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The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the source of brand-related user-generated content (UGC) (a close friend vs a celebrity) interacts with content sponsorship (organic UGC vs sponsored UGC) to influence consumer causal attributions, brand attitude, and intention to comply with the recommendation.

In all, 285 college students participated in a two (source: a close friend vs a celebrity) by two (content sponsorship: organic vs sponsored) between-subjects online experimental design.

Results showed that recommendation from a close friend generated more information-sharing attributions and less monetary-gain attributions than did recommendation from a celebrity when the brand-related UGC was organic. In contrast, source type did not influence causal attributions differently when the UGC was sponsored. Further, this study demonstrated that both information-sharing and monetary-gain attributions mediated the effects of source type and content sponsorship on brand attitude and intention to comply with the recommendation.

This study is one of the first to examine the effectiveness of celebrities as a source of brand-related UGC. Also, this research extends the existing knowledge about source effects by examining the relative effectiveness of two sources of product information, close friends and celebrities, who have both been found to be individually effective in the traditional marketing context. Additionally, the findings of this study that the relative effectiveness of source type depends on whether brand-related UGC is sponsored or not add a further insight into how source type influences the effectiveness of brand-related UGC.

This study aims to investigate whether users’ engagement with a social media platform is affected as they engage in non-sponsored brand-related user-generated content (UGC). The concept of non-sponsored brand-related UGC encapsulates various social media patterns in which individuals choose how to consume, contribute or create brand-related content with no formal brand incentive or control.

The study focuses on the question of how users engage with non-sponsored brand-related UGC on Instagram and assesses the influence of UGC perceived value, using partial least squares variance-based structural equation modeling.

The research shows significant and positive effects of UGC on Instagram users’ intentions to engage with the platform and the influence of UGC perceived value on UGC uses. The findings deepen the understanding of the mechanisms underlying non-sponsored brand-related UGC in consumer engagement marketing, with significant implications for brand managers and the future development of Instagram and other social media platforms.

The UGC functional, social and emotional values are evaluated for their effects on generating the three distinct patterns of consumer online brand-related activities (consumer, contribute and create) in the non-sponsored brand-related UGC context.

Situated between the literature on internal branding and user-generated content, this study aims to demonstrate the effect of employee-generated content (EGC) on consumers’ purchase intentions and positive word of mouth (WOM).

The conceptual model was empirically tested using structural equation modeling based on a sample of 442 participants.

The findings support a sequential mediation model in which employee-created social media content impacts perceptions of brand citizenship behavior (BCB) and perceptions of expertise, which in turn increases purchase intention and WOM.

Based on the findings, this research suggests that employee ambassador programs can work to attract employees with an interest in brand-related social media content creation. Facilitating EGC through support, empowerment and reinforcement rather than traditional control mechanisms is recommended.

This research introduces the concept of EGC and employee content creators while extending the literature on perceived BCB by empirically demonstrating its relationship with perceived expertise and positive consumer behavior outcomes.

User-generated content (UGC) and service failure have attracted considerable marketing inquiry over the last two decades. Previous studies primarily focused on the outcome of service failure and the impact of UGC on perceived failure severity. This article departs from previous studies as it examines the moderating role of UGC on the relationship between service failure recovery (SFR) and customer–brand relationship.

Building on commitment-trust theory and from a phenomenological hermeneutical perspective, this article explores this phenomenon through the interpretation of 60 in-depth interviews with millennials from three European countries: Italy, France and the UK. An analysis of the data was conducted using a qualitative approach to understand the main constructs and relationships derived from the data.

This study conceptualises four distinct moderating characteristics of UGC in the SFR process: satisfaction with experience and brand, dissatisfaction with experience and brand, satisfaction with brand and dissatisfaction with brand. The insights from the responsiveness, empathetic response, counterfactual thinking and brand salience (RECB) framework contribute to research on UGC and shed light on the relationship between SFR and consumer–brand relationships in the fashion industry.

Overall, this study demonstrates that customer interactions with UGC significantly affect their responses to, and relationships with, a brand. The proposed framework opens up interesting avenues for future research on the moderating role of UGC on the relationship between SFR and customer–brand relationships.

The study aims to look at the types of social media participants through user-generated content (UGC) and how this leads to brand engagement in a fashion retail context. In doing so, it explores the effects of social context of brand-related content on other social media users, which promotes socially influenced consumer brand engagement (SICBE) in social media settings.

The study postulates the existence of social realities as consistent with social constructivism, with multiple realities of social influence outlined on the basis of ontological relativism. To fulfil the proposed research objectives, research data were gathered from professional and social participants based on specific inclusion criteria, purposive sampling technique and a semi-structured interview method.

