A perspective on customer engagement in the customer decision making journey

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A perspective on customer engagement

in the customer decision making journey

Master Thesis Author Priscilla Kirsten Vermeer 11397845

Master Thesis Supervisor Dr. J. (Joris) Demmers

MSc Business Administration | Marketing Track | University of Amsterdam Date: 22nd_{of June 2018}

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STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY

This document is written by Priscilla Kirsten Vermeer, who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.

“I declare that the text and the work presented in this document are original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it”.

The Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Amsterdam is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This thesis was written as a final part of my Master in Business Administration, more specifically the Marketing track of this Master at the University of Amsterdam. Over the last half a year, I was given the opportunity to conduct academic research about a topic of interest and I have chosen the topic customer engagement. While extensively analyzing literature and conducting a statistical experiment, I have not only learned a lot about this interesting topic, but also contributed academically by extending current customer engagement literature with new insights.

This was not possible without the help of others, which I would like to thank deeply. First of all, I would like to show my gratitude to my thesis supervisor Dr. Joris Demmers who was always full of enthusiasm, support and inspiration while being critical at the same time. Next to that, he stimulated my academic way of thinking and research skills, which I really appreciated. Secondly I would also like to thank Unilever for the opportunity to include marketing visuals of one of their brands in this research, as this added interesting content

regarding customer engagement.

Thirdly, I would like to thank the participants of the experiment of this research since their input was very much needed and appreciated. Lastly, I would like to thank my family and friends for their support throughout writing this thesis. It has not always been an easy process, but I can honestly say I enjoyed writing it and it helped me to develop and grow. For you as a reader, I hope this thesis will be interesting to read and next to that, add to your knowledge on customer engagement.

Priscilla Kirsten Vermeer

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ABSTRACT

Customer engagement continues to rise in importance however, there are still unexplored phenomena in this area. This research has the purpose to shed more light on the different type of touchpoints that stimulate different levels of customer engagement among the various phases of the customer decision making journey. The research question therefore states: “What are the touchpoints that drive customer engagement levels in different stages of the customer decision making journey?” Quantitative research was conducted by means of an online experiment (N= 382). This experiment had a 2 (touchpoints: informational vs entertaining ) x 3 (stages: pre-purchase vs post-pre-purchase vs loyalty loop) full factorial between-subjects design, whereby respondents were randomly assigned to one of the six conditions. The outcomes of this research show non-significant results for the different types of touchpoints to stimulate different levels of customer engagement. Next to that, only one moderation was found in the relationship between the different types of touchpoints and levels of customer engagement. Namely that the positive relationship of entertaining online brand-owned touchpoints and activational engagement in terms of purchase intention is moderated by the stage in the customer decision making journey, such that this relationship is stronger in the loyalty loop. So, to answer the research question: entertaining touchpoints drive offline activational customer engagement in the loyalty loop of the customer decision making journey. This research contributes theoretically by extending current customer engagement literature. New insights are gathered regarding different types of touchpoints and their relation to the complete customer engagement concept with all its levels. Furthermore, this research is the first one to look at that in light of the various phases of the customer decision making journey. Adding this perspective in customer engagement literature is crucial due to the influence of customer engagement in the customer decision making journey these days. Moreover, it’s in line with the research priorities of 2018 - 2020 of the Marketing Science Institute. They call for a better understanding of the most effective strategies to drive customer engagement along the customer journey, in which this research helps.

Keywords: customer engagement, customer decision making journey, Facebook posts, brand post content, informational, entertainment, touchpoints

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LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Tables

Table 1: Definitions of customer engagement Table 2: Dimensions of customer engagement

Table 3: Adjusted items of informative brand-owned touchpoints Table 4: Adjusted items of entertaining brand-owned touchpoints Table 5: Cronbach’s alpha, means and standard deviations pre-test Table 6: Means and standard deviations per touchpoint main experiment Table 7: Experimental design main experiment

Table 8: Adjusted items of customer engagement Table 9: Items of Facebook usage

Table 10: Pre-test confirmation check Table 11: Reliability check main experiment

Table 12: Participants per condition main experiment

Table 13: Means, standard deviations and correlations main experiment Table 14: Means and standard errors main experiment

Table 15: Means and standard errors per stage main experiment Table 16: Hypotheses results main experiment

Figures

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1. INTRODUCTION

Could it be that nowadays, the best salespeople aren’t on the payroll of companies? Could it be that the best salespeople of 2018 are customers? The world of marketing is wondering, because customer engagement continues to rise in importance (Howard, 2018).

Due to the digitalization and intense competition, interactions among customers have increased manifold and therefore customer engagement is becoming of uttermost importance for companies (Kumar & Pansari, 2016). Customer engagement is defined as: “a customer’s voluntary resource contribution to a firm’s marketing function, going beyond financial patronage” (Harmeling et al., 2017, p. 5). Examples of customer engagement are customer reviews for a product or brand, word of mouth, blogging or crowdsourcing (Kumar & Pansari, 2017). Customer engagement marketing is described as: “a firm’s effort to motivate, empower and measure customer contributions to marketing functions” (Harmeling et al., 2017, p.1). Worldwide, well-known brands are embracing customer engagement marketing. Starbucks for example even initiated a complete website to a particular type of customer engagement, namely crowdsourcing. Their website “ideas.starbucks.com” is an example of crowd wisdom, which is a type of crowdsourcing that consists of sharing knowledge and ideas (Solemon et al., 2013). Starbucks believes in an online community for coffee lovers to share their ideas and thoughts to improve the Starbucks experience. Some of the initiatives from this website are implemented worldwide, as free Wi-Fi and the Skinny Latte (Starbucks Newsroom, 2013). Starbucks customers engage on “ideas.starbucks.com”, by voluntary contributing their resources, knowledge and creativity in this case, to the marketing of the firm by helping Starbucks to create new initiatives (Harmeling et al., 2017).

Customer engagement does not only lead to new initiatives in companies, according to a study by Gallup fully engaged customers account for 23% increase in revenue whereas actively disengaged customers created a revenue drop of 13% (Kumar & Pansari, 2016). These results were generalized for companies across industries and show the relevance of customer engagement for firms.

