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Introduction
Millennials are a unique group who are young, affluent, educated, tech-savvy and manifest positive social behavior (Howe and Strauss, 2009). They are confident and more fashion oriented. Millennials search and learn about the new fashion trends and related information through magazines and online media (Geraci and Judit, 2004). They are the major group participating in online shopping, hence marketers finding innovative digital media activities to engage them (Smith, 2011). And customer-brand engagement has become an effective tool for increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty (Bowden, 2009; Brodie et al., 2011, 2013; Hollebeek, 2011a). The findings in the academic literature and business practice about customer engagement by brands as a successful marketing strategy, created greater importance for the discussion and exploration of the engagement concept. The discussion and exploration of the concept are of immense importance.
Since engagement can happen with different subjects (customers, students, etc.) with different objects (brands, firm, etc.), the construct has varied definitions in the literature (Hollebeek, 2011b; Vivek et al., 2012). The construct in the marketing literature has been defined as both uni-dimensional and multi-dimensional. Multi-dimensional constructs constitute of cognitive, emotional and behavioral aspects of the subjects. A more widely accepted uni-dimensional construct called brand engagement in self-concept (BESC) was developed by David et al. (2009). It highlights the concept of customers relating the brand to self, and tend to include favorite brands as an element of their self-concept. This engagement concept is based on the underlying theory of self-schema, where people exhibit varied behavior toward an object due to differential self-schemas inherited.
This form of engagement with self-concept is appropriate in studying how customers vary in their attitudes and behavioral activities when they relate themselves to their favorite brands. Since fashion keeps changing and fashion enthusiasts tend to highly involved with their favorite fashion brands to update themselves, it would be interesting to see the role of involvement and knowledge of customers in their beyond purchase activities like word-of-mouth (WOM). The present paper attempts to study the role of BESC, involvement and knowledge of millennials with respect to fashion brands they prefer.
The objective of the paper is twofold, first to study the role of BESC in the relationship between brand love and brand advocacy among millennials. Second,...