Findings highlighted various types of UGC participants with differing objectives in their use of UGC; these participant types are passive, creators, critics and collectors/consumers. The study uncovered many social context that can increase the effectiveness of UGC. The social context is explored through social trust, Fashion UGC expertise and relevance. These UGC participants and social context can foster SICBE in a fashion retail context.

This study proposes a holistic framework which highlighted the role of UGC participants and social context can foster SICBE in a fashion retail context.

This study aims to examine in which circumstances consumer’s self-congruity moderates the indirect influence of consumer-based brand equity (mediating role) in the relationship between firm-created and user-generated social media content and intention to purchase fashion products.

In this study, the authors carried out an online survey with social media users of fashion brands and collected data from 622 participants across two samples to investigate whether consumers’ perceptions of equity of fashion brands mediate the relationship between social media brand-related communication created by both firms and users and the intention to buy the fashion brands. The indirect relationship is further moderated by self-congruity.

The results indicate that brand equity mediates the relationship between social media communication and purchase intentions of fashion products, and self-congruity moderates the relationship between social media communication types and purchase intentions, such that higher/lower levels of self-congruity strengthen/weaken the impact of social media communication on purchase intentions.

This study contributes to the business and marketing literature by exploring how social media communication, branding and fashion align with the individual’s self-concept and buying behaviour.

Adopting an exploratory approach, this paper aims to focus on the potential negative consequences that online firestorms (OFs) might have on consumer–brand relationships. Specifically, the authors focus on the individual level through taking a close look at the content that users generate during these attacks.

The authors conducted content analysis to study four recent brand-related OFs that occurred on Twitter.

The results show that brands are at the core of the users’ conversations, although other actors, such as competing firms, can also be affected. Negative comments greatly exceed positive ones. Actions against the brand, both passive (avoidance) and active (vengeance), emerged during the OFs.

The exploratory nature of the study could cast doubt on the generalizability of the results. Moreover, the number of OF analyzed is limited, although they represent an interesting variety of brand misconducts.

Nowadays, brands are publicly scrutinized through social networks, as the networks enable users to speak out about brands’ perceived mistakes and wrongdoings. This paper confirms that managers should monitor, understand and try to respond to OFs to minimize their impact.

Online firestorms are a recent phenomenon that has gained attention finally, as they can reach hundreds of users in real-time and can involve a huge amount of comments posted online against a brand. These attacks could severely damage the brand, even when there is no strong evidence of the posted content being true. This paper adds to the scarce literature on the topic and analyzes the negative effects for brands.

Este trabajo exploratorio identifica posibles consecuencias negativas que los ataques colaborativos online contra las marcas podrían tener en las relaciones marca-consumidor. Para ello se adopta la perspectiva del participante en el ataque colaborativo mediante un análisis pormenorizado del contenido que los usuarios generan durante el tiempo que dura el ataque contra la marca.

Se ha llevado a cabo un análisis del contenido generado durante cuatro ataques colaborativos recientes que protagonizaron distintas marcas en Twitter.

Del análisis de contenido se desprende que las marcas son las protagonistas de las conversaciones de los usuarios aunque otros actores tales como marcas competidoras también han sido mencionadas. Los comentarios negativos predominan sobre los positivos. También se identifican acciones contra la marca, tanto pasivas (evitar comprarla) como activas (venganza).

El carácter exploratorio del estudio impide la generalización de sus resultados. El número de ataques colaborativos analizados son limitados aunque representan una interesante variedad de errores y malas conductas por parte de las marcas.

Actualmente las marcas son objeto de escrutinio público en las redes sociales en tanto que facilitan la interacción entre usuarios y el comportamiento informativo de cualquier tipo. Este trabajo confirma que los responsables de marca deben controlar, comprender y tratar de responder a estos ataques colaborativos contra las marcas para minimizar su impacto.

Los ataques colaborativos contra las marcas son un fenómeno que está recibiendo una enorme atención últimamente en la medida en la que miles de usuarios participan en ellos en tiempo real generando una enorme cantidad de comentarios online contra una marca. Estos ataques pueden dañarla seriamente, incluso ante la ausencia de evidencias claras de que el contenido que se comparte sea cierto. Este trabajo contribuye a la escasa literatura existente sobre los ataques colaborativos online contra las marcas y analiza sus posibles efectos negativos.

