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The purpose of this paper is to use social identity theory and the elaboration likelihood model to explore differences in consumer response to positive and negative online brand advertising based on the degree to which the consumer identifies with the brand featured in the ad. Dependent variables include attitude toward the ad, attitude toward the brand, willingness to share the ad and purchase intention.

This study uses a posttest-only, 2 (low consumer–brand identification v. high consumer–brand identification) × 2 (negative advertisement v. positive advertisement) between-subjects factorial design for two separate brands based on the pretest results.

Results show, in support of extant research, that consumer–brand identification enhances consumer perceptions of positive brand advertising. In addition, this research shows that consumer–brand identification also minimizes the potentially detrimental effects of negative advertisements on the dependent variables. Further, results suggest that those with a low consumer–brand identification are more likely to share negative online brand advertising.

Building consumer–brand identification among target consumers results in positive brand attitudes and behaviors while at the same time shielding brands from negative online attack advertising. However, consumers with weak consumer–brand identification can be influenced through peripheral cues in online ads. This research indicates that managers need to focus on strengthening consumer–brand identity with target audiences and closely monitor negative online sentiment.

This exploratory research extends current consumer–brand relationship scholarship and adds support for application of the elaboration likelihood model in an online environment. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine the role of consumer–brand identity and its role in explaining consumer responses to online display advertising.

Drawing on consumer brand relationship theory, this study aims to investigate online brand engagement, brand trust and consumer brand identification as antecedents of brand love, amongst Generation Y and Z consumers. It explores the role of brand love in predicting consumers’ intention to co-create value and willingness to pay a premium price for the brand, for brands followed on social media.

Data from a study of 332 followers of brands on social media were analysed using structural equation modelling.

Results highlight the role of brand love in mediating the relationship between antecedents online brand engagement and consumer brand identification on intention to co-create value and willingness to pay a premium price. Consumers who trust the brand are more likely to intend to co-create value and are more willing to pay a price premium and these relationships are enhanced when the brand is loved.

Findings provide guidance for managers seeking to build brand friendship relationships with young consumers through social media. Results caution against a form of “superficial” friendship where the consumer may interact and co-create value online, yet fail to value the brand, evidenced through a willingness to pay a premium price.

The research identifies the critical role of brand love in fostering relationships with brands that young consumers follow on social media. The study reveals that neither online brand engagement nor consumer brand identification will result in co-creation of value or willingness to pay a premium price unless the consumer experiences brand love.

Oppositional loyalty toward rival brands is prevalent. Although its antecedents have increasingly received scholarly attention, the literature is rather disparate. Based on identity theory, this study aims to propose that oppositional loyalty is a brand identity-driven outcome and provides a unified framework for understanding the formation and activation of brand identity in influencing oppositional loyalty.

Structural equation modeling was used to test the theoretical framework based on an online survey of 329 brand community members. Multigroup analysis was used to test the moderating effect of inter-consumer brand rivalry and brand community engagement.

The results show that self-brand similarity, brand prestige and brand uniqueness lead to consumers’ brand identity (i.e. consumer-brand identification), which, in turn, facilitates oppositional loyalty. Furthermore, the results indicate that inter-consumer brand rivalry and brand community engagement are identity-salient situations that strengthen the relationship between consumer-brand identification and oppositional loyalty.

Identity has great power in shaping consumer behaviors. Fostering consumer-brand identification is critical for firms to prevent consumers from switching to competing brands. Inter-consumer brand rivalry and brand community engagement can help firms consolidate their customer base by evoking consumers’ brand identity.

This investigation makes theoretical contributions by providing a unified theoretical framework to model the development of oppositional loyalty based on identity theory.

Consumer engagement has been designated as an approach to describing online interactions that more comprehensively reflects the nature of consumers’ interactive relationships in online brand communities. This paper aims to explore consumers’ brand community engagement in the context of Facebook brand pages. This research puts forth the hypothesis that consumers’ brand community engagement on Facebook is dependent upon two overarching themes: external social forces and internal personal forces.

Based on social impact theory, social identity theory and social exchange theory, a conceptual research model is developed and empirically tested through structural equation modelling using cross-sectional data of 460 Facebook brand fans.

