Consumer brand engagement within the financial
industry. Can we regain trust again?
A case study on the effects of an engagement focused marketing campaign of a Dutch insurance company on positive consumer brand engagement and its relationship with trust within the organization.
Master Thesis Executive Studies Business Administration
Nick Aanraad – 10499237
Date of completion: 14-12-2015 Supervisor: Ed Peelen
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Table of Contents.
Introduction. ... 4
From Exposure to Engagement, a new field in marketing ... 4
Literature Review ... 8
Understanding the concept of consumer brand engagement related to marketing ... 8
Different ways to engage ... 10
Antecedents that affect or moderate consumer engagement behavior ... 11
Customer based antecedents ... 11
Firm based antecedents ... 12
Context based antecedents ... 12
Consequences of engagement behaviors ... 12
Customer related consequences ... 13
Firm related consequences ... 13
Case Study: Consumer Brand Engagement in the financial industry ... 14
The financial industry as context to measure consumer engagement ... 14
Increase in trust in the organization as important goal ... 16
Method and data: Case Study “De Andere Tour” ... 18
Research- topic and questions ... 18
Type of Research ... 21
Research Design ... 22
Measures ... 23
Factor analysis and Reliability ... 24
Results ... 26
Exposed to marketing campaign (Passive participation) ... 26
Independent t-test ... 26
Correlation analysis and Regression analysis within 0-study ... 29
Correlation analysis and Regression analysis within 1-study ... 31
Involved in marketing campaign (active participation) ... 34
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Theoretical Implications ... 36
Managerial implications ... 39
Limitations of the research ... 42
Future research ... 43
Appendices ... 44
Appendix 1: Question list ... 44
Appendix 2: Factor analysis ... 45
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Introduction.
From Exposure to Engagement, a new field in marketing
Marketing is a dynamic concept. We moved from a transaction focused approach, in which the dominant marketing function was to apply the Marketing Mix, to a more relationship focused approach based on interactive marketing activities (Grönroos, 1991). But things kept on evolving since then. We have entered an era in which consumers live in an increasingly digital world. People are connecting continuously with friends, peer groups, business networks, as well as with brands and organizations. It changed today’s consumer behavior dramatically, and also the relationship consumers have with brands. With full access to information and connectivity, opportunities for organizations to engage with them heavily increased. But at the same time, this current generation also learned to distinguish an authentic approach by an organization from a sales driven marketing approach. Tara Walpert Levy (2013), Media and Marketing
Executive at Google, states that this “new normal in marketing” asks again for a shift in the field of marketing. Where marketing plans historically focused on exposure and broadcasting to bring products and services to consumers, the brands that are currently winning are prioritizing consumer brand engagement over exposure.
Levy’s point can be observed in practice very often. For example, many firms in the Netherlands proactively ask recent customers to provide reviews or feedback on independent comparison sites such as Iens (restaurants), TripAdvisor (hotels) and Wugly (shopping stores). Another, different example of consumer engagement is the recent campaign of Lay’s chips, which invited consumers to a contest to develop a new taste for chips. But engagement can come in many other forms too, such as word-of-mouth activity, social-media activity, blogging, co-creating and so on (Verhoef et al, 2010).
5 Also in research, consumer brand engagement gains prior attention. The Marketing Science Institute (MSI) called in 2006 already for a better understanding of the concept of
“engagement”, as “rapid changes in communications technology as well as globalization of markets are creating communities of customers and prospects rather than a multitude of isolate customers. Companies are discovering new ways to create and sustain emotional connections with the brand, thus engaging customers through innovation and design” (MSI 2006, p. 2, 4). Also in its 2010-2012 Research Priorities, consumer engagement was emphasized as an important topic of interest (MSI 2010, p. 4). The institute describes consumer
engagement as the behavioral manifest towards a brand or firm beyond purchase. In other words, what consumers are willing to invest, beyond just being a customer.
But why is it relevant to enable this post purchase behavior and what are the consequences of it? Does it lead to sustainable customer relationships which can be, eventually, become
profitable and therewith make traditional marketing activities less necessary?