In the interactive and dynamic environment of the business market these days, customer engagement is an important strategic imperative that enhances business performance and creates superior customer advantage (Brodie et al., 2011). As digitalization revolutionized the business market, consumer behavior changed (Fotis, Behualis & Rossides, 2012). The internet is now a part of consumers everyday lives and the ability for them to create, maintain and update online content is replacing traditional ways of marketing communication (Fotis, Behualis &

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9 Rossides, 2012). Consumers now massively create and share their thoughts and experiences of companies or brands online and next to that, they continuously use the web for advice (O’Reilly, 2005). The consequence of this behavior is that consumer-firm interactions changed and online engagement is now a crucial part in the customer decision making journey (WNS, 2016). The importance of customer engagement in the customer journey is recognized by several authors. Moran et al. (2014) for example state consumers search actively online for information during their customer journey to make their purchase decision and consumers are particularly influenced by online reviews and e-WOM, both forms of customer engagement.

With these developments an understanding of customer engagement in the customer journey is of high urgency for firms. Specifically in the context of the types of touchpoints that stimulate different levels of engagement in various stages of the customer journey. This is very important for companies to know because touchpoints that drive engagement in one phase, do not automatically drive engagement in another phase.

For example, in the beginning of the customer journey most consumers search actively online for information (Moran et al., 2014) and therefore a short descriptive movie as an informative touchpoints can rightfully capture their attention in the pre-purchase phase, whereby attention stimulates cognitive engagement (Dessart et al., 2016). However, later in the customer journey when consumers have already bought the product in the after-purchase phase, informative touchpoints probably won’t grab their attention that much because they already have knowledge about the product (Dessart et al., 2016). Therefore other touchpoints might result in more engagement here, a small gift at a next purchase for example, whereby this pleasurable touchpoint stimulates a good feeling for customers and with that affective engagement (Dessart et al., 2016). So, by the use of the right touchpoints in the right phases of the customer journey, companies can create and benefit from customer engagement.

However, there are still unexplored phenomena in this area. While the importance of customer engagement and use of a particular touchpoint to stimulate a particular level of engagement are acknowledged in literature (Manchanda, Packard &Pattabhiramaiah, 2015; Wu, Fan & Zhao, 2018) no research has been done regarding different types of touchpoints and all levels of customer engagement, let alone in perspective of various phases of the customer decision making journey. To resolve the literature gap, future research is essential and therefore this research will contribute theoretically by answering the following research question:

“What are the touchpoints that drive customer engagement levels in different stages of

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10 A quantitative approach will be used to answer this research question and data will be generated via an experimental design. The aim of this study is to contribute theoretically by extending current customer engagement literature. New insights will be gathered regarding different types of touchpoints and their relation to the complete customer engagement concept with all its levels. Furthermore, this research will be the first one to look at that in light of the various phases of the customer decision making journey, which is currently not explored and seen as a literature gap. Adding this perspective in customer engagement literature is crucial due to the influence of customer engagement in the customer decision making journey these days so understanding the full concept with all its dimensions is of vital importance (WNS, 2016). Moreover, it’s completely in line with the research priorities of 2018-2020 of the Marketing Science Institute (MSI). They call for a better understanding of the most effective strategies to drive customer engagement along the customer journey (MSI, 2018).

The results of this study will contribute practically by helping managers to better understand and use different drivers of different levels of customer engagement in the customer journey. Which is important, since as mentioned touchpoints that drive engagement in one phase, do not automatically drive engagement in another phase. Knowing the right drivers for the right engagement levels in various phases of the customer journey enables companies to create an overarching customer engagement plan which unlocks all the levels of customer engagement in the complete customer journey and results in many benefits as an increase in revenue (Kumar & Pansari, 2016).

The following sections of this research will present the literature review, followed by the methodology, results and discussion. Subsequently, limitations and suggestions for further research are described.

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2. LITERATURE REVIEW

Up next, the existing literature regarding customer engagement is reviewed. It includes the customer engagement definition, marketing, dimensions, measurement, antecedents and consequences as well as its relation to the customer journey. Followed by the conceptual framework and hypotheses of this research.

2.1 Customer Engagement

In the past years, a significant amount of studies have researched customer engagement. Prior to 2007, the term was unused while it has now more than 6 million Google search hits (Harmeling et al., 2017).

Many researchers have defined the concept customer engagement in their research. Hamerling et al. (2017) present the most recent definition which is given earlier namely: “a customer’s voluntary resource contribution to a firm’s marketing function, going beyond financial patronage” (Harmeling et al., 2017, p.5). The term is clarified by explaining the contribution of the customer by knowledge stores and creativity.

Another example of an author that researched the conceptualization of customer engagement is Hollebeek (2011), she explains it as: “the level of a customer’s cognitive, emotional and behavioral investment in specific brand interactions” (Hollebeek, 2011, p.12). She presents an analysis that shows a degree of conceptual alignment between the definition, namely that immersion, passion and activation relate to the degree to which customers want to put cognitive, emotional and behavioral resources in brand interactions (Hollebeek, 2011). The table on the next page shows several definitions of customer engagement, which were identified from 2009 till 2017.

2.2 Customer Engagement Marketing

Two types of engagement marketing initiatives for firms are task-based and experiential-based initiatives (Harmeling et al., 2017). Task-based initiatives are initiatives whereby customers complete a structured task by using their resources that involves effort and is mostly followed with a reward. An example is giving an online referral for a discount (Harmeling et al., 2017).

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Author Definition

Bowden (2009) “a psychological process that models the underlying

mechanisms by which customer loyalty forms for new customers of a service brand as well as the mechanisms by which loyalty may be maintained for repeat purchase customers of a service brand”.

Van Doorn et al. (2010) “the customers’ behavioral manifestation toward a

brand or firm, beyond purchase, resulting from motivational drivers”.

Hollebeek (2011) “the level of a customer’s cognitive, emotional and

behavioral investment in specific brand interactions”.

Jaakkola and Alexander (2014) “behaviors through which customers make

voluntary resource contributions that have a brand or firm focus but go beyond what is fundamental to transactions, occur in interactions between the focal object and/or other actors, and result from

motivational drivers”.

So et al. (2014) “a customers’ personal connection to a brand as

manifested in cognitive, affective, and behavioral actions outside of the purchase situation”.

Harmeling et al. (2017) “a customer’s voluntary resource contribution to a

firm’s marketing function, going beyond financial patronage”.

