Engaging consumers through emotions
The effect of emotional branding strategies on consumer engagement: A quantitative content analysis of sportswear brands’ commercials on Facebook
Roos van Bruggen (10531858) University of Amsterdam Graduate School of Communication Master’s programme Corporate Communication
Master’s Thesis
Supervisor: Dr. S.C. (Suzanne) de Bakker Date: 28 June 2019
Abstract
Emotional branding strategies are increasingly applied in today’s marketing world, however, limited research has examined the effect of emotional branding strategies on consumer engagement. This study investigates the effect of three emotional branding strategies,
storytelling, cause branding, and empowerment marketing, on consumer engagement in terms of comments, reactions, and shares. This is examined by a quantitative content analysis of sportswear brands’ commercials on Facebook. A sample of 144 sportswear commercials by 10 leading global sportswear brands is coded. Results show that, in line with previous studies, emotional branding leads to significantly more engagement in terms of shares as opposed to non-emotional branding. In addition, storytelling and empowerment marketing strategies of sportswear brands, especially combined, significantly affect consumer engagement in terms of the amount of shares. These are valuable outcomes, as shares are seen as the highest form of engagement in scientific research. Interestingly, no significant effects were found for cause branding on consumer engagement, which could be due to consumers’ skepticism about cause branding as they can see it as ‘greenwashing’. Furthermore, no significant effect was
established for emotional branding on reactions and comments. This could be explained by theories stating that video content is only a positive predictor for shares. The findings are relevant for theory and practice, as the outcomes of this research add valuable insights to consumer behavior theory, and can help brands with their communication strategies. Finally, limitations and future research recommendations are presented.
Keywords: emotional branding, emotional branding strategies, storytelling, cause branding, empowerment marketing, sportswear commercials, consumer engagement
Introduction
“A brand is not a brand until it develops an emotional connection with you.” Travis (2000)
In a time where brands want to stand out from the large crowd of established brands, there seems to be an increase in the formation of emotional attachments with consumers (Akgün, Koçoğlu, & İmamoğlu, 2013). Research in the field of branding follows this trend and is increasingly focusing on the role of emotions in connecting consumers to brands (Morrison & Crane, 2007; Yoo & MacInnis, 2005). In the current literature, the strategy of engaging consumers in a powerful emotional connection with a brand is generally referred to as ‘emotional branding’ (Morrison & Crane, 2007; Yoo & MacInnis, 2005; Watzlawick, Bavelas, & Jackson, 1967;
Akgün, et al., 2013; Kim & Sullivan, 2019; Acharya, 2018). Emotional branding can be defined as the creation of emotional content that produces and conveys brand values through the
development of strong emotional bonds with the brand and a feeling of unique trust in the brand that goes beyond material satisfaction (Watzlawick, et al., 1967; Morrison & Crane, 2007). Material satisfaction encompasses brand technicalities such as product attributes, features, and facts. Although these technicalities are important in consumers’ brand evaluations, research has shown that consumers can evaluate brands better based on personal feelings and experiences (Kim & Sullivan, 2019). These results indicate a shift in marketing theory, in which the focus on
product branding has moved towards a greater focus on emotional branding.
Substantial research has proved the positive effect of emotional branding on consumer-brand relationships (Acharya, 2018; Kim & Sullivan, 2019; Akgün, et al., 2013; Morrison & Crane, 2007). Emotional branding is used to engage consumers, appeals to the consumer’s needs, aspirations, dreams, and ego, and it forges deep, long-lasting, and strong brand attachments
between the consumer and the brand (Akgün, et al., 2013; Acharya, 2018). Moreover, emotional branding leads to “brand loyalty, active referral of the brand and increased profitability for the brand” (Morrison & Crane, 2007, p. 410). Kim and Sullivan (2019) developed a model which distinguishes four different emotional branding strategies: Cause branding, storytelling,
empowerment marketing, and sensory branding. However, limited research has investigated the effect of these emotional branding strategies on consumer engagement.
This research aims to deepen our understanding of emotional branding strategies, and give practical insights on which emotional branding strategies, separately and combined, have the strongest positive effect on consumer engagement on Facebook. Measuring consumer engagement on social media is convenient, as it provides concrete calculations of public behaviors, such as the number of reactions, comments, and shares in the case of Facebook (Kim & Yang, 2017). This research has not been done before, whereas it has a societal relevance as corporations can respond to the insights of this study by implementing the strongest combination of emotional branding strategies in their marketing efforts. The study is valuable for practice, as consumer engagement is an important tool for creating, building, and enhancing consumer-brand relationships through interaction. Moreover, it has a positive effect on sales growth, competitive advantage, future business performance, and profitability of brands (Brodie, Ilic, Juric, & Hollebeek, 2013).
This study makes an important contribution to emotional branding research by revealing a more thorough understanding of the potential opportunities that emotional branding strategies pose in influencing consumer engagement. New academic insights with respect to emotional branding strategies also contribute to the concretization and definition of the concept of ‘emotional branding’. These are valuable academic insights, since emotional branding is increasingly used as a marketing tool while the effect of emotional branding on consumer engagement has not been well-founded in scientific research. Therefore, it is of importance that the effect of emotional branding on consumer engagement is analyzed before brands start to apply
emotional branding strategies.
Previous research examined social media messages on platforms such as Twitter and Facebook as an organizational tool to engage and communicate with consumers and the public (Bhattacharya, Srinivasan, & Polgreen, 2014; Abitbol & Lee, 2017; Lovejoy & Saxton, 2012). However, limited studies investigated what type of social media message is most successful in engaging consumers. One study found that interactive dialogic messages are in general more engaging than one-way informative messages (Lovejoy & Saxton, 2012), but no study has
compared between the consumer engagement rates of social media messages containing emotional branding strategies. Therefore, the current study has a scientific relevance, because it fills an important gap in consumer behavior theory by investigating the influence of emotional branding strategies on consumer engagement.