To start with, consumer engagement is suggested to play an important role in enhancing company performance in today’s dynamic business environments. The concept is seen as an expansion of more traditional relationship marketing, emphasized as a fundamental driver of the consumer decision-making process (Bowden, 2009) and brand equity (Schultz & Block, 2011). Other researchers describe consumer engagement as a strategic way of growing sales (Neff, 2007) and achieving superior competitive advantage (Sedley, 2008) and even profitability (Voyles, 2007). The concept has also been positively associated with other important marketing constructs. Vivek, Beatty and Morgan (2012) state, based on their literature review and
exploratory work, that engagement is related to customer participation and involvement, as also to the level of value, trust, affective commitment, word-of-mouth activity, loyalty and brand community involvement towards a brand. Without implying it to be the holy grail of new world marketing, Hollebeek (2011) summarizes it as being considered by marketers as a main priority in branding strategies. Thus, many researches have widely emphasized the relevance of this concept.
6 But despite that we can conclude consumer brand engagement to be extremely relevant in the field of marketing, one established, unitary and shared theory and definition of the concept is still not available. Furthermore, empirical evidence on the antecedents and consequences of brand engagement is limited.
This paper will address the topic of consumer brand engagement in a practical manner by addressing it in the context of a case study. A.s.r., a Dutch insurance company, has launched a big marketing campaign aimed at engaging consumers with its brand. The marketing campaign, called “De Andere Tour”, is organized as a side event of the Tour de France and wants to prove that elderly people in the age of 65 and older are still active and vivid by giving them the opportunity to ride stages of the famous French cycle event. The senior citizens are carefully selected and their progress is broadcasted on national television. By facilitating this, a.s.r. wants to profile itself as a socially responsible and accepted insurance company, with which
consumers feel more positively engaged. The effects of the marketing campaign “De Andere Tour” on consumer brand engagement will be the subject of the case study in this research paper.
The research will be grounded from a theoretical framework about the definition and consequences of consumer brand engagement. From that basis, an explorative case study research will be conducted to find evidence on creating consumer brand engagement within a certain context.
7 Because of the fact that the added value of consumer engagement is recognized, but the
definition of the concept is still developing, this paper aims to bridge theoretical research with practical causes. Within the industry of which the case is deducted from, trust in the
organization is an important issue nowadays. Therefore, the degree of trust that consumers which were exposed or involved in the marketing campaign, have in the organization is
addressed in the research. Rehabilitating consumer’s trust is an important topic in the financial industry nowadays. Therefore, as addition to this research, the level of trust in the company as a consequence of the brand engagement is examined.Hence, the importance of brand
engagement is recognized because of the earlier mentioned benefits, and in this paper it is linked with another important business goal to make the concept more practical. Furthermore, the extent an organization can influence on this relationship by its marketing efforts is included in the research to make it even more tangible. Therewith, the decision is made to focus on these factors, leaving the effects of engagement on earlier mentioned consequences such as loyalty and sales out of scope. These factors are assumed to be proven in previous research and do are not included in the analyses in this paper.
This leads to the following research questions:
1. How did the marketing campaign “De Andere Tour” influenced brand engagement for a.s.r. with consumers that were exposed to the campaign?
2. How did the marketing campaign “De Andere Tour” influenced brand engagement for a.s.r. with consumers that were actively involved in the campaign?
3. How does the brand engagement caused by the marketing campaign “De Andere Tour” influence the level of trust in the organisation?
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Literature Review
Understanding the concept of consumer brand engagement related to marketing
Consumer engagement is a relatively new term in academic marketing literature. In contrast to the concept of engagement alone, which is widely examined in social science, management and business practice literature, is the link with marketing less defined. This results in different definitions of the concept of consumer engagement, developed by researchers who were using definitions from literature available from related fields of study, such as social psychology. Brodie et al (2011) conducted a literature review on this matter, summarizing several
definitions which are all slightly different from each other. To come up with a satisfactory but also practically applicable definition for this research, it is useful to take a closer look towards the existing definitions.