Table 1: Definitions of customer engagement

Experiential initiatives consist of events that are central to engagement, enriching customers and the firm with content. Absolut is an example of a company that often implements experiential engagement initiatives with surprise events to generate unique experiences for current and new customers (Absolut, 2017). These events are designed to create and capture contributions to the company’s marketing. In 2015 for example, Absolut held a party in Los Angeles as a part of their “Absolut Nights campaign”. They invited around 400 social influencers for a party that reinvented nightlife to stimulate creating and sharing of Absolut content. Absolut stimulated contributions by providing the influencers with an Absolute Nights photo filter and hashtag: #AbsoluteNights. The social influencers contributed to the marketing of Absolut by boosting content of the Vodka brand in their worldwide network (Harmeling et al., 2017).

2.3 Customer Engagement Dimensions and Measurement

Similar to the definition of customer engagement, many is also written regarding the dimensions of customer engagement. Table 2 illustrates the diversity with examples in which engagement dimensions are defined. A part of the literature sees customer engagement as an unidimensional construct and is focused on either the emotional, cognitive or behavioral aspect of it (Brodie et

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13 al., 2011). However, the rich scope of engagement is missing here and therefore, the prominence of the literature sees engagement as a multidimensional construct, consisting of cognitive, emotional, behavioral and social dimensions (Islam & Rahman, 2016).

Author Dimension Definition

Sprott et al. (2009)

Undimensional

Emotional “an individual difference representing consumers’ propensity to include important brands as part of how they view themselves”.

Ángeles Oviedo-García et al. (2014) Behavioral

“the manifestation of commitment (through the intensity of interactions and their implications) toward the offers and activities of a brand, product or firm (configurations of value), regardless of whether it is initiated by the individual or the firm”.

Mollen and Wilson (2010)

Multidimensional

Cognitive/Emotional “a cognitive and affective commitment to an active relationship with the brand as personified by the website or other computer-mediated entities designed to communicate brand value. It is characterized by the dimensions of dynamic and sustained cognitive processing and the satisfying of instrumental value (utility and relevance) and experiential value (emotional congruence) with the narrative schema encountered in computer mediated entities”.

Brodie et al. (2013)

Cognitive/Emotional/ Behavioral

“a multidimensional concept comprising cognitive, emotional, and/or behavioral dimensions, and plays a central role in the process of relational exchange where other relational concepts are engagement antecedents and/or consequences in iterative engagement processes within the brand community”.

Vivek et al. (2014)

Cognitive/Emotional/ Behavioral/Social

“goes beyond purchase and is the level of the customer’s (or potential customer’s) interactions and connections with the brand or firm’s offerings or activities, often involving others in the social network created around the brand/ offering/activity”.

Table 2: Dimensions of customer engagement

Dessart et al. (2016) are one of the few that developed a valid customer engagement scale. They focused on understanding the levels of affective, cognitive and behavioral manifestations that go beyond exchange. Affective is described as the “summative and enduring level of emotions experienced by a consumer” (p.35) and measured in enthusiasm and enjoyment. Cognitive is seen as a “set of enduring and active mental states that a consumer experiences” (p.35) and is measured by attention and absorption (absorption as in concentration for example). Behavioral is lastly profiled as: “behavioral manifestations towards an engagement partner, beyond purchase, which results from motivational drivers” (p.36) and consists of sharing, learning and endorsing (Dessart et al., 2016, p.35 & 36).

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14 2.4 Customer Engagement Antecedents

Several antecedents of customer engagement are addressed in literature. Vivek et al. (2012) looked at customer engagement antecedents in perspective of the consumer and established consumer participation and involvement as important ones. Consumer participation is “the degree to which a customer is involved in producing and delivering the service” (Dabholkar, 1990, p.8) and can positively influence customer engagement because it creates an interactive situation which is of interest for the customer and company and with that, generates more enthusiasm and engagement (Vivek et al., 2012). Consumer involvement is “the perceived relevance of the object based on inherent needs, values, and interests” (Zaichkowsky, 1985, p.8). This personal relevance for the consumer shows a level of interest and caring and can for that reason positively influence customer engagement (Vivek et al., 2012).

De Vries et al. (2012) researched customer engagement antecedents from the perspective of the company and particularly concerning its marketing. They looked at Social Media marketing as a way to foster customer engagement and state brand post characteristics and brand post content are important antecedents (De Vries et al., 2012). A brand post characteristic as interactivity can for example stimulate consumers to react thereby positively influencing customer engagement. Looking at brand post content, entertaining content for instance in form of an entertaining Facebook post from a brand can generate a more positive attitude among consumers relating to more willingness to like, react or share the post on Facebook, all forms of online customer engagement (De Vries et al., 2012).

2.5 Customer Engagement Consequences

Customer engagement creates (in)direct contributions of customers that can have tangible or intangible benefits for companies. Direct contributions are for example purchases, which result in company revenue whereas indirect contributions are referring, Social Media influencing or giving feedback (Pansari & Kumar, 2017).

Vinerean, Opreana & Tichindelaen (2014) divide the contributions of customer engagement in four dimensions of value, which are: customer purchasing behavior, customer referral behavior, customer influencer value and customer knowledge value. Customer purchasing behavior relates to gaining and keeping customers and customer relationships. Customer referral behavior consists of existing customers that refer a product or service to a potential customer and due to that, convert the potential customer in an actual customer. Customer influencer value is the influence customers have on existing and potential customers

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15 and customer knowledge value is the knowledge consumers can provide to organizations, as feedback for improvements or an innovative idea (Vinerean, Opreana & Tichindelean, 2014).

2.6 Customer Engagement in the Customer Journey

Customer engagement is seen as a recent concept in relationship marketing and a driver in the customer decision making journey, which is part of the customer experience (Gambetti, Graffigna & Biraghi, 2013). Customer experience is defined as “a multidimensional construct, focusing on a customer’s cognitive, emotional, behavioral, sensorial, and social responses to a firm’s offerings during the customer’s entire purchase journey” (Lemon & Verhoef, 2016, p.2). Wherein the phases of the purchase journey consist of the pre-purchase, purchase and post-purchase phases, in which the latter phase is extended with the ‘loyalty loop’ (Lemon & Verhoef, 2016).

Gambetti, Graffigna & Birghani (2013) highlight the importance of customer engagement in the customer journey, because they state engagement is an overarching marketing construct that captures different dimensions in the decision making process, from brand preference to brand purchase, with a growing level of engagement along the journey supported by diverse marketing communication initiatives (Gambetti, Graffigna & Biraghi, 2013). Customer engagements’ importance is seen in its contribution to the core relationship marketing elements: customer purchases, retention and loyalty, throughout the entire experience (Verhoef, 2010).