The effect of emotional branding strategies on consumer engagement is measured in sportswear commercials. The sports world and sports products differentiate themselves from other products because of the way emotion is intertwined (Mullin, Hardy, & Sutton, 2007). In the sports world, fans build relationships with athletes, teams, organizations, and sport brands. This
relationship is often loaded with devotion, emotion and loyalty (Ruihley & Pate, 2017). Therefore, sports brands nowadays try to distinguish themselves from other sports brands and try to foster brand love and loyalty by applying aspects of emotional branding to their commercials. Brand love and loyalty is important for sports brands, because it can help them to overcome challenges such as scandalous activities, competitive pricing, losing seasons, and the struggle for consumer attention (Ruihley & Pate, 2017). Considering the above, the research question of this study was formulated as follows:
RQ. To what extent do emotional branding strategies of sportswear brands affect consumer engagement on Facebook?
Theoretical framework Consumer Engagement
Engagement is “a participant's emotionally motivating experience of interaction with a brand and with its advertising” (Kim, Lloyd, & Cervellon, 2016, p. 2). In other words, engagement encompasses consumers’ willingness to commit and connect to an active relationship with (the advertising of) a brand (Abdul-Ghani, Hyde, & Marshall, 2011). For consumers, this active relationship with (the advertising of) a brand can be formed on social media, because social media allow consumers to comment on the advertising efforts of brands, and to connect with the brand. Facebook was chosen as a social media platform, because it is widely used by leading sportswear brands to post commercials. In addition, consumers use social media platforms like Facebook to engage and interact with brands (Muntinga, Moorman, & Smit, 2011). On Facebook, consumers are able to interact and engage with the brand by writing a comment, by sharing a message, or by giving a reaction, such as a ‘like’ or a ‘love’.
Consumers have different reasons for choosing one of these types of engagement on Facebook. Consumer behaviors on social media can be split into three levels: consuming, contributing, or creating (Muntinga, et al., 2011). Consuming is seen as the lowest type of social media involvement and encompasses reading or watching. Contributing is called a middle type of involvement, which includes interacting with other users and reacting to content. Creating is named the highest level of involvement, as this comprises producing and sharing content (Muntinga, et al., 2011). Similarly on Facebook, a reaction can be seen as the lowest type of involvement, because it is executed by a single mouse click. A comment, however, can be named intermediate involvement, because more effort is needed, and a share as high involvement, because the post will be present on the profile page of the consumer, making it a part of the consumer’s social media identity and self-presentation (Kim & Yang, 2017). This is confirmed by another study stating that a share weights about the same as two comments and fourteen reactions
(Calero, 2013).
For this study, each type of engagement on Facebook was included in order to create an overall outcome on consumer engagement. Consumer engagement was therefore measured by taking into account shares, reactions, and comments.
Emotional branding
Emotional branding emerged in the late 1990s, and is a relatively new concept and approach that aims to create in-depth, affective connections between consumers and brands that are sensually and emotionally charged (Thompson, Rindfleisch, & Arsel, 2006; Akgün, et al., 2013). Emotions can be defined as “a mental state of readiness that arises from cognitive
appraisals of events and thoughts” (Bagozzi, Gopinath, & Nyer, 1999, p. 184). In short, emotions are mental states that occur suddenly during the evaluation of events or ideas. Furthermore, emotions are typically invoked intentionally, as opposed to other concepts like ‘mood’, which is generally created unintentionally (Bagozzi, Gopinath, & Nyer, 1999).
Emotional branding is consumer-centered and relational, and often involves storytelling in the brand communication process (Roberts, 2004). Emotional branding is different from benefit-driven or product-focused branding strategies, because it focuses on the co-creation of brand meanings with the consumer, while learning about the consumer’s passion, dreams, lifestyle, and goals (Thompson, et al., 2006). Emotional branding can be seen as a process in which a brand moves beyond creating brand awareness and having a brand identity towards being inspirational, having a brand personality, creating a feeling, understanding the needs and aspirations of
consumers, and connecting with consumers on a personal and holistic level (Priya & Anbarasu, 2015).
As non-emotional branding focuses on the product itself and the accompanying material characteristics, it is expected that consumers will not develop a connection with the brand on a
personal and holistic level, because non-emotional branding conveys no emotion, and its goal is to inform the consumer about a product (Kim & Sullivan, 2019). Non-emotional branding can therefore be seen as a form of informative, one-way communication (Lovejoy & Saxton, 2012). As emotional branding conveys emotions, it can forge deep, personal, holistic connections between consumers and brands as explained above, because consumers can respond to the conveyed emotions, which makes emotional branding more a form of dialogic communication (Watzlawick, et al., 1967; Morrison & Crane, 2007; Lovejoy & Saxton, 2012). Therefore, it is expected that emotional branding is more engaging than non-emotional branding, because interactive dialogic messages result in more engagement than one-way informative messages (Lovejoy & Saxton, 2012). To investigate the effect of emotional branding on consumer engagement, the first hypothesis was formulated as follows:
H1. Commercials that use emotional branding strategies are associated with more
consumer engagement than commercials that do not use emotional branding strategies.
Video commercials are expected to be the best vehicle for emotional branding, because research has shown that they can transfer emotions and tell stories in ways that most other forms of marketing cannot, which generates goodwill and engagement with consumers (Scott, 2015). However, some video commercials use non-emotional branding in order to explain the technical details of a product (Kim & Sullivan, 2019). Therefore, they can have a focus on informing the consumer instead of creating a connection with the consumer (Kim & Sullivan, 2019). One study found that in general sensory and visual content generates reactions, rational and interactive content fosters comments, and sensory, visual, and rational content leads to shares (Kim & Yang, 2017). Video content is a positive predictor of shares, which can be explained by the fact that shares are affectively and/or cognitively driven, and by the fact that videos can engage consumers
and transfer emotions better than most other forms of marketing (Kim & Yang, 2017; Scott, 2015).
As mentioned above, it is not expected that non-emotional branding develops brand-consumer linkages easily, because brand-consumers cannot respond to emotions when no emotions are conveyed by the brand. The communication is therefore one-sided with non-emotional branding, which will lead to less engagement as the consumer is not directly addressed. Emotional branding, however, is expected to create affective connections between consumers and brands, because it evokes more dialogic communication, which is a way to engage consumers (Thompson, et al., 2006; Akgün, et al., 2013; Lovejoy & Saxton, 2012). Therefore, it is expected that video
commercials with emotional branding engage consumers more than video commercials without emotional branding, irrespective of whether the engagement is uttered as a share, reaction or comment.
