Brand building through consumer-brand engagement and co-creation in Brazil: the role of social media marketing

Resumo

Consumer-brand engagement (CBE) and co-creation is a rapidly growing trend in the current competitive market. Extant literature emphasizes benefits of CBE and co-creation, with limited empirical research focusing on the role of social media marketing (SMM) in the process of creating CBE and co-creation. Drawing from marketing literature, this study proposes a holistic framework to examine the influence of SMM elements, including entertainment, customization, interaction, electronic word of mouth (EWOM) and trendiness on CBE, along with co-creation and repurchase intention as behavioural outcomes. A self-administered, online survey was used to collect the data from 187 experienced Brazilian users of social media as indicated by their consumption of a durable technology product, a smart-phone. Partial least squares – structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) is used to test the influence of social-media-marketing elements on CBE, co-creation and repurchase intention. The findings indicate that trendiness and EWOM are the key elements directly influencing CBE. The results also indicate that CBE is influential in strengthening consumers’ intention to co-create brand value and repurchase. These findings have significant theoretical and managerial implications for academics and marketers.