Patterson , Yu and de Ruyter (2006) describe consumer engagement as “the level of consumer’s physical, cognitive, and emotional presence in their relationship with a service organization”. They identified different components of engagement that explain the ways of presence in the relationship, including absorption: the level of concentration on a brand, thus reflecting the cognitive dimension of engagement. Besides that, they mention dedication, which means the sense of belonging that a consumer feels towards a brand. This corresponds more to the
emotional dimension of engagement. Furthermore, they also examined vigor and interaction as important components of engagement, which explain the more physical, or behavioral
dimension of engagement. Contrary to this definition, Vivek Beatty and Morgan (2012) focus more on the behavioral part of consumer engagement, defining it as “the intensity of an individual’s participation and connection with the organization’s offerings and activities initiated by either the consumer or the organization”. As you can see, the only part that somewhat relates to the emotional dimension of engagement is the word “connection”. Bowden (2009) chooses a different approach, describing consumer engagement as being the “psychological process that models the underlying mechanisms by which customer loyalty may be maintained for repeat purchase customers of a service brand”. Bowden takes with this
9 definition the concept to a more managerial-relevant level by linking engagement to customer loyalty. In addition, Van Doorn (2010) takes a more behavioral approach, translating brand engagement into concrete engagement behaviors by defining the concept as the “consumers’ behavioral manifestation toward a brand or firm, beyond purchase, resulting from motivational drivers such as word-of-mouth activity, social media activity, recommendations, helping other customers, blogging, and writing reviews”.
Partly based on these various definitions, Patterson et al. came up with a general definition of consumer engagement, as being a “psychological state that occurs by virtue of interactive, co-creative customer experiences with a brand or organization. It occurs under a specific set of context dependent conditions generating differing engagement levels; and exist as a dynamic, iterative process within service relationships that co-create value. It plays a central role in a network governing service relationships in which other relational concepts such as loyalty or involvement are antecedents or consequences in the consumer engagement processes. It is therefore a multidimensional concept subject to a context- and stakeholder specific expression of relevant cognitive, emotional and behavioral dimensions”.
A whole mouth full. What this definition basically says is that consumer engagement comes down to a context driven interaction between consumers and brand or firm without necessarily purchasing or planning to purchase a product or service, and which could arise from or lead to concepts such as loyalty and involvement. Within this interaction, the consumer or customer chooses the way and extent to which they engage with the brand or firm.
As mentioned before, consumer engagement has an impact on important marketing metrics. Verhoef, Reinartz and Krafft (2010) conducted a literature review on this matter, confirming that the concept could have impact on customer retention, customer lifetime value and new product performance (Hoyer et al, 2010). But to truly understand consumer engagement, is it relevant to look at the different dimensions of engagement. Note is that consumer engagement is linked to and corresponding with customer engagement, because in this research it is
10 The level and ways of engagement apply to both consumers as customers, which is the reason why these terms are both used in this research paper.
Different ways to engage
Van Doorn et al. (2010) discuss multiple perspectives of consumer engagement. These
dimensions tell us more about the ways in which consumers choose to engage. Van Doorn et al. distinguish five dimensions of engagement behavior: valence, form or modality, scope, impact and consumer goals.
Valence tells us whether, from the firm’s perspective, the consumer engagement can be classified as positive or negative. Word-of-mouth activity, blogging, or online reviews can have positive or negative consequences for the firm depending on the valence of the content. Secondly, form and modality of consumer engagement refers to the way consumers choose to engage with a brand of a firm. This could range from in-role behaviors such as submitting a complaint to sharing recommendations to other people to informing sales staff on incorrect pricing display in a store. It is basically anything a consumer or customer does beyond purchasing a product or service.
The third dimension Van Doorn mentions is scope, both temporal as geographical. Engagement by consumers can either be temporally (e.g. a one-time recommendation) or ongoing (a true ambassador). Furthermore, this recommendation can be done to a neighbor, or being placed on a popular website. This says something about the geographical scope of the engagement. Another dimension is the impact of the engagement. This refers to the breadth, intensity and immediacy of the action. For example, recommending a brand for one hour in person has a narrow breadth but a high intensity, whereas posting a post on the Facebook page of a brand has a much higher reach but maybe much less intensity.
As last, Van Doorn et al. describe the consumer goals as a dimension of engagement.
Consumers could have particular goals when engaging with a firm or brand. These goals can be in line with the organizational goals and have therewith positive impact on the firm, but it could also be the other way around.
