Establishing measures and drivers of consumer brand engagement behaviours

Abstract

Discussion of consumer brand engagement within the broader brand management literature adopts largely a psychological view for conceiving the nature of the construct. As a result, little focus has been devoted to consumer brand engagement behaviours – an aspect that has high managerial relevance. Of particular relevance are the challenges of establishing appropriate measures and better understanding the drivers of brand engagement behaviours. With the aim of addressing these challenges, this paper presents a theoretically-grounded and empirically-validated measure of consumer engagement behaviours based on the Actual Brand Engagement framework proposed by brand experts. This paper first establishes the framework’s suitability given the literature on engagement behaviours. The framework is conceptualised through demonstrating the importance of consumer brand knowledge, category involvement and corporate-level associations in driving engagement behaviours, thereby accommodating the role of brand-, category- and corporate-level factors. Using data collected from Australian consumers, the framework is empirically established by demonstrating: (1) the validity of the Actual Brand Engagement framework for measuring engagement behaviours and (2) the predictive validity in explaining a consumer’s willingness to pay a price premium. Cumulatively, this study addresses both the academic and managerial need for guidance as to how to best measure and influence brand engagement behaviours.