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Introduction
Generation Z, also known as digital natives, iGeneration, screenagers, post-millennials, homeland generation and tweens are people who were born in 1995 or later (Bassiouni and Hackley, 2014; Fister-Gale, 2015; Budac and Baltador, 2014). They grew up in a hyper-connected world and have never lived without the internet (Williams and Page, 2011). As heavy users of technology (Van den Bergh and Behrer, 2016), they are highly educated and technically savvy (Priporas et al., 2017). For marketers, Generation Z seems to be a challenge, as they behave differently than earlier generations such as Generations Y and X. For example, the new generation has higher expectations from their favorite brands; yet, they are also less loyal to brands and care more about the experience (Williams and Page, 2011). For Generation Z, engaging online with their preferred brands is an important part of their lives (Bernstein, 2015), and thus, understanding their engagement activities becomes highly interesting.
Brand engagement is defined as “the extent to which consumers are willing to invest their own personal resources – time, energy and money – on the brand, beyond those resources expended during purchase or consumption of the brand” (Keller, 2013, p. 320). Brand engagement in self-concept (BESC) is a relatively new idea that has received little attention in the literature (Leckie et al., 2016). BESC – considered a specific aspect of brand engagement – is defined as “an individual difference measure representing consumers’ propensity to include important brands as a part of how they view themselves” (Sprott et al., 2009, p. 92). The notion of BESC is that consumers can become engaged with brands and make them part of their lives (Keller, 2001). In a broader sense, the concept of BESC is important because:
it explains how consumers use brands to express their identities (Sprott et al., 2009; Elliott, 2004);
it explains how consumers develop relationships with those brands (Fournier, 1998); and
it explains how consumers think about those brands as an extension of self and use the symbolic design of the brands to construct their self-identities (Belk, 1988).
Specifically, creating BESC is highly desired by marketers as it leads to loyalty and positive word-of-mouth (Hollebeek, 2011a; Bowden, 2009). In other words, marketers understand that engaged consumers are...