This research aims to describe and analysis consumer behaviour and engagement on Social Media regarding the three following categories: sportswear products, sportswear brands, and lifestyle related to sports, in three different markets: Brazil, China and Sweden. This research has conducted a quantitative approach through an online survey with 363 valid responses. This research contributes to previous studies of consumer engagement on Social Media, with a highlight of how the engagement is performed differently regarding products, brands and lifestyle and how it varies among markets. It also helps the sportswear industry to develop marketing strategies on Social Media according to consumer engagement patterns in different markets. / Program: Textile Management, Fashion Management

This research aims to investigate the role of consumer engagement in influencing loyalty and word-of-mouth through a user generated brand community on Facebook by collecting evidence from both quantitative and qualitative studies. A quantitative study is adopted to test the engagement dimension and its relationships with other constructs, such as participation, loyalty, and word-of-mouth, with a sample size of 551 collected among Facebook users in the UK. The empirical analysis from the quantitative data supports the ABC (i.e., affective, cognitive, and behavioural) dimensions of engagement as assumed in the study and finds a positive relationship between engagement, participation, loyalty, and word-of-mouth. Similarly, a qualitative study is adopted in the form of a semi-structured interview held with six user Apple brand champions from an Apple user generated online brand community on Facebook. A thematic analysis is conducted to analyse the engagement dimensions and their relationship to participation, loyalty, and word-of-mouth. In addition, the application of both the methods (i.e., the quantitative and qualitative studies) to investigate the main aim helps the research to attain complementarity. The combination of both methods provides evidence to justify the engagement dimensions and their relation to participation, loyalty, and word-of-mouth. The quantitative study supports the argued engagement dimensions and their relationship with other constructs, whereas the qualitative study explores other components of engagement and their relationship with similar constructs, as well as helping to enhance the relationships and dimensions of engagement. Moreover, this study contributes to marketing literature by empirically validating customer loyalty and word-of-mouth as outcomes of customer participation and engagement. No study so far has empirically investigated the effect of customer engagement on loyalty and word-of-mouth in a user-generated online brand community context. This enhanced understanding of vigour, personal identity, attention, absorption, sharing, and learning suggests that marketers should concentrate on the type of information presented, as well as the format in which information is presented outside the company’s networks. Community markers, such as feelings, emotions, excitement, contribution, and interaction with peers, contribute significantly to engaging and influencing loyalty and word-of-mouth with both the brand community and the brand itself.

The online consumer engagement is becoming very significant for companies striving to build their relationship with their consumers. Social media gives an opportunity not only to reach consumers in a passive way, but to engage them in active communication and to upload content that is consequently updated and drawing followers´ attention. Successful online consumer engagement can improve consumers’ loyalty and trust in the brand. Therefore, it is important for a company to be aware of actions that can encourage consumer engagement on social media. The goal of this study is to help marketers achieve higher consumer engagement that will consequently lead to more loyal customers.

Purpose: Explain how consumer engagement affects consumers motivation to rank and review on price-comparison sites. Hypotheses raised:H1 - There is a positive relationship between affective consumer engagement and theconsumer's motivation to rank products online.H2 - There is a positive relationship between affective consumer engagement and theconsumer's motivation to review products online.H3 - There is a positive relationship between cognitive consumer engagement and theconsumer's motivation to rank products online.H4 - There is a positive relationship between cognitive consumer engagement and theconsumer's motivation to review products online.H5 - There is a positive relationship between behavioral consumer engagement and theconsumer's motivation to rank products online.H6 - There is a positive relationship between behavioral consumer engagement and theconsumer's motivation to review products online. Methodology: Cross-sectional social survey design with a self-completion questionnaire. Conclusion: Based on this research all hypothesis tied to each individual dimension has been accepted, thus it can be concluded that consumer engagement does have a positive relationship with consumer’s motivation to engage online.