In order to measure consumer engagement, the amount of reactions, shares and comments are the focus. A reaction can be defined as a ‘like’ or as a reply with any of the given emoticons on Facebook. Therefore, H1 was further divided into three sub-hypotheses, which break down the concept of consumer engagement in the amount of reactions, shares and comments.
H1a. Commercials with emotional branding receive more reactions compared to commercials without emotional branding.
H1b. Commercials with emotional branding receive more shares compared to commercials without emotional branding.
H1c. Commercials with emotional branding receive more comments compared to commercials without emotional branding.
Emotional branding strategies
According to Kim and Sullivan (2019), emotional branding can be realized by using four strategies. The first, sensory branding, is a marketing strategy that involves reaching individuals’ five senses (taste, smell, sound, sight, and feel) at a deep level (Hultén, Broweus, & Van Dijk, 2009). This strategy was not applicable to sportswear commercials, as consumers’ feel, smell, and taste senses cannot be reached digitally. The present study therefore discussed the other three emotional branding strategies: Storytelling, cause branding, and empowerment marketing, and the effect of these strategies on consumer engagement.
Storytelling
Storytelling can be defined as: “The phenomenon of sharing knowledge and experiences through narratives” (Weick, 1995, p.127). Storytelling encompasses a sequence of events in which a transition of a story character or story characters takes place from one state to another state, and a storyteller tells the story to an audience (Bennett & Royle, 2004). A story always involves four elements: A story plot, a story character or story characters, a climax, and an outcome or end state (Van Laer, De Ruyter, Visconti, & Wetzels, 2014). In the story plot, a temporal sequence of events is presented and story characters play a role in the story plot. In addition, a climax occurs which is often achieved by an increasing dramatic intensity of the plot. Finally, every story has an outcome or end state, which includes the characters’ resolution of a problem or misfortunate event (Van Laer et al., 2014).
Storytelling is an emotional branding strategy, which is increasingly used as an effective branding tool to influence consumers’ brand experience (Fog et al., 2010; Lundqvist, Liljander, Gummerus, & Van Riel, 2013; Gill, 2015). This is achieved through narrative transportation, which can be defined as “the extent to which (1) a consumer empathizes with the story characters, and (2) the story plot activates his or her imagination, which leads him or her to experience
suspended reality during story reception” (Van Laer et al., 2014, pp. 799–800). Narrative
transportation leads to narrative persuasion, which means that consumers will form “affective and cognitive responses, beliefs, and attitude and intention changes” (Van Laer, Feiereisen, &
Visconti, 2019). Storytelling is therefore a strategy that uses narratives to appeal to or inspire consumers through narrative transportation (Silverstein & Fiske, 2003).
Stories create a holistic brand image through narrative transportation and their emotional influence, and must be perceived as authentic in order to be effective (Mossberg, 2008; Holt, 2002). People can remember information better when it is presented as a story as opposed to when it is presented as a fact, due to the fact that a story has a chronological order, which enables people to remember the presented information more easily (Escalas, 2004). Moreover, storytelling
enables people to make deeper sense of the meaning of events in the story, and of what the complete story implies, because it can connect different parts of an event by telling a story in a chronological order (Megehee & Woodside, 2010). Storytelling is effective for transferring information, as people are more easily convinced by stories because of the discussed mechanism of narrative persuasion (Van Laer et al., 2014). Due to the explained mechanism of narrative transportation and narrative persuasion, consumers are engaged by storytelling (Van Laer et al., 2019). Therefore, it is expected that storytelling is positively related to consumer engagement.
Cause branding
Another emotional branding strategy is cause branding or cause-related marketing (Prasad, 2011). Cause branding involves marketing activities that enable consumers to make purchase decisions based on social or moral beliefs instead of personal benefit, in order to make positive changes for social issues (Kim & Johnson, 2011; Kim & Sullivan, 2019). Cause branding is different from Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), because CSR is an abstract concept that is about being a “good” company in general, and about the impact the organization has on society
(Sheikh & Beise-Zee, 2011). Cause branding, on the other hand, encompasses the (financial) support of specific causes for promotional purposes (Sheikh & Beise-Zee, 2011). Therefore, cause branding is part of CSR, but translates the overall CSR formulation or strategy of a brand into supporting a specific cause or issue. Cause branding is often easy to comprehend for consumers, as consumers can directly relate to causes, while this is more difficult for the concept of CSR, which can be rather vague (Sheikh & Beise-Zee, 2011). For example, the CSR strategy of Nike is formulated as: “We’re committed to creating a better, more sustainable future for our people, planet and communities through the power of sport”. This CSR strategy is translated into the support of causes like “Made to play”, an initiative and program of Nike that helps girls all around the world to play sports (“Nike purpose,” 2019).
Nowadays, cause branding is increasingly used as a strategy to enhance corporate reputation and to create a brand personality and identity, because social commitments have become a core component of conducting business in today’s marketing world (Cone, Phares, & Gifford, 2010). Cause branding positively influences consumer perceptions of the long-term image of the brand and is proved effective due to the moral emotions it invokes, which trigger consumers’ desire to serve a higher cause (Gupta & Pirsch, 2006; Haidt, 2003). In other words, people are naturally inclined to help others and have altruistic needs, and therefore support brands that help others by supporting certain issues to serve a higher social purpose (Gupta & Pirsch, 2006). Cause branding is expected to engage consumers because of people’s natural desire to serve a higher social purpose and the emotions that are conveyed, which are expected to result in dialogic communication as mentioned before (Akgün, et al., 2013; Lovejoy & Saxton, 2012). Consumers are therefore expected to respond to cause branding with emotions, and react to or show their support on issues and brands on social media.