11 Furthermore it is useful to, within this form of engagement, make a distinction between
planned and unplanned engagement behaviors (Rook and Fisher, 1995). For example, a person that develops a free iPhone application that answers to other consumer’s needs shows planned engagement, whereas a customer that makes an unexpected recommendation to a stranger shows unplanned engagement.
Vivek et al. (2014) gives an addition to these dimensions of consumer engagement by
categorizing it into three different categories. Vivek developed them from earlier research, and thereby took a more generalizable categorization. He describes the following three dimensions of consumer engagement;
Conscious Attention: the degree of interest the person has or wishes to have in interacting
with a brand or firm.
Enthusiastic Participation: The earnest reactions and feelings of a person related to using or
interacting with a brand or firm.
Social Connection: Enhancement of the interaction based on the inclusions of others with
the focus of engagement, indicating mutual action in the presence of others.
Antecedents that affect or moderate consumer engagement behavior
The earlier described definition and dimensions of customer engagement behavior follow up on various antecedents affecting it. Antecedents are things or events that exist before the actual engagement takes place, and therewith affect the dimensions of engagement. Van Doorn et al. (2010) propose that customer, firm and context characteristics affect consumer engagement behavior.
Customer based antecedents
Attitudinal factors form important antecedents of consumer engagement behavior. Examples of these antecedents that are important drivers of engagement are customer satisfaction after a previous experience with the firm or brand (Palmatier et al., 2006), brand commitment (Garbarino and Johnson, 1999) and trust (de Matos and Rossi, 2008). Generally speaking, very
12 high or very low levels of these factors lead to engagement.
Another example of important customer based antecedents are resources that customers want to invest in engagement considering time and money, and the perceived or expected
cost/benefit evaluation of the engagement (van Doorn, 2010). These considerations determine by forehand to what extent a customer eventually is willing to engage with brands or firms.
Firm based antecedents
Important influencers of customer engagement are the firm based antecedents. These firstly include the brand reputation and brand equity of the firm. Brands with a high reputation or high levels of brand equity generally stimulate higher levels of customer engagement behavior (de Matos and Rossi, 2008). Another important antecedent of customer engagement is the consumer information environments that an organization provides. (Bolton and Saxena-Iyer, 2009). For example, Google constantly engages consumers by involving them in conferences, product launches and events.
These statements make it assumable that low brand reputation, trust or brand equity makes it more difficult to stimulate customer brand engagement. This will be an important assumption for the proposition which is presented later in this paper.
Context based antecedents
Naturally, the context in which customers live is also affecting the extend and way of
engagement with a firm or brand. These context related factors range from the availability of communication resources such as Internet connectivity to the degree of competition within an industry.
Consequences of engagement behaviors
Obviously, customer engagement behavior has consequences for stakeholders too. On consumer, firm and context level, customer engagement leads to several implications. As mentioned before, customer engagement has an effect on important marketing metrics such as firm value, competitive advantage and loyalty (Voyles 2007; Sedley 2006; Vivek 2012).
13 Furthermore, customer engagement also has consequences on consumer level (Van Doorn, 2010).
Customer related consequences
The consumer-related consequences of consumer engagement mostly have a cognitive, attitudinal and behavioral character. For example, from a behavioral perspective, consumers with successful engagement actions are more likely to engage more frequently in the future and extend their customer engagement behavior, thus increasing their level of energy, effort and time spent on brand- or organization interactions (Vivek, 2009). On a more emotional level, Hollebeek (2011) proposes that customer engagement leads to as what she describes as ‘passion’; “the degree of a customer’s positive brand-related affect in particular brand
interactions” and therewith reveals the emotional investment in a specific brand encounter. It
involves broad emotional concepts such as pride or enthusiasm towards a brand or organization.
