1. Introduction
2.4 Interrelating the concepts
2.2.1 Customer engagement and luxury (fashion) brands
Pentina et al. (2018) introduce a categorization of social media engagement behaviors in the luxury domain by identifying such behaviors of luxury customers as well as the corresponding motivations.
The latter refer to incentives that drive CEBs with LBs as well as with other social media users, who also engage with LBs. Applying an inductive, exploratory approach, the study reveals eleven discrete behaviors exhibited by luxury brand followers (see figure 4).
Figure 4: Luxury consumer social media (here SM) engagement behaviors (here EBs) (adapted from Pentina et al., 2018, p.7)
The CEBs are discovered based on (1) effort, commitment, interactivity, and creativity employed by customers and (2) brand and brand’s advertising or other consumers and social contacts. Moreover, the authors find that underlying motivations of various CEBs represent various degrees of complex-ity. While less effortful behaviors such as clicking and posting impersonal comments are driven by needs for information, socialization, status, entertainment and relationship maintenance, socially tar-geted behaviors such as mentioning friends in comments are initiated by rather complex combinations of the prior mentioned needs. Similarly, CEBs involving greater effort such as posting photos and selfies also evoke combined motivations and are mainly driven by status and impression management (Pentina et al., 2018).
BRAND OTHER SM USERS
LOW HIGH
ENGAGEMENT AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT
EFFORT AND CREATIVITY
EB1:“Following” the brand and
“liking” the brand’s SM page EB2:Commenting on brand’s posts
EB5:Using brand name’s hashtags and fashion-related hashtags in pictures and communications in SM EB10:Publishing multimedia shopping stories involving experiences with brand
EB11:Proposing new use, image, or interpretation for brand’s products EB9:Initiating and maintaining Conversations about brand in Personal social networks EB8:Soliciting comments to Personal photos with brand
EB7:Publishing photos of self with brand’s products EB6:Publishing photos of Brand’s products
EB4:Mentioning and tagging friends in comments on brand’s SM wall
EB3:“Liking”, tagging and sharing brand’s posts with SM friends
Liu et al. (2019) comment that Pentina et al. (2018) conceptualize CE as a multi-dimensional con-struct composed of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral aspects but only measure behavioral engage-ment and thereby neglect the cognitive and emotional facets of CE in social media. Moreover, they criticize that most of the studies, which focus on the behavioral aspect of CE, merely measure con-sumers’ intentions instead of their actual behaviors. The authors further point out that such studies investigate only a few LBs, which makes it difficult to generalize the findings to a wider set of LBs.
Consequently, Liu et al.'s (2019) research utilizes big data to gain insights on actual CEBs resulting from a LB’s social media marketing activities. Their study draws upon Kim and Ko's (2012) dimen-sions of LBs’ social media marketing efforts, while CE is measured as a reflection of Schivinski et al.'s (2016) three types of CEB with brand related social media content (see chapter 2.2.2). Liu et al.'s (2019) results show that the foci of the social media marketing activities entertainment, interaction, and trendiness have significantly positive effects on CE. Customization, in contrast, does not signif-icantly affect CE. However, throughout the study, the authors take a firm perspective and solely in-clude Twitter as social media platform.
One of the most recent studies in the field of CE and social media is carried out by Bazi et al. (2020), who investigate what motivates consumers to engage with LBs. Thereby, the authors develop a the-oretical framework, including cognitive, emotional and behavioral dimensions of engagement based on Hollebeek et al. (2014). In total, 13 motivations are revealed, which are further grouped into six dimensions, namely perceived content relevancy, brand-customer relationship, aesthetic motives, so-cio-psychological motives, brand equity, and technology factors (Bazi et al., 2020). The authors briefly refer to the SC by including the dimension of socio-psychological motives, which contains the factors actual self-congruency, status signaling and enhance and maintain face.
3 Research gap and research question
Throughout the literature, it becomes apparent that there is a relation between the luxury industry and the customer’s self, with luxury fashion products being used to express something or to improve one’s feeling. However, in the context of the luxury (fashion) industry, the SC is only superficially touched upon and only fractions of the SC are considered. Thereby, terms such as self-expression, self-esteem, self-gift giving, self-confidence, self-presentation and/ or self-fulfillment are used (e.g. Amatulli &
Guido, 2011; Cass, 2001; Cox & Dittmar, 1995; Giovannini et al., 2015; Mckinney et al., 2004;
Souiden et al., 2011). These are usually directly related to possessions and purchasing behavior, not including what is beyond or may precede the purchase.