Artículo de investigación

The purpose of this paper is to examine how users on social media view brands with a heritage. Consumers commonly post opinions and accounts of their experiences with brands on social media. Such consumer-generated content may or may not overlap with content desired by brand managers. Drawing from “The medium is the message” paradigm, this study text-mines user narratives on Twitter1 to shed light on the role of social media in shaping public images of brands with heritage through the lens of the stereotype content model.

The study uses a data set of almost 80,000 unique tweets on 12 brands across six categories, compares brands high versus low in heritage and combines dictionary-based content analysis with sentiment analysis.

The results indicate that both user-generated content and sentiment are significantly more positive for brands low rather than high in heritage. Regarding warmth, consumers use significantly more positive words on sociability and fewer negative words on morality for brands low rather than high in heritage. Regarding competence, tweets include more positive words on assertiveness and ability for low-heritage brands. Finally, overall sentiment is more positive for brands low rather than high in heritage.

Important from co-creation and integrated marketing communication perspectives, the findings provide brand managers with actionable insights on how to more effectively use social media.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is among the first to examine user-generated content in a brand heritage context. It demonstrates that heritage brands, with their longevity and strong links to the past, need to be aware of how contemporary social media can detract from their image.

Brand awareness is a key cognitive metric and a vital component of consumer-based brand equity. Generating and maintaining brand awareness has been an important metric for brands and a significant outcome of advertising and promotional activities. Brand awareness has been studied over the years in the context of market share and mind share and is considered to be the fundamental starting point of a brand relationship. Most branding variables are challenged in their linear definitions by the multi-dimensionality of the connected online world. Consumers may start their brand journey with brand awareness and then proceed to explore higher options in a non-linear fashion. This challenges traditional advertising and brand salience models. In the web context, brand awareness could even happen with little prior cognitive processing. The purpose of this paper is to explore the little researched area of brand awareness in the context of Indian websites.

The study leveraged technology to study the brand discovery behaviour of real estate website users in India. The authors looked at essentially modified processes such as the brand experience journey, specifically, the sources and antecedents of brand awareness for real estate websites. Considering the fact that direct and indirect traffic to a website is indicative of the brand awareness metrics, the authors analyse the metric as a basis of the comparison.

Brand awareness in the digital world can be attributed as firm generated, user generated and, as the authors also discover, experience initiated. The altered dimensions have a profound impact on the brand advertising spends of not just digital brands, but all marketers who will find digital technology increasingly central to their brand communication efforts.

Burgeoning websites and media proliferation have increased the source set for website discovery. Customers do not rely solely on advertising or chance encounter to discover a new brand. Usage of search engines remains the key point of discovery for brand awareness. Some of the respondents recognised websites from prior advertising exposure and selected the brand from the consideration set offered in the search results for their keyword search. In other cases, brand awareness followed brand experience as the users did not process the brand information or, in most cases, were not aware of the brand name prior to website visit. The quality of brand experience created brand awareness and had further implications, including brand visit intent.

While mass media television advertising and ubiquitous online advertising can build brand awareness, the impact of search engine advertising and search engine optimisation is equally significant, if not more important. Brand managers can additionally focus on branding on the search channel in the light of increasing search intensity. Beyond traditional keyword planning, this can be an enhanced branding platform for reaching out to specific behavioural or character traits of the target audience. Brand experience can mature from task completion to brand awareness and higher level values if the website includes key brand messages and goals.

This paper offers insight into the little known field of online brand management. Information intermediary websites are unique in their value proposition, and brand building is challenging. Real estate websites have grown in popularity, but have not merited researcher attention. This paper offers a unique perspective on branding websites, specifically in the context of emerging markets like India.

The purpose ofthis study is to synthesise the findings of existing research on brand-related user-generated content (UGC) in the context of fashion retail and to come up with future research directions.

A systematic literature review of 33 research papers, selected using well-defined criteria, was done. Further, the thematic analysis identified underlying themes and their inter-linkages.

The inter-linkages of 12 emergent themes were showcased in the form of a causal-chain conceptual framework, highlighting antecedents, mediators, moderators and consequences.

Future research involves six directions, and researchers should empirically test out the proposed conceptual framework and take the given research directions forward.

Retailers should understand UGC motivators to launch targeted campaigns to amplify UGC with firm-generated content and increase overall engagement and sales of a brand.

First, this study fills the gap of missing synthesis of existing studies on UGC about fashion retail by analysing the publication distribution, paper types, data collection tools and techniques and data analysis methods. Second, the authors have proposed a causal-chain conceptual framework based upon thematic analysis of the research literature. The emergent themes touch upon three crucial aspects of marketing on enabling technology, consumer behaviour and marketing tactics. Finally, the academic contribution of this study lies in coming up with six vital research agenda for future research.