Cause branding is most effective when causes are selected that fit in the brand’s target market (Roy, 2010). When there is not a ‘good fit’ in the brand’s target market, a brand can risk
accusations of greenwashing, which can pose problems for the brand (Roy, 2010). Therefore, the study controlled for the aspect of a ‘good fit’ during the coding. It was expected that cause branding has a positive effect on consumer engagement.
Empowerment marketing
The final emotional branding strategy is empowerment marketing (Earl, 2017; Bauhau, 2012). Empowerment marketing enhances the self-esteem and self-efficacy of consumers by portraying consumers as winners who have the ability to achieve their life goals (Earl, 2017; Bauhau, 2012). The aim of empowerment marketing is to empower the consumer by advocating that the brand’s products have the ability to empower the buyer, or that the consumer can change his or her behavior if he or she really wants to. The brand’s products are portrayed in such a way that they are able to resolve the worries of the consumers, and help them to overcome anxieties and insecurities (Kim & Sullivan, 2019).
Since empowerment marketing involves certain emotions (like perseverance or courage) that are portrayed as being able to help consumers to achieve personal goals, it is expected that consumers are increasingly engaged when empowerment marketing is applied (Earl, 2017; Bauhau, 2012). The conveyed emotions in empowerment marketing will activate emotions with the consumer, which will result in high consumer engagement because of the ‘action, reaction’ that is triggered (Akgün, et al., 2013; Lovejoy & Saxton, 2012). Moreover, consumers are directly or indirectly addressed by the brand in empowerment marketing through slogans like Nike’s ‘Just do it’ (Kim & Sullivan, 2019). This aspect of empowerment marketing also triggers consumer engagement, because the consumer will feel the need to respond to the brand when it is addressed by it, and is therefore highly engaged when empowerment marketing is used.
In line with the literature on storytelling, cause branding, and empowerment marketing, each of the strategies were expected to have a positive influence on consumer engagement.
However, the most considerable amount of literature affirming this positive influence was found for storytelling (Fog et al., 2010; Lundqvist, et al., 2013; Gill, 2015; Silverstein & Fiske, 2003; Van Laer, et al., 2019; Van Laer, et al., 2014). The positive influence of cause branding and empowerment marketing on engagement was less substantiated in scientific studies due to the smaller scope of available literature. Therefore, it is expected that storytelling is associated with the highest amount of engagement as opposed to cause branding and empowerment marketing, since the positive influence of cause branding and empowerment marketing on engagement is less salient in academic literature. However, no research has confirmed yet that storytelling results in higher consumer engagement than empowerment marketing or cause branding when it is applied. Therefore, a second research question was formulated to investigate which emotional branding strategy is associated with the highest amount of consumer engagement compared to when the strategies are not applied:
RQ2. Which one of the different emotional branding strategies is associated with the highest amount of consumer engagement (shares, comments, and reactions) compared to when the strategy are not applied?
In order to measure consumer engagement for the three emotional branding strategies, the amount of reactions, shares and comments were calculated. This resulted in the following three sub-questions:
RQ2a. Which one of the different emotional branding strategies is associated with the highest amount of reactions compared to when the strategies are not applied?
RQ2b. Which one of the different emotional branding strategies is associated with the highest amount of shares compared to when the strategies are not applied?
RQ2c. Which one of the different emotional branding strategies is associated with the highest amount of comments compared to when the strategies are not applied?
Combinations of emotional branding strategies
As stated before, for the sample of sportswear commercials by leading sports brands, all three strategies of emotional branding were expected to have a positive influence on consumer engagement. Cause branding invokes moral emotions, which trigger consumers’ desire to serve a higher cause by supporting certain issues (Gupta & Pirsch, 2006; Haidt, 2003). This was expected to result in high consumer engagement as a result of consumers reacting to moral issues, and because of consumers sharing the fact that they support a certain issue. In addition, research has shown that storytelling has a positive influence on consumer engagement because of narrative transportation and persuasion, which enables consumers to empathize with characters and to activate their imagination (Van Laer et al., 2014; Van Laer et al., 2019). Finally, it is expected that empowerment marketing has a positive influence on consumer engagement, because the consumer is directly or indirectly addressed with empowering messages that help consumers to believe in themselves, which is expected to invoke supportive reactions.
However, besides expecting individual effects of the discussed emotional branding strategies on consumer engagement, the present study expected that brands that use multiple emotional branding strategies for the same commercial generate more consumer engagement than brands that use no emotional branding strategies or only one emotional branding strategy in a commercial. This positive influence was expected, because it is assumed that brands that use more than one emotional branding strategy can connect with consumers more easily because they have a greater chance of forging consumer-brand relationships by applying more strategies that help them to connect emotionally with the consumer. For example, if a brand combines empowerment marketing and storytelling in one commercial, these strategies are both expected to trigger
emotions and engagement with the consumer. This results in a stronger and deeper emotional bond between the consumer and the brand due to the double amount of emotions that are conveyed. Therefore, a final hypothesis was formulated as follows.
H2. The more emotional branding strategies are combined, the more consumer engagement is generated.
Method Sample
In order to test the formulated hypotheses, a quantitative content analysis of a representative sample of sportswear commercials by ten leading sport shoe brands, Nike, Adidas, Under Armour, Vans, Asics, Converse, New Balance, Reebok, Puma, and Jordan, over the years 2015-2019 was conducted. The focus lied on popular global shoe brands in order to ensure comparability. The sampling focused on globally leading sportswear brands that regularly use emotional branding in their commercials, and that own an active Facebook account. The ten sport shoe brands were chosen since they were rated as the top ten shoe brands in the world by several websites, taking into account customer’s interest, customer’s choice, and sales (Saini, 2019; Jegede, 2019; The Daily Records; 2019). Scientific prove for this list could not be found, however, they are comparable in many respects, such as their global scope, the focus on sportswear products, and their high brand popularity. As the comparability of the brands is the most important condition for this research, the chosen brands are suitable for this study. Some descriptive data on the sample in terms of the brand’s headquarter location, the amount of likes on Facebook, and the amount of followers on Facebook, as checked on May 15, 2019, are presented in Table 1 below.
