Examining drivers of brand community engagement: The moderation of product, brand and consumer characteristics

Abstract

Numerous firms operate online brand communities (OBCs) in order to build a close consumer-brand relationship. To succeed in realizing this aim, firms must first sustain members' brand community engagement. While prior studies have examined a series of drivers of brand community engagement, most of them focused on psychological and social motivations. Limited information is available about the role of product, brand and consumer characteristics in driving brand community engagement. Building on the uses and gratifications (UG) theory, the authors investigate the moderation of product complexity, brand symbolism, and extraversion in the relationship between brand community gratification and brand community engagement. With the collaboration of an online shopping site, 462 validated survey responses were collected to test our hypotheses. The results indicate that product complexity positively moderates the impact of information value on brand community engagement and brand symbolism positively moderates the effect of social value on brand community engagement. Finally, the results show that extraversion positively interacts with social value in enhancing brand community engagement. This study advances the understanding of brand community engagement.