Further, literature indicates that if products are used to communicate parts of the customer’s SC, it can create involvement and affection as a consequence (Mittal, 2006). Also, involvement serves as an often-mentioned essential component within the CE framework (e.g. Brodie et al., 2011; Hollebeek, 2011b; Vivek et al., 2012). Moreover, existing research strongly supports the role of the SC as a partial determinant of customer behavior, as it shows a decisive influence on the customer’s decision making, product- and brand selection (e.g. Grubb & Grathwohl, 1967; Sirgy, 1982; Solomon et al., 2006; Solomon & Assael, 1987). Adding on this and taking into account that CE is considered as a part of customer behavior, it can be anticipated that the SC also plays an important role in the context of CE. This becomes evident in literature addressing the drivers and consequences of CE, and thereby interrelating both concepts. In this regard, the SC is regarded as both a driver and/ or a consequence of CE (e.g. Hollebeek et al., 2014; J. Kumar & Nayak, 2019; Sirgy et al., 1991; Sprott et al., 2009).
Again, instead of using the term SC, related concepts such as self-brand associations, brand self-congruity, or value-self-congruity, referring to customers’ self-schema are used (e.g. France et al., 2016;
Johar & Sirgy, 1991; J. Kumar & Nayak, 2019; Sirgy et al., 1991; Sprott et al., 2009; Tuškej et al., 2013). Research regarding consumption behavior and the customer’s SC is more extensive, address-ing symbolic consumption and possessions beaddress-ing able to determine and enhance the SC as well as social identity (e.g. Cardoso et al., 2010; Giovannini et al., 2015; Prentice et al., 2019; Solomon et al., 2006). However, purchasing represents only a fraction of the broad concept of CE, leaving aside many other potential engagement types.
Only a few authors address CE in the luxury context to date (e.g. Bazi et al., 2020; Liu et al., 2019;
Pentina et al., 2018; Prentice & Loureiro, 2018). Throughout the existing literature in the field of CE and CEB in the luxury (fashion) industry, it becomes apparent that research is primarily related to the
social media sector. This can be explained with the relatively recent emergence of social media, due to which customers perform various company-related behaviors that did not exist before (Cabigiosu, 2020; Skiera et al., 2010). Yet other types of engagement, which are still relevant despite the increased use of social media, were not considered and research falls short of describing and classifying actual actions undertaken by customers (Pentina et al., 2018). Furthermore, the multi-dimensional nature of CE and a holistic examination of the concept in the respective industry is neglected. Particularly, solely selected CEBs are examined in more details, whereby CE in form of a specific mind-set is rather overlooked. In relation to research concerning CE with L(F)Bs, the SC has only been superfi-cially addressed by referring to subjective well-being, self-expression and the satisfaction of the con-sumer's ideal desired state as possible consequences (Prentice & Loureiro, 2018) and to actual self-congruency, status signaling and enhance and maintain face as socio-psychological motives of CE with LBs (Bazi et al. 2020).
Drawing on the reviewed literature, it becomes apparent that customer engagement and the cus-tomer’s self-concept are interconnected concepts in relation to luxury fashion brands, whereby an intersection of the three research streams has not yet been thoroughly investigated. Conclusively, a research gap can be indicated which is illustrated in the following (see figure 5).
LUXURY FASHION BRANDS
RESEARCH GAP
Kapferer (1998; 2008) Vigneron & Johnson (1999) Turunen (2015) De Barnier et al. (2012) Dubois et al. (2001) Fionda & Moore (2009)
Giovannini et al. (2015) Wong & Ahuvia (1998) Amatulli & Guido (2011) Nia & Zaichkowsky (2000) Pentina et al. (2018)
Prentice & Loureiro (2018) Liu et al. (2019)
Despite the abundance of research of SC and customer behavior, literature addressing the fields of CE and SC in the context of LFBs are limited and mainly focus on purchase behavior and the motives of buying such brands. Furthermore, there is a lack in research investigating on how customer behav-ior, specifically CE, is able to influence the dimensions of the SC and how engagement or the pos-session of LFBs might impact the SC. On top of that, studies incorporating multiple dimensions of the self and investigating how they might be influenced by engaging with LFBs, are not existent.
Consequently, this area is still unexamined in academia, especially with regard to the generation of Millennials.