Table 1. Descriptive data on sample Brand Headquarter location Amount of likes on Facebook Amount of followers on Facebook
Adidas Germany 35 million 36 million
Asics Japan 3.8 million 3.8 million
Converse United States 45 million 45 million
Jordan United States 9.7 million 9.6 million
New Balance United States 8 million 8 million
Nike United States 32 million 33 million
Puma Germany 20 million 20 million
Reebok United States 9.2 million 9.2 million
Under Armour United States 10 million 10 million
Vans United States 18 million 18 million
The sampling, coding, and context units for this analysis were Facebook messages containing video commercials. From each of the brands, the 999 most recent Facebook posts of the brands were scraped using the Facebook scraper ‘Netvizz’, which allows scraping worldwide Facebook data. Subsequently, all posts that were not labeled as being a video or that were posted before 2015 were removed. From the remaining videos, a random sample of 15 videos per brand, so 150 in total, was first selected by using Excel.
Afterwards, some videos were excluded based on formulated exclusion criteria. The video commercials had to be either in English, contain English subtitles, or contain solely music, due to the coder’s language skillset. Another exclusion criterion was that the video had to be a commercial or a marketing effort of the brand. Therefore, the video had to be clearly developed by the brand itself, had to praise/glorify a brand or a product, and had to include a
minimum and maximum of one brand name in order to ensure that no other brand was marketed in the video. The last exclusion criterion for the videos was the video length. The video commercial had to contain a minimum video length of 6 seconds to ensure validity, and a maximum video length of 4 minutes in order to ensure feasibility. Based on these exclusion criteria, 6 cases were removed, which resulted in a cleaned dataset and total sample consisting of 144 videos (N = 144).
The consumer engagement was measured on Facebook, based on the Facebook post in which the video was embedded. Furthermore, the accompanying text of the video in the Facebook post was also coded as this can provide context for the video. The consumer engagement in the sample can be generalized for the worldwide engagement towards the emotional branding strategies in the commercials, as individuals from all around the world are able to create a
Facebook account. Moreover, the amount of reactions, shares and comments, together with a total sample of 144 videos, was expected to be large enough in order to be representative and to achieve reliable outcomes.
Code development
Firstly, some administrative variables were incorporated in the codebook, such as the coder, the date of the message in which the video was posted, the name of the brand, the amount of followers of the Facebook page, and the amount of likes of the Facebook page (See Appendix).
The independent variables for this study were: The use of storytelling, the use of cause branding, and the use of empowerment marketing in the videos. In line with Van Laer et al. (2014), storytelling was measured by looking at the presence of a narrative/story plot, a character or characters, a climax, and an outcome or end state. Cause branding was measured by looking at whether the video mentions a specific cause, issue or a voluntary engagement for society (doing good), and by looking at whether the brand financially supports this social issue/cause, which is in
line with theoretical definitions of the concept of cause branding (Kim & Johnson, 2011; Kim & Sullivan, 2019; Sheikh & Beise-Zee, 2011). Moreover, the study controlled for the aspect of a ‘good fit’ of the supported cause in the brand’s target market (Roy, 2010). In accordance with theory, empowerment marketing was measured by looking at whether the commercial either contains a literate or implicit empowering message (Earl, 2017; Bauhau, 2012; Kim & Sullivan, 2019). Examples of all the emotional branding strategies were provided in the codebook in order to illustrate when a strategy is present (See Appendix). All independent variables were
operationalized as binary dichotomous variables. The two available options were 0 (strategy not present) and 1 (strategy present).
Consumer engagement was examined by coding reactions, comments, and shares of sportswear commercials on Facebook, as these are the types of measurable consumer
engagement that Facebook offers. The amount of reactions, shares, and comments was coded, but not the content of the comments or the shares. Altogether, these form a large sample of replies to the commercials that results in valid outcomes on the consumer engagement with regard to the commercials. Therefore, the dependent variables were: The amount of reactions, the amount of shares, and the amount of comments.
The amount of reactions was calculated by the amount of likes, loves, haha faces, wow faces, sad faces, and angry faces the video received on Facebook at the time of coding. The amount shares was calculated by the amount of times that the video was shared on Facebook at the time of coding. The amount of comments was calculated by the amount of times that the video was commented on on Facebook. All dependent variables were frequencies, which made them continuous variables.
Inter-coder reliability
As the total sample consisted of 144 commercials (N = 144), 15 videos of the total sample were double coded by an extra coder given the need of 10% double coding for inter-coder reliability. The results of the first inter-inter-coder reliability test were satisfactory for all variables (α > .7), except for climax (α = .63) and end state (α = .4) of storytelling. Therefore, a meeting was held in order to clarify these two variables. The definitions of the two variables were elaborated in the codebook, based on the main points of discussion, and some other small adjustments were made. A second inter-coder reliability test was performed, and had satisfactory results for climax and end state (both α > .7). All Krippendorff’s alpha values are presented in Table 2.
Table 2. Inter-coder reliability tests: Krippendorff’s alpha values
Variable name ICR 1 ICR 2
Storytelling: Narrative .80 .80
Storytelling: Climax .63 .72
Storytelling: Outcome .40 .79
Cause branding .73 .73
Financial support cause 1 1
Cause fit 1 1
Empowerment marketing .80 .80
Average .77 .83
Standardization check
To check whether the amount of consumer engagement varied between the sportswear brands, a one-way ANOVA test was executed before other analyses were conducted. The test
showed that the brands differed in the amount of comments, reactions, and shares that they received on their Facebook messages.
Results Hypothesis 1
The first hypothesis was formulated as: Commercials that use emotional branding strategies are associated with more consumer engagement in terms of shares, reactions, and comments than commercials that do not use emotional branding strategies.
First, the means and standard deviations are tested for the original engagement
variables (reactions, comments, and shares). Afterwards, the engagement variables (reactions, comments, and shares) were transformed to dummy, normally distributed variables by using log10, since the original engagement variables were not normally distributed. Finally, three independent samples t-tests were performed on these log10 transformed engagement variables to test the first hypothesis.
On average, sportswear videos that use emotional branding strategies have more shares (M = 470.53, SD = 1847.13) than sportswear videos that do not use emotional branding strategies (M = 30.33, SD = 8.43). This difference was significant t(141.70) = -2.72, p = .007; it represented a small effect size r = .22.
