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Untangling the Complexity of Customer Negative Brand Engagement in the Digital Era = 解構數碼時代中消費者對品牌的負面聯繫
Principal Investigator
Department
Grant Awarding Body
Research Grants Council
Grant Type
Faculty Development Scheme
Project Code
UGC/FDS15/B04/20
Amount Awarded
HK$610,750
Funding Year
2020-2021
Duration of the Project
30 months
Status
Ongoing
Abstract
Customer engagement refers to the connection between a user and a business, and can be derived from the consumer’s experiences with the products, services, and activities of the business (Hollebeek 2011). Customer engagement has emerged as a prominent construct that is capable of affecting customer relationships with brands, surpassing satisfaction and loyalty, and thus providing a real competitive advantage (Kumar et al., 2010). Previous research studies have predominantly focused on positive engagement (positive emotional connections) (Baldus et al., 2015; Hollebeek et al., 2014; Vivek et al., 2012) and have neglected the ‘negative’ side. Thus, the first part of the present study enhances the previous research by examining the key dimensions of negative brand engagement and developing and validating a scale to measure negative brand engagement. In today’s digitalized society, customers are interconnected with each other both physically and virtually. Their satisfaction and relationship with brands are derived from their brand experience and the experience generated through interactions with other customers. Customers have different touch points such as brand offerings (Hollebeek et al., 2014), brand events (Vivek et al., 2012), and brand-related social media platforms (Dolan et al., 2016). Thus, this study explores how a consumer’s personal experiences, expectations, and social contexts relate to negative brand engagement.