The title of the study is “The use of advergames in creating online consumer engagement. A casestudy of LEGO.” In this study the concept of using advergames in creation of online consumerengagement will be explored. In order to narrow the scope of the study two research questionswere established: What are the elements of advergames that drive online consumer engagement?;How are advergames currently used by the market leading company in its marketing campaignsin order to create online consumer engagement? The outcome of the research can help deepenthe current knowledge of scholars and practitioners in their communication and brand buildingevolving advergames and the creation of customer engagement in this area.In order to gain more knowledge of online consumer engagement and advergames, numerousliterary sources were used such as: papers, articles, books, and annual reports of LEGO. Thecollected data is supported by a vary of interviews with employees of LEGO from differentdepartments.After analysis of the collected data and linking it to the theoretical framework numerousconclusions can be drawn to answer the initial research questions. First, the attributes thatstimulate advergames in creating online consumer engagement are the Unique SellingProposition (technical features such as: the technical platform, game type, dimensions, genre,prominence of advertising and congruity of brand and game) and the Emotional SellingProposition (representation elements such as audiovisual style, narration, procedural rhetoric).Currently, LEGO integrates digital games in their integrated marketing approach, linking themtightly connected to certain real life products. On the other hand, the importance of advergamesis growing as the study has identified that more and more company’s target customers (children)are moving towards digital entertainment specifically related to mobile technologies. For this, thecompany tries to create engagement and awareness by using advergames. The company tries toreach the light user group through storytelling and the middle to heavy user group throughadvanced technical elements of the games.The limitations of the study is in particular the fact that the cases were taken from one company,one product market and one target consumer group means that the results of the study should beconsidered carefully when applying for other companies, product markets and consumer groups.Secondly, the qualitative method of research means that it is heavily dependent on the individualskills of the researchers and more easily influenced by the researchers’ personal biases andpeculiarity.

Topic of the thesis is Consumer Engagement. Goals of thesis were exploration innovation of Consumer Engagement in international market and reparation of concept for applications in the Czech market. The first part was theoretical. It was implemented exploratory research in the second part. All information about Consumer Engagement was used for two concepts. One concept is for real company Triola a. s.. The second concept is for fictitious pizzeria Lazio.

Branding in the age of social media is thriving as companies continue to pour resources into digital campaigns in the hope of engaging their customers. The onset of the COVID- 19 pandemic boosted the importance of digital communication channels as physical distancing and lockdown measures disrupted business-as-usual and limited in-person interactions between firms and their customers. By implication, the global crisis pressed companies to deliver brand messages via online content to sustain or build customer relationships. This research focuses first on the branded content of corporate communications during the pandemic, focusing specifically on whether firms used the opportunity to showcase shared personal values. Second, we examine whether using value words in social media messages impacts customer engagement with these messages. To address these related questions, we collected Twitter data from Fortune 500 firms posted between January 2020 until the end of August 2020, attending to 56,770 firm- initiated tweets (we excluded firm responses to customer messages). The first study examines the personal values expressed in the messages using the Personal Values Dictionary, based on Shalom Schwartz’s original ten-value typology. We argue that the unprompted expression of values in a text is a behavioural indicator of personal value priorities. The findings compare firms’ shifting value priorities over time and association with key events, namely the global pandemic declaration (March 11, 2020) and ensuing lockdowns and George Floyd’s murder (May 25, 2020), and BLM protests. We find that, indeed, companies did shift their value priorities. The second study assesses consumer response to the values companies put forth in their tweets, focusing on social media indicators of consumer engagement (CE), including the number of likes, retweets, replies, and CE correlation with the values promoted in the tweets. We observe a pre- post-crisis shift in CE with value-laden messages. Our findings provide managerial insights that can guide marketers to manage their social media content more efficiently and better align their marketing and branding efforts with customers' values in times of crisis.