2.7 Touchpoints in the Customer Journey

Touchpoints in the customer journey are defined by Baxendale et al. (2015) as a direct or indirect contact point between the customer and firm. Different types of touchpoints exist, as advertisements, Instagram, in store communication, online reviews, blogs and many more (Baxendale et al., 2015). Lemon and Verhoef (2016) divide the types of touchpoints in brand-owned, partner-brand-owned, customer-owned and social, external or independent. Customers can interact with touchpoints in different phases among the journey and firms try to determine critical touchpoints in order to influence customers at crucial moments, also known as “moments of truth”, to stimulate desired customer behavior as purchases. Firms widely acknowledge this important function of touchpoints in the customer journey (Lemon &

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16 2.8 Touchpoints and Customer Engagement in the Customer Journey

The presented literature above shows that different aspects of customer engagement are well established in academic research, as the definition, dimensions, measurement and consequences. However, while the importance of customer engagement and critical touchpoints in the customer journey are acknowledged separately, no researcher adopted a theoretical framework that explains which touchpoints drive which specific customer engagement levels among the different phases in the customer decision making journey.

Nonetheless, this aspect is very important for companies since touchpoints that drive engagement in one phase, do not automatically drive engagement in another phase. It could for example be that since consumers search actively online for information in the beginning of their customer journey (Moran et al., 2014), an informative touchpoint is more effective in creating cognitive engagement compared to a touchpoint that is more linked to entertainment. In order for companies to be the most effective in their use of touchpoints and creation of engagement this information is crucial.

Future research is therefore essential and should be directed towards understanding these differences in engagement among the phases in the customer journey. Hence the purpose of this research is to extent the current customer engagement literature by answering the following research question:

“What are the touchpoints that drive customer engagement levels in different stages of the customer decision making journey?”

2.9 Conceptual Framework and Hypotheses

In the following part, the hypotheses of this research are elaborately explained followed by the conceptual framework. The conceptual framework is visualized in Figure 1 on page 20 and shows the relationships between the variables in the framework. The independent variable (X) is the type of touchpoints on the left, the dependent variable (Y) is the level of engagement on the right and this relationship is expanded by the stage in the customer journey as a moderator (M).

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17 Hypothesis 1, 2 and 3: Touchpoints and Level of Customer Engagement

Literature that addresses the relation between touchpoints and engagement overall agree that brand-owned touchpoints create customer engagement (Burke & Srull, 1988; MacInnis & Prince, 1987; Harmeling,et al., 2017; Luarn et al., 2015).

However, research that has been done is fragmented. As for the type of touchpoints which can be brand-owned, partner-owned, customer-owned and social, external or independent, this research will focus on brand-owned touchpoints because companies can control and manage these touchpoints (Lemon & Verhoef, 2016). Therefore, insights regarding brand-owned touchpoints will be the most useful for companies since they can more easily put theoretical insight into practice. Brand-owned touchpoints can either be online or offline, but as previously mentioned online engagement is nowadays a crucial part in the customer decision making journey of consumers (WNS, 2016) and for that reason this research will focus on online touchpoints.

Existing literature focuses mostly on individual online brand-owned touchpoints and their relation to a particular level of customer engagement, namely activational or also called behavioral customer engagement. For example Manchanda, Packard & Pattabhiramaiah (2015) who researched behavioral engagement for online brand communities or Wu, Fan & Zhao (2018) who looked at the relation between online word of mouth and behavioral engagement. De Vries et al. (2012) state that brand post content in online brand-owned touchpoints is an important antecedent for customer engagement. However, little research has been done regarding the different types of content of online brand-owned touchpoints and their relation to customer engagement. Luarn et al. (2015) did do some research in this field and they show that Facebook brand posts have a significant effect on behavioral online engagement whereby behavioral engagement was measured by liking, commenting and sharing. They tested four content types of posts, namely informational, entertaining, remuneration and social for various brands. Their results show different types of Facebook posts contribute to different behavioral types of customer engagement. Remuneration posts are for example more liked than posts related to information and entertainment, but the other way around posts related to information and entertainment were more shared (Luarn et al., 2015).

Although this research shows that the content of touchpoints contribute to a particular dimension of customer engagement, namely behavioral engagement for Facebook posts, the relationship between different types of content in touchpoints and all dimensions of engagement has not been researched.

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18 To examine this relationship, the hypotheses presented below will be researched in this study. From the four content types of online touchpoints established by Luarn et al. (2015) this research will test two types to ensure feasibility due to the limited time frame. The two types of content from the online brand-owned touchpoints that will be tested are “informational and entertaining”, since consumers are most likely to engage with these two types (Cvijikji et al., 2011; Lin & Lu, 2011; Luarn et al., 2015; Taylor et al., 2011).

Informational touchpoints give information about brands, companies, products or marketing initiatives (De Vries et al., 2012; Muntinga et al., 2011; Luarn et al., 2015). Different researchers state those touchpoints appeal to the knowledge and in consequence cognition of consumers. Hollebeek et al. (2011) and Wu & Wang (2011) for example both believe in the link between informative touchpoints and cognitive engagement. In line with this existing research, it is therefore expected that informational brand-owned touchpoints will lead to higher levels of cognitive engagement compared to entertaining touchpoints.

Entertaining touchpoints are perceived as fun, exciting, cool and flashy (De Vries et al., 2012; Taylor et al., 2015) and researchers state they appeal to affection and behavior of consumers. Dassert et al. (2016) and Luarn et al. (2015) for instance both show a link between entertaining touchpoints and affective engagement, as well as entertaining touchpoints and behavioral engagement. It is therefore expected that entertaining brand-owned touchpoints will lead to higher levels of affective and activational engagement compared to informational touchpoints. Whereby activational behavior can either be online or offline behavioral engagement by looking at online behavior or purchase intention (Alhabash et al.,2015). So, based on the presented literature, the following hypotheses will be researched in this study:

H1: Informational brand-owned touchpoints lead to higher levels of cognitive

engagement compared to entertaining brand-owned touchpoints.

H2: Entertaining brand-owned touchpoints lead to higher levels of affective

engagement compared to informational brand-owned touchpoints.

H3a: Entertaining brand-owned touchpoints lead to higher levels of activational

engagement (in terms of online behavior) compared to informational brand-owned touchpoints

H3b: Entertaining brand-owned touchpoints lead to higher levels of activational

engagement (in terms of purchase intention) compared to informational brand-owned touchpoints.