The empirical results suggest that internal personal forces primarily positively influence brand community engagement, while external social forces can even impact consumers’ brand community engagement negatively.

Future research should test and validate the proposed model for specific categories and brands.

This paper offers help to online brand marketers to trigger meaningful engagement of consumers in a brand community on Facebook.

This paper examines the consumer engagement construct from a behavioural perspective in a defined social media context and highlights the peculiarities of online brand communities on Facebook that distinguish them from traditional brand communities. The research uses a strong theoretical foundation to develop a model that investigates the prevalent variables that influence consumers’ brand community engagement on Facebook.

This paper aims to examine relationships between consumer-brand identification (CBI), brand prestige (BP), brand anthropomorphism (BA) and consumers’ active engagement in brand activities on social media in corporate brand settings.

Data collected with an online survey on a sample randomly drawn from an online panel of consumers were used to test the proposed theoretical model.

Anthropomorphism and prestige of corporate brands were found to positively influence consumer-brand identification. Also, CBI positively affects consumers’ active engagement and fully mediates the effect of BP and BA on consumers-brand engagement (CBE) with corporate brands.

Further research in other markets and on a broader set of corporate brands would additionally validate results and enable comparisons of impacts among different brand categories. The data were gathered in one country, so further research in other markets would additionally validate results of this study.

Chief executives responsible for corporate brand management are provided with some insights on how appropriate corporate brand identity management can strengthen CBI and stimulate CBE on social media.

This paper provides some novel insights into the research on consumer-brand identification. It is the first study (to the authors’ knowledge) that empirically supports the positive influence of brand anthropomorphism on CBI in corporate brand settings. It also contributes to the clarification of previously inconsistent results of the influence of BP on CBI. By showing that consumers’ identification with a corporate brand plays a vital role in increasing consumers’ active engagement on social media, the study contributes to the relatively sparse body of research on CBE.

The purpose of this study is to increase the understanding of the online brand advocacy (OBA) and brand loyalty relationship through a social identity theory lens.

An online survey was used to obtain the needed data and the relationships of interest were examined using a partial least squares structural equation modelling approach.

Brand loyalty and consumer-brand identification were found to be predictors of OBA, while OBA impacted on purchase intent. In addition, a strong reciprocal relationship was found between OBA and brand loyalty, which has not been reported in prior studies.

This study highlighted OBA's complexity. It suggested OBA is not only an outcome of a consumer-brand relationship but also that OBA plays a key role in the development of such relationships. A consumer's identification with a brand fosters brand loyalty and purchase intent through the giving of OBA.

The more consumers vocalise their brand relationships through OBA, the more they strengthen their relationship with brands. The inclusion of OBA management in brand and marketing strategies should enable organisations to foster opportunities for online consumer-brand interactions that strengthen consumer-brand relationships.

First, unlike previous studies that have used makeshift scales to measure OBA, the authors used a recently developed OBA scale. Second, the important reciprocal relationship between OBA and brand loyalty, which has significant implications, has not been reported in prior research.

The purpose of this study is to examine how the nature of consumers' relationship with a brand influences brand evangelism, which represents an intense form of brand support behavior. Specifically, the study investigates the influence of two consumer-brand relational constructs, brand trust and brand identification, on brand evangelism. Brand evangelism, conceptualized as an amalgam of adoption and advocacy behaviors, is operationalized in terms of three supportive behaviors: purchase intentions, positive referrals, and oppositional brand referrals.

Drawing from prior research on consumer-brand relationships, a framework of brand relationships and brand evangelism is developed. To provide a more robust test of theory, consumers' extraversion, gender, and brand experience are included as control variables. Structural equation modeling is used to test the proposed hypotheses.

The findings reveal that consumer-brand relationships influence brand evangelism, albeit in different ways. Whereas brand trust influences purchase intentions and positive referrals, brand identification influences positive and oppositional brand referrals. Overall, the findings reveal the power of consumer-brand relationships in engendering brand evangelism, relative to other factors such as extraversion, gender, and brand experience.