Firm related consequences
Customer engagement behavior also has consequences relevant for the brand of firm. As mentioned before, these include financial metrics, as customer engagement affects for example purchase behavior of the focal as well as other customers. This also applies to reputational consequences, such as positive word of mouth behavior. Furthermore, customer engagement could also lead to competitive advantages, such as more successful R&D. Highly engaged customers can be an important source of knowledge. LEGO has proven this as engaged
customers have been the most important source of new product ideas for years already (Schau, Muñiz and Arnould, 2009). This also accounts for companies as Google and Apple, where
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Case Study: Consumer Brand Engagement in the financial industry
As mentioned before, there is still limited empirical research regarding the definition, antecedents and consequences of customer engagement. Vivek et al (2014) were first in developing a generalized, multidimensional scale for measuring customer engagement and applied this on Apple users. They state that additional research in other domains and contexts is needed and therewith invites other researchers to explore these. This paper will therefore address a case study on a campaign aimed at consumer engagement within a different context, namely the financial industry. As consumers are in general not engaged with financial service providers, a specific marketing campaign aimed at engaging consumers is proposed as the field of study as within this context engagement with the organization is likely to be higher.
Furthermore, the level of trust within the organisation is added as moderator of the level of engagement, as being an important factor within this context.
The financial industry as context to measure consumer engagement
Organizations operating in the financial industry are gradually discovering the value of
customer brand engagement. The industry is facing difficult times in which consumers’ trust in the industry and its organizations is low, and in which these organizations regularly appear in a negative context in the national media. This is also shown the annual survey conducted by De Nederlandse Bank (DNB), which confirms that the trust of Dutch households in the financial industry does not recover since the start of the financial crisis. Furthermore, the Autoriteit Financiële Markten (AFM), the Dutch supervising authority of the financial sector, confirms that only 1 out of 5 consumers has trust in the industry (2014). Not surprisingly, both authorities have rebuilding trust within the financial sector as their main priority for the coming years. Meanwhile, consumers do not have a lot of comparable alternatives for the financial service providers, and therefore the various organizations within the industry are competing for every customer, mainly on price.
15 Also the financial service providers realize that this is not a durable and desirable situation. Banks and insurance companies try to go back to the basis of their socially responsible function within the society, and are willing to take responsibility for their negative acts of the past. A part of this strategic shift is engaging more with customers, to better understand their needs but also to rebuild trust, loyalty and long-term relationships. They realize that this alternative, more authentic way of customer relationship management leads to more authentic interactions between consumers and organizations.
Financial service providers all are making this shift in a comparable way, by focusing on servicing customers better and prioritizing customer interests. A.s.r., a Dutch insurance company, is one of those organizations that intends to increase brand engagement by
increasingly engaging consumers. One way the company wants to deliver the first proof points on this new approach, is by developing campaigns in which various purposes in need are supported in different ways. For example, a.s.r. helped the “Diergaarde Blijdorp”, a zoo in Rotterdam which was going through major financial problems, by offering them the already available sponsorship of a top 3 soccer club in the Netherlands and developing a popular mascot in order to generate more publicity and therewith attract more visitors to the zoo. Another example is the online campaign in which Ditzo health insurance, a label owned by a.s.r., donated its whole marketing budget to research on cancer in order to improve Dutch healthcare. Within this differentiating marketing approach, creating customer engagement is an important goal.
The reactions on these campaigns were mainly positive. “Olli”, the created mascot of
Diergaarde Blijdorp, managed to attract more visitors to the zoo and therewith also increased profits (AD; Volkskrant, 2013). The Ditzo campaign generated high engagement on social media with 1,8 million online views and shares (Effie.nl). Furthermore, both campaigns have won national and international awards. Although these campaigns were successful in the creative industry, the effects on consumer engagement towards the brand a.s.r. was not measured before. Therefore it is interesting to measure these effects of a new, on consumer engagement focused marketing campaign.
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Increase in trust in the organization as important goal
As mentioned earlier, the main priority for the financial sector is improving its reputation by rebuilding trust. This is also the matter for a.s.r., the subject of this case study, as its campaigns described previously are aimed at increasing consumer trust in the organization by engaging them with the brand, ultimately leading to becoming a brand with an desirable role within society again.Therefore, within this study, trust will be the main factor that determines the reputation of the firm and will act as a influencer of brand engagement.
Considering the fact there has been a lot of research done about the concept and definition of trust in relation to organizations (Mcknight & Chervany (1996); Mayer et al. (1995); Tan & Tan (2000)), many definitions are available. A commonly used one is adapted from Gambetta (1988), who defines trust in an organization as being “The observer’s confidence that the organization will perform an action that is beneficial or at least not detrimental to him or her”. Because of the importance of rebuilding trust in the financial sector, research on the drivers of this concept within this specific context has been recently conducted. Van Raaij and Plasmeijer (2015) did research on this matter within the financial sector and developed a model in which they distinguish six drivers of trust, explained on the next page.