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19 Hypothesis 4, 5 and 6: Stage in the Customer Journey and Level of Customer Engagement As stated earlier, the customer journey consists of the pre-purchase, purchase, after-purchase and loyalty loop phases. The first stage, the pre-purchase phase, involves all aspects of the interaction of the customer with the brand before a purchase is made. Customer behavior related to this phase is need recognition, search and consideration (Lemon & Verhoef, 2016). In the second stage, the purchase phase, the interaction with the customer and brand during the purchase takes place. Customer behavior that occurs here is mostly choice, ordering and payment (Lemon & Verhoef, 2016). In the third stage, the after-purchase phase, the interaction of the customer with the brand after purchase takes place as usage and consumption. The final stage, the loyalty loop phase, is the ‘loop’ that can lead to customer loyalty, in terms of repurchases for example, becoming a brand fan or even a member or a brand community (Lemon & Verhoef, 2016).

Little to no research has been done regarding the content of touchpoints and the level of engagement among different phases in the customer journey. However, motivations to engage in brand-related Social Media have been researched by Muntinga et al. (2011) for example. Their research is based on the Uses & Gratifications concept, also known as U&G. This concept believes in active and selective engagement of media from consumers, due to their motivations and satisfactions thereof whereby motivations are related to goal-directed behavior (Muntinga et al., 2011; Taylor et al., 2011). The authors describe motivations as gratifications sought and satisfactions as gratifications obtained (Muntinga et al., 2011). They show consumers have different types of motivations for consuming media that are followed by different satisfactions and provide insights regarding informational and entertaining motivations in their research. The authors state that informational motivation covers several gratifications, as risk reduction (Muntinga et al., 2011). Looking at the different phases of the customer decision making journey, this research therefore expects that these informational motivations can be linked to the behavior of consumers in the pre-purchase phase wherein they actively search for products or services (Lemon & Verhoef, 2016). To illustrate this, let’s say a consumer is searching for a new product in the pre-purchase phase, their motivation is probably to be informed because they want to reduce risk to make a well-informed buying decision, so their cognitive engagement to information al touchpoints is likely to be higher. Thus, it is therefore expected informational brand-owned touchpoints will lead to higher cognitive engagement in the pre-purchase phase of the customer decision making journey based on consumers their motivation and related behavior in this phase. To examine this relationship, the hypotheses presented on the next page will be tested in this research.

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20 Muntinga et al. (2011) show entertaining motivations for consuming media are related to enjoyment, relaxation, or to pass time because consumers want to unwind from life or are bored. Looking at the different phases of the customer decision making journey again, this research expects that entertaining motivations can be linked to the behavior of consumers in the after-purchase phase or loyalty loop wherein consumers are no longer looking for information, but using and consuming the product or service bought (Lemon & Verhoef, 2016). Because let’s say consumers bought a product and are in their after-purchase phase or loyalty loop of their journey, their engagement will probably be lower for informational touchpoints because it is expected they are well-aware of the background and details of the product. So for both phases entertaining touchpoints will probably appeal more to consumers (Luarn et al., 2015). As for consumers in the after-purchase phase, it is expected entertaining touchpoints that cause enjoyment will mainly create affective engagement (Luarn et al., 2015).

However, for customers within the loyalty loop, it is expected entertaining touchpoints will mostly create behavioral engagement. This is due to the reason that within the loyalty loop, customers have the closest relationship with the brand and are more involved, so they will react more positively on brand-owned touchpoints (Bowden, 2009) which will probably result in more behavioral engagement, which can either be online or offline (Alhabash et al., 2015). To illustrate this with an example, a loyal customer is probably more willing to share an entertaining Facebook post from a brand they love compared to a customer who just purchased a product from the brand. Because loyal customers are probably not only satisfied with their purchase but they have built a relationship with the brand and are therefore more willing to act upon touchpoints of the brand (Bowden, 2009).

Thus, it is therefore expected entertaining brand-owned touchpoints will lead to higher affective engagement in the post-purchase phase and higher offline or online activational engagement in the loyalty loop of the customer decision making journey, based on consumers their motivation and related behavior in the particular phases. Looking at the customer decision making journey, this research will only look at the pre-purchase, after-purchase and loyalty loop phases. The decision was made not to include the purchase stage as it is expected that during the actual buying of the product or service, it is not very likely consumers are exposed to informative or entertaining touchpoints. So, in light of the presented literature, this research will examine the following hypotheses:

H4: The positive relationship between informational brand-owned touchpoints and

cognitive engagement (H1) is moderated by the stage in the customer decision making journey, such that this relationship is stronger in the pre-purchase stage.

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H5: The positive relationship between entertaining brand-owned touchpoints and

affective engagement (H2) is moderated by the stage in the customer decision making journey, such that this relationship is stronger in the after-purchase stage.

H6a: The positive relationship between entertaining brand-owned touchpoints and

activational engagement in terms of online behavior (H3a) is moderated by the stage in the customer decision making journey, such that this relationship is stronger in the loyalty loop.

H6b: The positive relationship between entertaining brand-owned touchpoints and

activational engagement in terms of purchase intention (H3b) is moderated by the stage in the customer decision making journey, such that this relationship is stronger in the loyalty loop. Below, the visualization of the hypotheses can be found in the conceptual framework. As explained, the independent variable (X) is the type of touchpoints on the left, the dependent variable (Y) is the level of engagement on the right and this relationship is expanded by stage in the customer journey as a moderator (M). The following part will elaborately explain the methodology of this research.

Figure 1: Conceptual framework

Control variables: Brand Attitude and FB Usage

Cognitive Engagement

Stage in the Customer Journey Pre-purchase / Post-purchase/ Loyalty loop Type of Touchpoints Informational / Entertaining T T H1 (+) H6a, b (+) Affective Engagement Activational Engagement Online Behavior / Purchase

Intention H2 (+)

H3a, b (+)

H4 (+)

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22

3. METHODOLOGY

In the following section, the research procedures, sampling techniques, variables and measurements are discussed. To research the touchpoints that drive engagement levels in different stages of the customer decision making journey, this study conducted quantitative research. This explanatory research was conducted in two phases, a first phase of a pre-test and a second phase of a two-way factorial experiment. This experiment tested the hypotheses with a 2 (touchpoints: informational vs entertaining ) x 3 (stages: pre-purchase vs post-purchase vs loyalty loop) full factorial between-subjects design, whereby respondents were randomly assigned to one of the six conditions.

3.1 Phase 1: Pre-test

The first phase of this research was a pre-test to pilot the stimulus material for the main experiment. The variable ‘stage in the customer journey’, was not verified as the respondents in the main experiment were presented with a hypothetical scenario that elaborately explained their stage in the customer decision making journey, based on the definitions from Lemon and Verhoef (2016).