In today's consumption society, where it is increasingly easier for consumers to demonstrate extreme devotion and derision toward brands, it is important for marketers to understand the drivers of behaviors directed toward brands. This study suggests that marketers can cultivate brand evangelism by building brand trust and brand identification.

Marketing researchers and practitioners are only recently beginning to understand brand evangelism. This study demonstrates that consumer-brand relationships, rather than personality, gender, and usage experience, trigger brand evangelism and offers directions for future researchers to further explicate brand evangelism.

This study aims to examine how brand gender (masculine/feminine brand personality [FBP] traits) stimulates brand engagement (cognitive processing, affection and activation) inside online brand communities (OBCs). The authors also explore the mediation of this effect through brand identification and brand personality appeal (BPA). The moderating role of consumers’ biological sex is also investigated.

The theoretical model has been tested with the data collected from OBC members through the structural equation modelling technique. Bootstrapping is used for mediation analysis and multiple group analysis for testing the moderating effects.

Results show that masculine brand personality (MBP) influences brand engagement directly, as well as through brand identification and BPA. However, FBP elicits brand engagement only through the mediation of brand identification and BPA. Consumers’ biological sex moderates the effect of FBP on brand engagement, but no moderation was traced for the effect of MBP on brand engagement.

The context of the research poses a limitation on the broader replication of study findings. Other limitations include the absence of community-based variables and the focused use of gender centric brands in this study. This research will help researchers to understand the nuances in the underlying relationship between brand gender and brand engagement inside OBCs.

The managers can emphasize MBP but should not downplay the importance of FBP inside OBCs. To achieve brand engagement, the marketers should curate FBP in a way to affecting consumers’ brand identification and brand appeal. To achieve consumer brand engagement, MBP can be targeted at both male and female consumers, whereas FBP holds more importance among female consumers. Therefore, classifying members as per their biological sex is recommended for better brand engagement from brand gender inside OBCs.

This study explores finer mechanisms in the relationship between brand gender and brand engagement inside OBCs by charting out the powerful mediating role played by brand identification and BPA. The moderating role of consumers’ biological sex is an important dimension to these relationships, not explored hitherto.

There is limited research examining social drivers and mediators of online brand community identification in the context of business models development. This study aims to identify them behind the social mechanisms and present essential factors which should be applied in business models to foster value co-creation.

Data were collected from a convenience sample of 712 cases gathered among young European Facebook users via an electronic survey and analyzed using the structural equation modeling method.

Customer–other customers’ identification is a pivotal factor in influencing brand community identification.

If companies want to implement online brand communities into business models effectively and co-create brand value, they need deliver brand content useful for customer self-expression and social interaction to enhance consumer-brand identification and customer–customer social bonds which enable to transform the audience into a community. Focusing on the constant reinforcement of online brand community by supporting customer–customer relationships is critical for voluntary value co-creation.

The main contribution of this study to the literature on online brand communities is the presentation and empirical verification of pivotal social mechanisms of online brand community identification considered as a starting point to potential co-creation and capturing value based on the social presence theory.

This paper aims to tests a conceptual model capturing the influence of personalized advertising on customer perceptions of brands in social media and identifies three market segments based on customers’ reactions to personalized ads.

Two studies are developed to test the model using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Additionally, cluster analysis, multi-group analysis (MGA) and serial mediation tests are also conducted to provide better insights into the results.

The results of the two studies show that all nine hypotheses are supported except for H4 in Study 1. Three market segments (ad lovers, ad adjusters and ad haters) are identified. Each segment has a typical attitude toward personalized advertisements.

Built on self-congruence literature, the current research posits that consumer-brand self-congruence can be established when a customer sees a brand advertised on Facebook after searching for that brand online. Consistently, this paper finds that through self-congruence, personalized advertising has a positive impact on brand-related outcomes.

Three segments identified – “ad lovers,” “ad adjusters” and “ad haters” are important for marketers. Companies should develop an appropriate advertising campaign for each segment, especially once the general data protection regulation is in place. Companies will be subject to a noncompliance penalty if an advertisement is posted on a user s account without approval. Identifying this segment promptly will not only enable companies to save resources but also help avoid legal complications associated with privacy concerns.

This research sheds light on the effects of personalized advertising on customer perceptions of brands in social commerce.