On average, sportswear videos that use emotional branding strategies have more reactions (M = 2786.42, SD = 819.82) than sportswear videos that do not use emotional branding strategies (M = 687.44, SD = 1159.78). This difference was not significant t(143.77) = -.80, p = .426; it represented a very small effect size r = .07.
On average, sportswear videos that use emotional branding strategies have more comments (M = 262.27, SD = 1003.65) than sportswear videos that do not use emotional
branding strategies (M = 49.06, SD = 169.90). This difference was not significant t(143.78) = -.98, p = .327; it represented a very small effect size r = .08.
The first hypothesis was partly accepted, meaning that commercials that use emotional branding strategies were associated with significantly more consumer engagement in terms of shares than commercials that do not use emotional branding strategies. The results for
reactions and comments were not significant.
Research question 2
The second research question was formulated as: Which one of the different emotional branding strategies is associated with the highest amount of consumer engagement (shares, comments, and reactions) compared to when the strategies are not applied?
To answer this question, three independent samples t-tests were first performed on the original three dependent engagement (reactions, shares, and comments) variables to test the sample sizes, means, and standard deviations for the grouping variables: Storytelling, cause branding, and empowerment marketing.
Afterwards, in order to check whether differences were significant, three independent samples t-tests were performed on the three dependent log10 transformed engagement (reactions, shares, and comments) variables for the grouping variables: Storytelling, cause branding, and empowerment marketing.
As seen in Table 3, the largest absolute mean in terms of the amount of shares was achieved by storytelling (M = 585.68, SD = 2155.72).
Table 3. Descriptive statistics for shares on emotional branding strategies Shares N Mean SD With storytelling Without storytelling 65 79 585.68 86.04 2155.72 371.96 With empowerment Without empowerment 87 57 496.98 28.58 1896.64 58.40
With cause branding Without cause branding
21 123 251.71 321.79 943.29 1566.10
Table 4 shows that the difference between the shares for storytelling – no storytelling was significant t(106.33) = -2.04, p < .05; it represented a small effect size r = .19.
Furthermore, there was a significant difference between the shares for empowerment – no empowerment t(140.65) = -3.23, p < .05; it represented a small effect size r = .26.
Table 4. T-test for shares on emotional branding strategies
Shares t df p r
Storytelling – no storytelling -2.04 106.33 .044 .19
Empowerment – no empowerment -3.23 140.65 .002 .26
Cause branding – no cause branding .93 26.41 .361 .18
As seen in Table 5, the largest absolute mean in terms of the amount of comments was also achieved by storytelling (M = 336.14, SD = 1181.59).
Table 5. Descriptive statistics for comments on emotional branding strategies Comments N Mean SD With storytelling Without storytelling 65 79 336.14 61.15 1181.59 182.50 With empowerment Without empowerment 87 57 277.22 44.95 1030.40 162.69
With cause branding Without cause branding
21 123 177.81 186.55 411.05 864.93
Table 6 shows that the difference between the comments for storytelling – no
storytelling was not significant t(142) = -1.32, p = .190; it represented a very small effect size r = .11.
Table 6. T-test for comments on emotional branding strategies
Comments t df p r
Storytelling – no storytelling -1.32 142 .190 .11
Empowerment – no empowerment -1.80 140.94 .074 .15
Cause branding – no cause branding -.25 142 .827 .02
As seen in Table 7, the largest absolute mean in terms of the amount of reactions was reached by storytelling (M = 3467.92, SD = 9160.94).
Table 7. Descriptive statistics for reactions on emotional branding strategies Reactions N Mean SD With storytelling Without storytelling 65 79 3467.92 844.09 9160.94 1699.48 With empowerment Without empowerment 87 57 2928.69 654.42 8065.23 1114.84
With cause branding Without cause branding
21 123 2259.62 1988.99 5741.67 6516.81
Table 8 shows that the difference between the reactions for storytelling – no
storytelling was not significant t(113.15) = -1.11, p = .268; it represented a very small effect size r = .10.
Table 8. T-test for reactions on emotional branding strategies
Reactions t df p r
Storytelling – no storytelling -1.11 113.15 .268 .10
Empowerment – no empowerment -1.01 141.78 .312 .08
Cause branding – no cause branding .85 25.40 .402 .17
To summarize, the second research question was answered as: Videos with storytelling were associated with significantly more shares than videos without storytelling. In addition, videos with empowerment were associated with significantly more shares than videos without empowerment.
Furthermore, some exploratory results show that storytelling was associated with the highest amount of consumer engagement (shares, comments, and reactions) as opposed to cause branding and empowerment marketing. Whether the absolute means do statistically differ from each other was not tested due to the small sample size.
Hypothesis 2
The second hypothesis was formulated as: The more emotional branding strategies are combined, the more consumer engagement (shares, reactions and comments) is generated.
To investigate H2, the videos were divided into four groups: 0, 1, 2, and 3 strategies. The sample sizes, engagement means, and standard deviations are presented in Table 9, Table 10, and Table 11 below.
Table 9. Descriptive statistics for comments on the amount of emotional branding strategies
Amount of strategies N Mean comments SD comments
0 strategies 1 strategies 2 strategies 3 strategies 52 29 45 18 49.06 68.03 416.44 189.78 169.90 194.98 1390.27 440.42
Table 10. Descriptive statistics for shares on the amount of emotional branding strategies
Amount of strategies N Mean shares SD shares
0 strategies 1 strategies 2 strategies 3 strategies 52 29 45 18 30.33 175.79 735.09 284.00 60.78 604.15 2505.99 1018.91
Table 11. Descriptive statistics for reactions on the amount of emotional branding strategies
Amount of strategies N Mean reactions SD reactions
0 strategies 1 strategies 2 strategies 3 strategies 52 29 45 18 687.44 1040.83 4022.71 2508.06 1159.78 2344.63 10296.70 6180.81
The dummy, log10 transformed engagement variables were used again for this calculation. However, the ‘3 strategies’ group was not normally distributed for the three dependent variables and the sample size (18) was too small to assume normality. Therefore, a one-way ANOVA was performed using the other three groups (0 to 2 strategies), which were normally distributed for the three dependent variables.