This leads to the following study, whose purpose is to expand on previous research by examining the influence of CE on the customer’s SC with LFBs and by identifying engagement types within the respective industry. Combining these three topics, the study aims to close the identified research gap by uncovering the different types of CE in the luxury fashion industry and the influence of CE with LFBs on the SC, which is not previously addressed in the literature. Therefore, the following research question will be investigated on:
What are the different types of customer engagement with luxury fashion brands, and how does such customer engagement influence the customer’s self-concept?
It is relevant to address this gap as the competition in the luxury fashion industry is becoming in-creasingly fierce, given that there is a growing number of product alternatives as well as marketing and sales channels, strongly influenced by the emergence of social media and online commerce (Abtan et al., 2016; Cabigiosu, 2020; Prentice & Loureiro, 2018). Companies are forced to find op-portunities to retain their customers (Banyte & Dovaliene, 2014), whereby customer loyalty plays a crucial role in securing a competitive advantage and maintaining business profitability (Kim & Ko, 2010; Loureiro & Araújo, 2014; Reichheld & Schefter, 2000). However, customer commitment and loyalty are decreasing as luxury customers do not stick to one specific brand and do not solely rely on trusted LB names anymore, which highlights the challenges such brands are facing (Shukla et al., 2016). Especially Millennial customers show such rather disloyal behaviors (Deloitte, 2017). In a complex and continuously evolving business environment, such as in the luxury fashion industry, engagement measures by various means provide an effective approach to address this issue: They have the potential to promote sales, improve product quality, increase customer satisfaction, decrease
costs and risks as well as rise the competitive advantage (Brodie et al., 2013; Di Gangi & Wasko, 2009; Kumar & Pansari, 2016). Moreover, CE as a new perspective for customer relationship man-agement is able to generate outcomes such as customer retention, customer value and new product advantages, which inter alia determine corporate value (Verhoef et al., 2010). According to several reports, engaged customers “represent an average 23% premium in terms of share of wallet, profita-bility, revenue, and relationship growth over the average customer” (Gallup, 2014). At the same time, disengaged customers account for a 13% discount in the same categories. In the field of LFBs the topic CE becomes particularly relevant, as it is a tool for brands to connect more deeply with its customers and to build loyalty without compromising their status (Biggs, 2020). Especially the con-sumption behaviors of Millennials, who value experiences rather than materialism, influence the whole industry and thus transform CE into a promising field for LFBs (Deloitte, 2017; Lu et al., 2013). Moreover, Millennials in particular expect multiple channels through which they can engage with brands, making a classification of engagement types in the luxury industry increasingly relevant for marketers (Abtan et al., 2016).
Whilst most researchers and practitioners are focused on conceptualizing and operationalizing the CE model in general, very few studies have attempted to apply a customer-based approach to fully un-derstand the impacts that engagement activities with LFBs can have. This study aims to shed light on the void in research by addressing CE with LFBs and its impact on the customer’s SC as a four-dimensional concept, whereby CE is holistically considered. This will create a basis for academia to develop first hypotheses for further research and can give practitioners first insights on what engage-ment types exist and on how CE influences their customers with regard to their SCs. This in turn, serves to properly approach the Millennial customer.
4 Methodology
After giving a thoroughly overview of the relevant literature and defining the research gap as well as the according research question, the following chapter comprehensively deals with the selected meth-odological approach and its implementation within the master thesis at hand.
In this context, the so-called research onion (see figure 6) according to Saunders et al. (2016) is followed: First, an understanding of the adopted philosophy of science and approach to theory devel-opment is given. Furthermore, a detailed overview of the applied methodological choice, strategies, time horizons as well as techniques and procedures in the context of the data collection and -analysis are provided.
Figure 6: The research onion (adapted from Saunders et al., 2016, p. 124)
Cross-sectional Data collection
& data analysis
Narrative inquiry Longitudinal
Positivism
Critical realism
Interpre-tivism
Post-modernism
Pragmatism
Deduction
Abduction
Induction Mono method
quantitative
Mixed method complex
Mono method qualitative
Multi-method quantitative
Multi-method qualiitative
Mixed method simple Experiment
Survey
Archival research Case study Ethnography Action research Grounded Theory
PHILOSOPHY
APPROACH TO THEORY DEVELOPMENT
METHODOLOGICAL CHOICE
STRATEGY(IES) TIME HORIZON
TECHNIQUES &
PROCEDURES