in terms of brand love and the full mediating effect of social identity on social-interactive engagement and brand love. In response to the need for an integration of the social identity theoretical perspective with studies of consumer engagement (Brodie et al. 2013), this study is the first attempt to combine both consumer experiential social interactive engagement with social identity to partially explain brand affection in specific online social environments. Implications for consumers and marketers are finally addressed.