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Customer focus
The extent to which a firm puts its customer’s interest central in their operations and has good intentions with it, and does not operate mainly from self-interest.
Transparency
The amount of openness about operations, costs and risks of financial products and procedures.
Integrity
The extent to which rules are obeyed and customers are treated carefully and honest.
Competence
The extent to which a firm has expertise about financial products and the link to customer needs.
Stability
The solvability and continuity of the financial service provider.
Value congruence
The extent to which the firm is social aware and contributes to a durable society. From their research, consumers appear to have trust in the stability and competence of
financial service providers, but far less in the integrity and value congruence, transparency and customer focus of the organisations. Considering this, it is assumable that trust, measured as an indicator of firm reputation, is relevant to research in relation to brand engagement.
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Method and data: Case Study “De Andere Tour”
Research- topic and questionsAs mentioned before, a.s.r. Nederland is a Dutch insurance company. With almost 4000
employees and annual turnovers of 3,8 billion euro, the company is among the biggest insurers in the Netherlands. It is also one of the oldest, as it predecessors were founded in 1720. It offers many financial services such as pensions, health insurance, life insurance, damage and home contents insurances, income insurance, mortgages and saving solutions. The concern sells its products through its brands a.s.r., De Amersfoortse, Ditzo, Ardanta and De
Europeesche.
The firm aims to go back to the roots of insuring; namely sharing risks and helping each other when these risks occurs. It wants to deliver upon its mission by offering high standards of service, but also by actively helping within societal issues. Marketing budgets are therefore spent on “helping campaigns”, in which a.s.r. reaches out towards people or organizations in need. These campaigns do not have direct goals on sales, but are aimed at delivering a message or proofpoint and on consumer engagement towards the brand and its values.
The effects of this chosen marketing strategy is interesting to investigate. Within the described context, the latest campaign of a.s.r. is chosen to be the subject of research as a case study. This latest campaign is called “De Andere Tour” (“The Other Tour”). The campaign is a parody of the Tour de France, starring 42 people in their retirement, in the age from 65 up to 87. During the campaign, they cycle their own Tour de France one day ahead of the real Tour, in pairs on a tandem. The key message of the campaign is that older people can still be active and out-going, also after their retirement.
The campaign activities exist out of a selection day event, during which the 42 cyclists are selected for “De Andere Tour” team, a team presentation and the actual riding of the Tour, broadcasted every evening as an branded item in a popular Tour de France sports program on national television. All the selected cyclists are customers of a.s.r. and have their pensions secured at a.s.r.
19 To examine the effects of this campaign on consumer brand engagement towards a.s.r. and the level of trust in the organization, the following research questions were formulated:
1. How did the marketing campaign “De Andere Tour” influenced brand engagement for a.s.r. with consumers that were exposed to the campaign?
2. How did the marketing campaign “De Andere Tour” influenced brand engagement for a.s.r. with consumers that were actively involved in the campaign?
3. How does the brand engagement caused by the marketing campaign “De Andere Tour” influence the level of trust in the organisation?
To specify the level of brand engagement, we fall back on the theory of Vivek et al. (2014), who distinguish the three dimensions of consumer engagement Conscious Attention, Enthusiastic
Participation and Social Connection. As mentioned before, these dimensions describe different
ways of engaging with an organization. For this research, the focus is on two out of these three dimensions.
Conscious Attention is about the degree of interest the consumer has or wishes to have in interacting with a brand or firm. This is for an insurance company of high importance, because insurance products are generally low-involvement products. A marketing campaign which has a positive effect on this engagement dimension will increase the likability that consumers would like to get more information about the brand or firm and is therewith a way to make an insurance company more top of mind.
Social Connection is a way of engagement in which somebody undertakes mutual action towards a brand in presence of other people. By doing this, the person is being vulnerable because he or she relates him- or herself in public. Especially in the financial industry, where general trust is low and the public image is not very positive nowadays, this takes a high degree of engagement. Therefore, this dimension is also a measurement in this research and
20 Enthusiastic Participation is chosen to left out of scope of this research for the main reason that insurance products are not a everyday-use product and interaction with insurance companies is generally rather rare. Although the importance of this dimension of engagement should be understood, it is of less relevance within the examined context.
