Engagement of brand advocates in online environment - Generating online brand advocacy in digital content marketing
Nousiainen, Taru (2015)
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Co-creation of value together with customers cannot be underestimated in highly competitive and digital environment of nowadays. It is stated that understanding of value especially in online environment is hard for customers and therefore shifting brands is easy. To overcome this challenge, engaging customers who enthusiastically advocate company‘s brand becomes vital. Nevertheless it is stated that brand advocacy has likelihood of bringing new customers and profitable growth to companies. However little is known about how online brand advocacy could be used in digital content marketing.
The aim of this study is to create deeper understanding of the characteristics and role of online brand advocacy, and explore how to generate and utilize engagement of online brand advocates in digital content marketing in the case of wellness company. Theoretical framework of this study presents the most important drivers affecting on online brand advocacy and how advocacy can be further generated into digital content marketing. The empirical part of the study was conducted as qualitative research by fourteen theme interviews. Based on these interviews theoretical framework was revised and research question and sub- objectives were answered.
As a result of this research the characteristics of online brand advocacy and digital content marketing was identified. The results show that customer engagement has four main drivers and it generates online brand advocacy together with loyalty and customer-brand relationship quality. However all these concepts need to be on high level in order to leverage online brand advocacy. Besides these drivers, also trust and brand identification were identified as significant drivers of online brand advocacy. To use online brand advocacy phenomenon in digital content marketing, the elements of value and experiences, brand communication, awareness and social aspect of the brand were identified to have most positive overall impact.
The aim of this study is to create deeper understanding of the characteristics and role of online brand advocacy, and explore how to generate and utilize engagement of online brand advocates in digital content marketing in the case of wellness company. Theoretical framework of this study presents the most important drivers affecting on online brand advocacy and how advocacy can be further generated into digital content marketing. The empirical part of the study was conducted as qualitative research by fourteen theme interviews. Based on these interviews theoretical framework was revised and research question and sub- objectives were answered.
As a result of this research the characteristics of online brand advocacy and digital content marketing was identified. The results show that customer engagement has four main drivers and it generates online brand advocacy together with loyalty and customer-brand relationship quality. However all these concepts need to be on high level in order to leverage online brand advocacy. Besides these drivers, also trust and brand identification were identified as significant drivers of online brand advocacy. To use online brand advocacy phenomenon in digital content marketing, the elements of value and experiences, brand communication, awareness and social aspect of the brand were identified to have most positive overall impact.