However, the variable ‘type of touchpoints’ was verified to find out what respondents perceive as informative or entertaining brand-owned touchpoints. This is necessary because both informative and entertaining are subjective evaluations (Ducoffe, 1995), as what one person might consider as either informational or entertaining might be different for another person. Therefore, the stimulus materials were tested to see if they were strong enough and whether manipulations only affect the construct of interest. The pre-test had a within subjects design, whereby every participant tested all of the stimulated materials.

To determine ‘informational touchpoints’ two types of touchpoints were tested in line with the following definition: “informative touchpoints are touchpoints that give information about brands, companies, products or marketing initiatives” (De Vries et al., 2012; Muntinga et al., 2011; Luarn et al., 2015). The tested material consisted of brand-owned touchpoints from the ice cream brand OLA from Unilever (see 3.2.2 for more details regarding the main experiment variables). Two informative touchpoints from this brand were chosen to show participants, which can be seen in Appendix 1A. After showing participants the brand-owned touchpoints by means of Facebook posts, informativeness was measured by the scale used by Ducoffe (1996), Cheng et al. (2009) and Taylor et al. (2015). This scale has a Cronbach’s alpha

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23 α = 0.87 and consists of three items, which were slightly adjusted to ensure a proper fit for this pre-test. One if the items is: ‘This Facebook post from OLA is a valuable source of product / service information’. The scale is validated on a seven-point Likert scale from ‘strongly disagree’ (1) to ‘strongly agree’ (7) and all items can be found below.

Informativeness

1. This Facebook post from OLA is a valuable source of product information 2. This Facebook post from OLA is a convenient source of product information 3. This Facebook post from OLA helps to keep me up to date

Table 3:Adjusted items of informative brand-owned touchpoints

To ensure in the pre-test that no other aspects are unintendedly manipulated in the Facebook posts from OLA, two other questions were asked, namely: ‘This Facebook post from OLA is explanatory’ and ‘The text on this Facebook post from OLA is explicit / clear’. Both statements could be rated on a seven-point Likert scale from ‘strongly disagree’ (1) to ‘strongly agree’ (7).

To determine ‘entertaining touchpoints’ two types of touchpoints were tested based on the following definition: “entertaining touchpoints are fun, exciting, cool and flashy” (De Vries et al., 2012; Taylor et al., 2015). Again two brand-owned touchpoints from the ice cream brand OLA from Unilever were chosen to show participants, which can be seen in Appendix 1A. After showing the brand-owned touchpoints by means of Facebook posts, entertainment was measured by the scale used by Lastovicka (1983) and Taylor et al. (2015). This scale has a Cronbach’s alpha α = 0.89 and consists of four items, which were slightly adjusted to ensure a proper fit for this pre-test. One of the items is ‘This Facebook post from OLA is fun to see’. The scale is validated in a seven-point Likert scale from ‘strongly disagree’ (1) to ‘strongly agree’ (7) and all items can be found below.

Entertainment

1. This Facebook post from OLA is fun to see

2. This Facebook post from OLA is clever and quite entertaining 3. This Facebook post from OLA did not just sell – it also entertains me 4. This Facebook post from OLA is amusing

Table 4:Adjusted items of entertaining brand-owned touchpoints

To ensure in the pre-test that no other aspects are unintendedly manipulated in the Facebook posts from OLA, two other questions were asked, namely: ‘This Facebook post from OLA is funny’ and ‘The text on this Facebook post from OLA is explicit / clear’. Both statements could be rated on a seven-point Likert scale from ‘strongly disagree’ (1) to ‘strongly agree’ (7).

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24 3.1.1 Pre-test Sample and Procedure

The same type of participants were addressed for the pre-test as the main experiment and therefore, the pre-test was held among Millennials in the Netherlands who are between 18 and 38 years old (see 3.2.1 for more details regarding the sample for the main experiment). The pre-test was made with Qualtrics, which is an online survey platform licensed by the University of Amsterdam. A self-administered online survey was made with Qualtrics and distribution was be done via a link created by this platform. A combination of volunteer and convenience sampling was used and the survey was distributed in the online environment: via E-mail, Facebook, LinkedIn and several survey platforms. The actual distributed survey can be found in Appendix 1B.

3.1.2 Pre-test Results

The pre-test was distributed from the 20th till the 22nd of April 2018 and in total 34 respondents participated. Two responses were deleted because of incompletion, so 32 complete responses were used for the pre-test of this research. The respondents consisted of 20 females and 12 males, all Millennials between 18 and 38 years old. First, the Cronbach’s alpha was calculated, together with the means and standard deviations of the stimulus material which can be found in the table below, rounded off by two decimals.

Cronbach’s alpha Mean Standard Deviation

Informativeness 0.77 5.06 1.16

Entertainment 0.90 5.59 0.94

Table 5:Cronbach’s alpha, means and standard deviations pre-test

As the Cronbach’s alpha of all scales are respectively 0.77 and 0.90 the scales can be considered as reliable (7 items) (α >0.70). The scales also indicate that the means of all items together are 5.06 and 5.59 respectively which is at the higher side of the scale signaling that respondents agreed with the statements for the informative and entertaining Facebook posts as they scored between ‘somewhat agree’ (5) and ‘agree’ (6).

To check the normality of the items, skewness and kurtosis were checked and as all items scored between -1 and 1 on both skewness and kurtosis, it can be concluded the variables were normally distributed

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25 Looking at table 6, it can be concluded the informative Facebook posts were perceived as informative and entertaining Facebook post as entertaining. Both informative Facebook posts scored between ‘somewhat agree’ (5) and ‘agree’ (6) on informativeness compared to scores between ‘disagree’ (2) and ‘somewhat disagree’ (3) on entertainment. Similarly, entertaining Facebook posts scored between ‘somewhat agree’ (5) and ‘agree’ (6) on entertainment compared to scores between ‘disagree’ (2) and ‘somewhat disagree’ (3) on informativeness.