Conscious attention will be referred to as individual engagement, because this engagement requires individual action that can be performed in a safe environment and will therefore be considered as the lowest level of engagement. Social connection will be named social
engagement, because of the public nature of the actions and the inclusions of others. Within
the chosen context it is the highest degree of engagement. Furthermore, the level of
engagement for both individual as social engagement will be tested in two situations; active participation in the marketing campaign and passive participation in the marketing campaign. When actively participated, consumers visited the Andere Tour event of were part of the cycling team. This is a small group of 300 people. Passively participated means that consumers were aware of the campaign by seeing it on social media, television or internet.
For both variances of engagement and participation, the effect on trust in the company will be tested.
Derived from earlier mentioned research questions and the explanation above, the following relationships will be tested;
𝐸𝑖 → 𝑇 𝐸𝑠 → 𝑇 𝑇 = 𝑓(𝐸)(𝐸𝑖𝑥𝐸𝑠) 𝐸𝑖 = 𝐼𝑛𝑑𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑑𝑢𝑎𝑙 𝐸𝑛𝑔𝑎𝑔𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝐸𝑠 = 𝑆𝑜𝑐𝑖𝑎𝑙 𝐸𝑛𝑔𝑎𝑔𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑇 = 𝑇𝑟𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑖𝑛 𝑜𝑟𝑔𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑧𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛
21
Type of Research
To examine the described relationships, an online survey was conducted among the research population. Distinguishing different explorative relationships, the online surveys also focused on different samples and followed a different research design.
Considering the relationship in which the research population was only exposed to the
marketing campaign, two measurements are necessary to examine the effect of the campaign. One prior to the launch of the campaign, and one after the campaign has ended and there is no media attention for the campaign anymore. To obtain the necessary data for this relationship, 350 respondents were selected towards a panel representing the average Dutch population. This panel is weighted with the Golden Standard by CBS (National Statistical Office) and MOA (Dutch Market Research association), guaranteeing the representativity of the population considering age, gender, level of education, region and income. The online survey was
presented to different representative panels prior and after the campaign period of “De Andere Tour”, therewith measuring the effect of the campaign on brand engagement and the effect on trust in the firm.
Concerning the second relationship, in which an effect of being actively involved in the marketing campaign is examined, a different approach is chosen. All the visitors of the event, the selection day for being part of the cyclist team of “De Andere Tour”, despite whether being selected or not, were also requested to fill in an online survey. There were 190 people visiting the event, and therewith the exposure of the event is not big.
However, 97 visitors were willing to take the survey, with a response rate of 51% this is a
representative sample of the total population present on the event. Despite this, the number of respondents is too low to analyze according to statistical standards. Therefore, results from this survey have to be interpret in a more qualitative way. Because of this, additional to the
standard questionnaire, the visitors of the event were also asked to provide qualitative substantiation on questions about their engagement towards the brand a.s.r.
22 The measurements are extracted from existing literature, and adapted to be recognizable for the research population and to be relevant for the specific case.
A 5-point Likert scale was used to implicate that the respondents had to rank their opinion about the different statements. Moreover, as stated before, the respondents that have been actively involved in the campaign were asked to enrich their answers with qualitative
substantiation. This data gives deeper insights about the reasons behind the level of engagement towards the brand.
The research focuses on causality with mainly ordinal data. A moderation analysis is used to test the different research questions and is analyzed with a 0.05 significance level. SPSS is used as analytics and reporting tool.
Research Design
As mentioned in the previous section, to examine the effects of a marketing campaign on brand engagement and trust, three different studies were taken. However, one of these studies is different in a way that it has other and fewer respondents than the two other studies. This makes the study not less relevant, but the results have to be interpreted in a different way. The following table explains this in a schematic way;
0-study 1-study Exposed to marketing campaign (passive participation) 𝐸𝑖, 𝐸𝑠, 𝑇 𝐸𝑖, 𝐸𝑠, 𝑇 = > 0 − 𝑠𝑡𝑢𝑑𝑦 Involved in marketing campaign (active participation) X 𝐸𝑖, 𝐸𝑠, 𝑇 = > 0 − 𝑠𝑡𝑢𝑑𝑦 Table 1
23 As the table points out, the relationship between the effect of the campaign on the passively participated respondents is directly observable. However, because of the single point of measurement of the passively participated group, the results of this study will be compared with the 0-study of the passive group.