There was a non-significant effect for comments, F(2, 123) = 2.76, p = .067; it represented a small effect size ω = .17. In addition, there was a non-significant effect for reactions. The assumption of homogeneity was violated; therefore, the Welch statistic was used, F(2, 68.19) = 1.82, p = .171; it represented a small effect size ω = .15.
However, there was a significant effect for shares. The assumption of homogeneity was violated; therefore, the Welch statistic was used, F(2, 63.22) = 6.16, p = .004; it represented a medium effect size ω = .29. The Games-Howell post-hoc test revealed that applying two strategies (M = 735.09, SD = 2505.99) resulted in significantly more shares than applying 0 strategies (M = 30.33, SD = 60.78), with p = .002. The other comparisons were non-significant.
The combination of the two strategies that led to significantly more shares than 0 strategies was storytelling with empowerment, since cause branding was only used in 21 videos (N = 21), and obtained less shares when it was applied (See Table 3), while the amount of shares for empowerment marketing and storytelling was significantly higher when they were applied (See Table 4). Table 12 shows the sample sizes, mean shares, and standard deviations of four groups: No emotional branding, storytelling, empowerment, and empowerment + storytelling.
Table 12. Descriptive statistics for shares on storytelling + empowerment marketing
Shares N Mean SD
Shares no emotional branding 52 30.33 60.78
Shares storytelling 5 10.40 13.61
Shares empowerment 27 193.33 624.22
Shares storytelling + empowerment 60 633.62 2238.43
As seen in the table above, the highest mean for shares was achieved when storytelling and empowerment marketing were combined (M = 633.62, SD = 2238.43). As the sample size of the ‘storytelling’ group (5) was too small to assume normality, two t-test were performed to compare ‘no emotional branding’ with ‘empowerment’, and ‘no emotional branding’ with
‘storytelling + empowerment’. No significant differences were found between no emotional branding and empowerment. However, a significant difference was found for shares between no emotional branding and storytelling + empowerment t(94.25) = -2.89, p = .005; it
represented a small effect size r = .29. The results are displayed in the bar chart below.
Figure 2. Bar chart of the mean amount of shares by the number of applied strategies.
The second hypothesis was partly accepted, meaning that the more emotional branding strategies were combined, the more consumer engagement in terms of shares was generated. However, H2 could only be tested for a maximum combination of two strategies, and the results for reactions and comments were not significant. Moreover, the results show that videos with storytelling in combination with empowerment marketing were associated with significantly more shares as opposed to videos without emotional branding strategies.
p < .05
Discussion and conclusion
The present study conducted a quantitative content analysis to examine the influence of three emotional branding strategies, storytelling, empowerment marketing, and cause branding, on consumer engagement in terms of shares, comments, and reactions on Facebook. The main theoretical contributions and findings of the conducted study are discussed in this section.
The first hypothesis was partly accepted, meaning that the first core finding of this research was that commercials that use emotional branding strategies were associated with significantly more consumer engagement in terms of shares than commercials that do not use emotional branding strategies. This finding is in line with theories confirming the positive influence of emotional branding on consumer engagement (Kim & Sullivan, 2019;
Thompson, et al., 2006; Akgün, et al., 2013; Lovejoy & Saxton, 2012; Priya & Anbarasu, 2015; Scott, 2015). However, no significant findings were found for comments and reactions.
The significant increase of shares for videos with emotional branding strategies as opposed to videos without emotional branding strategies could be explained by the fact that videos with emotional branding are more transformational, and videos without emotional branding are more informational. That is, transformational content is focused on affecting consumers’ emotions or senses, and informational content is focused on affecting consumers’ cognition or logic (Wells, 1980). Transformational content uses an ego strategy, which means that it wants to appeal to consumers’ self-perceptions and ego (Wells, 1980). This could explain why transformational content is more easily shared than informational content, because shared content becomes a part of the consumer’s social media identity and self-presentation, as it is presented on the consumer’s profile page (Kim & Yang, 2017).
Following the second research question, the study found that storytelling and empowerment marketing were associated with significantly more shares as opposed to the
case when the strategies were not applied. Yet no significant effect was found on comments and reactions. Furthermore, cause branding had no significant effect on consumer
engagement. Interestingly, storytelling showed the highest absolute means for all three types of engagement compared to the two other strategies. Whether the absolute engagement means do statistically differ between the three individual strategies was not tested due to the small sample size.
The significant effect of storytelling on consumer engagement (shares) was expected because it is analyzed and substantiated in a high amount of studies (Fog et al., 2010; Lundqvist, et al., 2013; Gill, 2015; Silverstein & Fiske, 2003; Van Laer, et al., 2019; Van Laer, et al., 2014). The effect of cause branding and empowerment marketing on engagement was less salient in academic studies, because of the smaller amount of available literature on these concepts. However, the significant effect of empowerment marketing on consumer engagement (shares) is in line with several studies (Earl, 2017; Bauhau, 2012; Akgün, et al., 2013; Lovejoy & Saxton, 2012; Kim & Sullivan, 2019).
The second hypothesis was partly accepted, meaning that the more emotional branding strategies were combined, the more consumer engagement in terms of shares was generated. Moreover, the results showed that videos with storytelling in combination with empowerment were associated with significantly more shares as opposed to videos without emotional
branding strategies. Due to the small sample size of storytelling (5), H2 could not be tested for 0 to 3 emotional branding strategies. No significant findings were found for comments,
reactions, or for cause branding.
The significant effect of videos with a combination of storytelling and empowerment as opposed to videos without emotional branding on consumer engagement (shares) could be explained by the fact that the consumers are engaged in more ways when more strategies are combined, which resulted in higher engagement rates. The outcome that when the more
emotional branding strategies were combined, ranging from 0 to 2, the more consumer engagement in terms of shares was generated confirms this statement.