Mean Standard Deviation

Informative brand-owned touchpoint 1

Informativeness Entertainment 5.06 2.66 1.15 1.20

Informative brand-owned touchpoint 2

Informativeness Entertainment

Entertaining brand-owned touchpoint 1

Informativeness Entertainment 5.05 2.98 2.35 5.77 1.16 1.21 1.18 0.66

Entertaining brand-owned touchpoint 2

Informativeness Entertainment 2.68 5.41 1.21 1.98

Table 6:Means and standard deviations per touchpoint pre-test

Next, a Wilcoxon test was done to check whether there was a significant difference between the two informative and two entertaining Facebook posts. Results show that the two informative and two entertaining types of Facebook posts from OLA were not perceived as significantly different (so the first versus second informative post and first versus second entertaining post were not perceived as significantly different) in terms of clarity. This is shown by their Assymp. Sig. (2-tailed) of p=0.68 for the informative and p=0.25 for the entertaining Facebook posts.

Thus, based on the results just presented, the manipulation of the stimulus material worked as intended seeing that both informative Facebook posts were perceived as informative and both entertaining Facebook posts were perceived as entertaining. Next to that, no other aspects were manipulated and no significant difference could be found between the first and second informative or entertaining Facebook posts. Therefore, the outcomes of the means of the Facebook posts are used to decide which posts to use for the main experiment. As the mean of the first informative Facebook post (M= 5.06) is slightly higher than the second (M= 5.05)

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26

Phase in the Customer Journey

T ype o f T ouc hp oi n t

and the mean of the first entertaining Facebook post (M= 5.77) is slightly higher than the second (M= 5.41), those will be used in the main experiment of this research.

3.2 Phase 2: Main Experiment

The second phase of this research was conducted by means of an experiment, a self-reported survey was used to gather cross-sectional data online. This survey simulated stages within the customer journey with a hypothetical scenario and exposed customers to different types of touchpoints, while asking them questions about their intentions to respond to identify the level of engagement. Therefore, a two-way factorial experimental was used with a vignette design and six conditions to create a 2 (touchpoints: informational vs entertaining) x 3 (stages: pre-purchase vs post-purchase vs loyalty loop) full factorial between-subjects design, whereby respondents were randomly assigned to one of the six conditions. See table 7 below for a complete description of the experimental groups of this design.

Pre-purchase After-purchase Loyalty loop

Informational IPP IAP ILL

Entertaining EPP EAP ELL

2 x 3 full factorial between-subjects experimental design

Table 7: Experimental design main experiment

3.2.1 Main Experiment Sample and General Procedure

The hypotheses of the main experiment were tested in the FMCG industry sector, because this sector has difficulties in establishing meaningful connections with customers (Leahy, 2011) and would therefore benefit most from research that can help them to create progress in making connections. The type of respondents that were asked to participate in this experiment were Millennials. Because digitalization caused the most behavioral change among Millennial, as they massively embrace the internet to be a part of their everyday lives and continuously use the web for advice (O’Reilly, 2005). The consequence of this behavior is that online

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27 engagement is nowadays a crucial part in their customer decision making journey (WNS, 2016) and therefore it is of uttermost importance for firms to understand this and know how to influence this, in which this research will help. So the overall sample population of this experiment were Millennials in The Netherlands who are between 18 and 38 years old, which is a group of 3.8 Million citizens of the 17.1 Million Dutch inhabitants (CBS, 2017).

The self-administered online survey for the main experiment was built with Qualtrics and the survey was made accessible via a link created by this online survey platform. Before sending out the survey, a pilot test was conducted among a small group of the sample to check if questions were understood correctly, the survey worked and to see how long it would take participants to finish the survey. After reviewing the results of the pilot test (N=10) minor adjustments have been made such as spelling mistakes. The adjusted survey was distributed from the 3rd_{of May 2018 up and till the 17}th_{of May 2018. Non-probability sampling techniques}

were used to gather respondents due to the limited time frame of this research. Again, a combination of self-selection volunteer sampling and convenience sampling was used and the survey was distributed in the online environment: via E-mail, Facebook, LinkedIn and survey platforms.

This research aimed for an average of 50 respondents per treatment, so at least 300 respondents. Since the response rate for an online self-administered survey might be low (Malhotra, 2010) this was taken into account by providing an incentive that would speak to the participants (Malhotra, 2010). The incentive of this survey was that participants had the chance to be part of a raffle to win a summer’s supply of free OLA ice cream.

The survey consisted of the following parts: first participants were informed about their rights and the procedure of the survey in the informed consent. By clicking on the arrow on the screen respondents agreed to participate in this research. After starting the survey, their pre-existing attitudes for the brand OLA and usage of Facebook were both tested. Then, participants were randomly assigned to one of the six conditions in which their stage in the customer decision making journey was described and one of the stimulus material was presented, so either an informative or an entertaining brand-owned touchpoint from OLA, showed as a Facebook post. After watching the Facebook post, participants continued with the survey by answering questions regarding the post they just had seen. These questions measured their level of cognitive, affective and activational engagement. To see if the manipulation worked as intended, respondents were also asked whether the Facebook post was perceived as either informative or entertaining, with the same scales as the pre-test. The survey then continued with four final questions, namely gender, age, whether the scenario described was perceived as

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28 (un)realistic and lastly a question was included to test if the scenario described was remembered correctly.

Gender was asked as it might be that females and males respond differently and age was asked to ensure Millennials answered the survey. To check if the manipulation worked as intended, the question regarding the described scenario and whether it was perceived as (un)realistic was added together with the question that tested if this scenario was remembered correctly. The survey ended with additional comments section and an option for participants to indicate whether they wanted to participate for the incentive. After that, the survey was completed and an ethical debrief given. Overall, the survey contained of 13 questions and it took respondents around 8 minutes to finish at average. The complete survey can be found in Appendix 2B.

3.2.2 Main Experiment Variables and Measurement

Below a detailed description of the measures of this research can be found and for each measure the following indicated: the paper where it was validated, the number of scale’s items, where applicable the number of subscales, an example of one item and an indicator of its quality namely the Cronbach’s alpha of the scale in a previous study.

Type of Touchpoints. As explained earlier, the context of this research was the FMCG sector. The touchpoints that were simulated in this research were therefore touchpoints from a brand in this sector. More specifically touchpoints from the ice cream brand OLA, part of the ice cream portfolio from Unilever, were used in this research. This brand was suitable for this research due to its dynamic nature as it had several touchpoints who all had diverse content applicable for this research. The researcher had officially been given approval by Unilever to do this research and therefore was granted permission to make use of the marketing communication initiatives that were used as touchpoints in this research. Images from real OLA Facebook posts were used and slightly adjusted, to create either informative or entertaining brand-owned touchpoints.