Obiettivo della tesi è l’esplorazione di aspetti della relazione tra consumatori eticamente orientati ed aziende, considerando molteplici manifestazioni di relazioni problematiche consumatori-impresa o dalla cui relazione scaturiscono modificazioni sociali e di mercato. Nel primo studio si è indagata la capacità trasformativa dei consumatori eticamente orientati organizzati in GAS (Gruppi di Acquisto Solidali) mediante l’engagement relazionale con le imprese. Attraverso un duplice livello di engagement, tra membri del gruppo e del gruppo con i fornitori, si determinano collaborazioni impresa-consumatori basate sui valori che spingono alla modificazione di meccanismi di mercato alternativi rispetto a quelli mainstream. Nel secondo studio si è indagata la relazione, talora problematica tra consumatori-cittadini etici e non nei confronti di business sostenibili, nel caso specifico la produzione di energia da biomassa. Nonostante il business sia considerato sostenibile, la relazione dei consumatori etici con tali business può risultare non lineare e generare comportamenti positivi o negativi dei consumatori-cittadini nei confronti della fonte energetica. Infine, adottando la prospettiva dell’impresa, si è esplorato come business sostenibili, nel caso specifico setting di ricerca sono i servizi di car sharing, sono in grado di modificare atteggiamenti e comportamenti degli utenti attraverso l’uso del servizio. / The dissertation aims at exploring multifaceted aspects of ethical consumers-organization relationships. It takes into consideration multiple manifestations of issues aroused by the relationship and the market transformations lead by said relationships. The first study explores the potential of collective ethical consumers grouped in Solidarity Purchasing Groups (GAS) engaged with organizations to cooperate in order to affect market mechanisms and determine ethical transformations. A collaboration enhanced at switching mainstream market mechanisms towards improving sustainability values based markets is established between the ethical consumers groups and producers. On the second study a questionable ethical and non ethical consumers relationship with sustainable businesses, specifically biomass energy producers, has been taken into consideration. Though being sustainable, the consumer-citizen relationship with the firm could lead both to positive and negative behaviours. The last research, stemming from a car sharing organization’s perspective, explores the potential of a sustainable business model to affect and modify towards sustainability features consumers’ attitudes and behaviours through the use of sustainable business model as the car sharing services.

Background Social media platforms equip brands with an opportunity to increase awareness and extend the relationship with their current and possible future consumers by providing the possibility for social interaction, monetary rewards, entertaining content, practical information and cultivating trust. Brands transition to the social medias has thus made consumers co-creators of brands offerings, as they are allowed to interact and engage with brands and its content at any time. This has put high demand on brands to create content that actually encourage participation and engagement from their consumers   Purpose The purpose of this thesis is to explain the factors that positively influence consumer engagement towards brands on social media.   Methodology This research took a quantitative approach with an explanatory purpose and a cross-sectional research design. The data was collected with the help of a self-completion questionnaire. The result was primarily derived from a multiple-regression analysis, correlation analysis and Cronbach’s Alpha reliability test.   Findings This research provide empirical evidence that monetary factors positively influence consumer engagement with brands on social media, whereas the social, hedonic, practical and trust factors failed to generate significance. However, the study revealed that the rejected factors have some effect on consumer engagement that cannot be denied by brand managers.   Originality Consumer engagement in an online environment has been an attractive topic for researchers in recent years and with the ever-increasing popularity of social media, research gaps in this setting has been identified. This research provides the first explanatory findings regarding antecedents of consumer engagement with brands on social media.

In recent years, social networking sites have become a prevailing communication technology in the evolution of the digital era for today’s Internet users (Ipsos Insight 2007). As more and more marketers attempt to harness the power of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) in social networking sites (Williamson 2006), rigorous investigation of determinants that lead to consumers’ engagement in eWOM via the social networks is becoming critical. A central question to answer is what factors influence eWOM behavior in social networking sites and what are the underlying processes of eWOM communications in this new social medium. This study focuses on five social relationship variables: social capital, tie strength, homophily, trust, and consumer susceptibility to interpersonal influence that are all related to eWOM behavior in social networking sites. An online survey with a sample drawn from a large southwestern university was conducted to examine predictors of eWOM in social networking sites. Results from a series of multiple regression analyses indicate that certain social relationship variables are significant predictors that relate to social networking site users’ eWOM behavior. Out of the five relationship variables, social capital, homophily, trust, and interpersonal influence were found to significantly relate to users’ engagement in eWOM communications, whereas no effect was found with regard to tie strength. My dissertation research provides a theoretical understanding of consumers’ use of social networking sites as a vehicle for eWOM and contributes to the literature on computer-mediated communication with specific emphasis on online social media. Managerially, findings from this research could provide marketers with valuable information to establish their long-term relationships with consumers and use beneficial eWOM to promote selected brands. In conclusion, examining social relationships in social networking sites could contribute to our understanding of the determinants of consumer engagement in eWOM, which in turn influences the extent and pattern of eWOM and enables companies to deliberate their product diffusion strategies. / text