In all statistical tests, no significant differences were found for cause branding, which could have been due to the small sample size of videos with cause branding (21) in this study, or by the fact that consumers can be skeptic about cause branding because they can see it as ‘greenwashing’ (Roy, 2010). There was also no significant effect of emotional branding on reactions and comments, which could be explained by the fact that video content is only a positive predictor for shares (Kim & Yang, 2017).
The outcomes of this study have valuable and convenient practical implications, as a share weights about the same as two comments and fourteen reactions (Calero, 2013). This could be explained by the high consumer involvement that is needed for sharing content, since shares take more cognitive effort compared to reactions and comments (Kim & Yang, 2017). Therefore, it could be stated that the effect of emotional branding on consumer engagement was significant for the highest form of consumer engagement (shares). This outcome has a social relevance as it could help brands in developing a solid communication strategy for their brand. However, further research is required in order to confirm these results and implications.
The research had limitations in terms of the social media platforms that were analyzed, since the study focused solely on Facebook. Future research should examine the effect of emotional branding strategies on consumer engagement on other social media channels, such as YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram, in order to create a more substantiated and general perspective on the influence of emotional branding on consumer engagement. Another limitation was that the Facebook accounts of the sportswear brands were followed and liked by different amounts of consumers. This could have affected the amount of engagement that was reached for the different videos. Future research could take this into account in order to
give more reliable measurements. However, most brands had a similar amount of followers and likes, and due to the large amount of brands investigated, the results can be considered reliable.
Another limitation of the study was that paid and unpaid posts could not be
distinguished, which could have resulted in different amounts of engagement as paid posts reach more consumers. Nonetheless, due to the large sample of videos that were analyzed, this will not have largely affected the results. Future research could consider the different engagement rates of paid and unpaid posts, which can result in more sound outcomes. In the statistical analyses, some non-parametric tests were performed, as some variables were not normally distributed. This could have influenced some results, since non-parametric tests provide less solid measures. Future research could improve the analyses by testing if the variables are normally distributed before performing statistical tests. As for the second research question, it has been found that the absolute means of the three types of engagement when storytelling was used as a strategy were the highest, although these results have to be tested for statistical significance in future research.
In conclusion, the research question “To what extent do emotional branding strategies of sportswear brands affect consumer engagement on Facebook?” can be answered as: Storytelling and empowerment marketing strategies of sportswear brands, especially
combined, significantly affect consumer engagement on Facebook in terms of the amount of shares. Significant differences were found for shares in terms of empowerment versus no empowerment, storytelling versus no storytelling, and storytelling in combination with empowerment versus no emotional branding strategies.
In general, the findings are relevant for theory and practice, as an influence of
empowerment marketing and storytelling on Facebook shares has been found, which can help brands in their communication strategies and which adds valuable insights to consumer
behavior theory. However, future research is needed to confirm the influence of storytelling and empowerment marketing on consumer engagement. Notwithstanding, due to the large scope of brands and videos investigated, the present study contributes to a more thorough understanding of emotional branding strategies on Facebook for theory and practice, and indicated the value of emotional branding.
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Appendix: Codebook
1. Who is the coder?
• Roos
• Bibiche (extra coder)
2. Is the Facebook video a sportswear brand commercial (in English)?
The Facebook video can be considered ‘in English’ when one of the following apply: • The commercial contains the English language
• The commercial contains English subtitles • The commercial contains solely music
The Facebook video can be considered a commercial when all of the following apply: 1: One brand name is included.
2: No other brand names are mentioned.
3: The video is praising/glorifying a brand or a product. 4: The video is clearly developed by the brand itself.
The video should have a length between 6 seconds and 4 minutes. The accompanying text of the video in the Facebook post is also coded.
• Yes
• No → stop coding here
3. When has the commercial been posted?
4. Which sportswear brand posted the commercial? Top 10 sport shoe brands in the world 2019:
• Nike • Adidas • Jordan • Puma • Converse • Asics • New Balance • Vans • Under Armour • Reebok
5. How many followers does the Facebook page of the sportswear brand have? State the amount of page followers.
6. How many likes does the Facebook page of the sportswear brand have? State the amount of page likes.
Measuring the presence of storytelling in the sportswear commercial.
7. Does the commercial contain a narrative/plot with a character or characters? A commercial contains a narrative/plot when a temporal sequence of events is presented. ‘Temporal’ can mean chronologically or by using flashbacks or flash-forwards. The
et al., 2014 ). The character is often ‘the hero’ or ‘the outlaw’. Storytelling encompasses a sequence of events in which a transition of a story character or story characters takes place from one state to another state, and the story is told by a storyteller to an audience (Bennett and Royle, 2004).
Examples:
1: A voice-over tells a story about one or more people.
2: “This is Maria, Maria went from being a fast runner to the fastest runner ever.” 3: You see a character evolve from child to adult.
4: The character struggles first, but then succeeds.
5: A character or characters tell(s) its/their personal story.
6: Someone explains how he or she achieved something, like losing weight or becoming a professional athlete.
• Yes
• No → go to 11
8. Does the commercial have a climax?
The commercial has a climax when an increasing dramatic intensity of the plot occurs which reaches its top at a climax (Van Laer et al., 2014 ). A climax can also be a turning point that is presented in the narrative.
Examples:
1: Music intensifies at one point to show a successful or sad moment. 2: Music intensifies at one point to indicate an emotional moment.
3: A turning point is presented in the narrative.
4: “Everything was hard in my life, but then suddenly it got better.” 5: Someone wins a game or succeeds at something.
• Yes
• No → go to 11
9. Does the commercial have an outcome or end state?
The commercial has an outcome or end state when the characters provide a resolution of a problem or misfortunate event at the end (Van Laer et al., 2014 ). An outcome can also be a clear ending of a story, such as a conclusion, summary or a powerful end quote of the story.
Examples: 1: “Just do it.”
2: “I was always bullied because I had obese, but that stopped when I lost weight through playing sports.”
3: “Being a woman can be hard, but belief in yourself and then nothing is impossible.” 4: “Dream crazy.”
5: “I have spent my life practicing sports, and now I am a professional athlete.”
• Yes
• No
Measuring the presence of cause branding in the sportswear commercial. 10. Does the commercial mention a specific social issue/cause?