As informativeness and entertainment is subjective (Ducoffe, 1995), a pre-test was done to pilot the stimulated informative and entertaining brand-owned touchpoints. Based on the results of the pre-test described earlier, the most informative and entertaining touchpoints were chosen to use in the main experiment (see 3.1.2 for more details regarding the results of the pre-test). Next to that, to see if the manipulation also worked in the main experiment as it did for the pre-test the survey included one question related to the content of the touchpoint.

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29 Respondents were asked whether the Facebook post they just had seen was perceived as informative or entertaining, depending on their condition, with the same scales as the pre-test. Cognitive Engagement. Cognitive engagement was measured by the cognitive processing construct of the Consumer Brand Engagement (CBE) validated concept from Hollebeek et al. (2014). This scale has a Cronbach’s alpha α = 0.83 and consists of three items, which were slightly adjusted to ensure a proper fit for this research. One of the items is: ‘Seeing this Facebook post from OLA gets me to think about OLA’. The scale is validated on a seven-point Likert scale from ‘strongly disagree’ (1) to ‘strongly agree’ (7) and all items can be found in table 8 on the next page

Affective Engagement. Affective engagement was measured by the affection construct of the CBE concept from Hollebeek et al. (2014). This scale has a Cronbach’s alpha α = 0.91 and consists of four items which were slightly adjusted to ensure a proper fit for this research. One of the items is: ‘I feel very positive when I am seeing this Facebook post from OLA’. The scale is validated in a seven-point Likert scale from ‘strongly disagree’ (1) to ‘strongly agree’ (7) and all items can be found on the next page in table 8.

Activational Engagement. The activational construct of the CBE concept from Hollebeek et al. (2014) was not used to measure activational engagement in this research, as it could not be used to measure activational engagement after seeing a Facebook post, so the construct did not fit in the context of this research. Instead, similar to Alhabash et al. (2015) online and offline behavioral engagement was measured to fully capture activational engagement. Online behavioral engagement was measured as Alhabash et al. (2015) did by looking at online behavior in terms of intentions to like, share and comment on Facebook displayed as single items on a seven-point Likert scale from ‘very unlikely’ (1) to ‘very likely’ (7). One of the items is ‘I will like this Facebook post from OLA’ and all items can be found on the next page in table 8.

Offline behavioral engagement was measured by looking at the purchase intention construct used by Alhabash et al. (2015) based on the research from Bearden, Lichtenstein and Teel (1984). The scale has a Cronbach’s alpha α = 0.90 and consists of five-point differential scale, ranging from 1 to 5 asking participants to indicate the intention to purchase OLA ice cream after seeing this Facebook post: very unlikely/very likely, very improbable/very probable, very uncertain/very certain, definitely not/ definitely.

Stage in the Customer Journey. The stages in the customer journey were stimulated by hypothetical scenarios, based on the definitions of Lemon & Verhoef (2016). The pre-purchase phase, after pre-purchase and loyalty loop stages that were described in the different

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30 conditions are presented in Appendix 2A. The description of the pre-purchase phase is described next as an example: “In this exercise we are interested in your opinion of a brand- owned online touchpoint. Please read the scenario very carefully as we will ask you to state your opinion about it on the next pages. Imagine the following situation: “You know you want

to buy ice cream because you deserve a treat, but you’re still undecided on the type of ice

cream you want to buy. You scroll through your Facebook feed and see the post presented below (please watch carefully)”.

After showing participants the scenario in their randomly assigned condition, an informative or entertaining Facebook post from OLA was presented and questions were asked to determine the level of engagement. To check if the manipulation worked as intended, a reality and manipulation check was included. Namely by asking participants first: “Thinking back of the hypothetical scenario that was presented to you during this survey, how was this perceived?” which could be answered from ‘very unrealistic’ (1) to ‘very realistic’ (7). Secondly, participants were asked: “Thinking back again of the hypothetical scenario that was presented to you during this survey, which scenarios were you in?” which could be answered by choosing between the described scenarios of the customer decision making journey stages and a ‘can’t remember’ option.

Cognitive Engagement Affective Engagement Online Behavioral Engagement

Seeing this Facebook post from OLA gets me to think about OLA

I feel very positive when I am seeing this Facebook post from OLA

I will like this Facebook post from OLA

I think about OLA a lot while seeing this Facebook post

Seeing this Facebook post from OLA makes me happy

I will comment on this Facebook post from OLA

Seeing this Facebook post from OLA stimulates my interest to learn more about OLA

I feel good when I am seeing this Facebook post from OLA

I feel proud about OLA when I am seeing this Facebook post from OLA

I will share this Facebook post from OLA

Table 8:Adjusted items of customer engagement

Control Variables. Pre-existing brand attitude and Social Media usage were controlled for to rule out biased evaluations. Pre-existing brand attitudes was measured by the scale used by Bruner (1998). This scale has a Cronbach’s alpha α = 0.93 and consists of six items to indicate how participants feel about the brand advertised in the Facebook post which are:

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31 ‘unappealing/ appealing, unpleasant/pleasant, boring/interesting, dislikeable/likeable, negative/ positive and bad/good’. The scale is validated on a seven-point differential scale, ranging from 1 to 7. Minor adjustments have been made on this scale in order to ensure a proper fit for this research.

Social Media usage was measured by the Facebook Intensity Scale from Ellison, Steinfield, and Lampe (2007). This scale has a Cronbach’s alpha α = 0.83 and consists of six items to assess the degree of Facebook usage. An example of one item is: ‘Facebook has become part of my daily routine’. The scale is validated in a seven-point Likert scale from ‘strongly disagree’ (1) to ‘strongly agree’ (7) and all items can be found in table 9. No adjustments have been made since this scale is considered as appropriate for this research.

Intensity of Facebook Usage

1. Facebook is part of my daily activities 2. I am proud to tell others that I use Facebook 3. Facebook has become part of my daily routine

4. I feel out of touch if I have not logged in to Facebook for a while 5. I feel like I am part of the Facebook community

6. I will be sorry if Facebook shuts down

Table 9: Items of Facebook usage

3.2.3 Main Experiment Statistical Procedure

After data collection, the results were downloaded in SPSS. Data was directly imported into SPSS from Qualtrics to ensure there were no data entry errors. In total 518 respondents took part in the experiment, of which 53 participants were removed since 48 of them dropped out and 5 participants where not between the required 18 – 38 years old, which was the focus of this study. So the remaining sample consisted of 465 respondents for the main experiment. The following section will describe the results of the statistical analyses of the main experiment.

A perspective on customer engagement in the customer decision making journey