This is acceptable, because this study represents consumers that have not been exposed to the marketing campaign yet. However, the smaller amount of actively involved respondents leads to lower significance and its results will therefore be interpreted more qualitatively.
Measures
In order to test the different potential relationships, questions were adapted from relevant literature on the topic. As described before, academic literature on brand engagement is still limited, as the concept is currently in its definition phase. Vivek et al. (2014) were first to develop a generalizable, multidimensional scale for measuring customer engagement in a specific context and therefore will act as a base for future research. Their scale is subsequently validated in a few, comparable contexts. The chosen contexts of Vivek et al. tested engagement towards love brands or loved activities, most contrary to the current research subject, in which engagement towards a brand in a mistrusted industry with commodity products is tested. This leads to inevitable adaptations to the survey questions, in which some questions from the Vivek et al. survey are futile. However, despite the adaptations, core questions were retained and the chosen two of the three described levels; Conscious Attention, Enthusiastic Participation and
Social Connection, acted as base for the formulated survey questions. Furthermore, the
questions about word of mouth activity (social connection), were extended with social media activity, as being an important part of modern word of mouth activity. Because of the
adaptations in the survey, the questions had to be grouped to factors and the reliability of measurement of these factors had to be tested. In order to do this, a factor analysis and a Cronbach’s Alpha analysis were conducted.
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Factor analysis and Reliability
A factor analysis is a statistical technique to investigate whether there is communality between groups of questions. The factor analysis was executed with SPSS, using the Eigenvalues over 1 option and running a scree plot to compare the results. In this analysis, both criteria led to the selection of three factors. SPSS output of this analyses can be found in the appendix.
Within the three factors we can recognize three distinctive topics which measure the earlier mentioned research questions and correspond with the dimensions of engagement from Vivek et al. (2014). To ensure the highest reliability, a Cronbach’s Alpha analysis was conducted on the three factors. This resulted in the following outcomes;
Factor 1, “Individual Engagement”, consist out of engagement actions that are undertaken towards the brand from the individual’s own initiative, with no further meanings to recommend the brand to others. Still, within this factor there are higher and lower degrees of engagement actions, ranging from finding out more about the brand towards defending the brand. This factor consist out of three propositions and has a Cronbach’s Alpha score of 0,775 and is therewith of high statistical reliability.
Factor 2, “Social Engagement”, consist out of word of mouth engagement actions that are focused on sharing opinions about the brand in public. It is therefore a more vulnerable form of engagement actions because the consumer puts its own reputation at stake. The questions within this factor are derived from Vivek’s paper in which he described word of mouth activity as highly correlative with its own social connection dimension. WOM was presented by
Harrison-Walker (2001) on a 4-item scale. Because word of mouth is more appropriate to the context current study, and as it can be assumed that it is a correlative and validated measure for social connection as measured by Vivek, it is chosen to measure it in a similar way. However, the only adaption from Harrison-Walker is that within this research, we shift the WOM
questions to a social media context. The reliability of this factor is again measured by a Cronbach’s Alpha analysis with a result of 0,861 and is therefore reliable.
25 Factor 3, the result metric, is called “Trust in the organization” and consist out of 5 items. Again, this factor is measured on its reliability scoring a Cronbach’s Alpha of 0,903 and is therefore also of statistical reliability. The items to measure the degree of trust in the organization were derived from several sources and adapted to the specific context. Important conditions for the survey is that it measures trust within the financial sector, and therefore conclude the current issues occurring in the industry. The earlier described model of Van Raaij and Plasmeijer (2015) forms a strong basis for selecting relevant questions for this research. As they state, the survey questions should conclude the subjects customer focus, transparency, integrity and value congruence. In addition, as Verhoef, Franses and Hoekstra (2000) emphasized earlier in their scientifically validated model about trust between consumer and company, the reliability of an organization depends on its intentions to act good and keep their promises. Therefore, this model will also form the basis for the applied questions concerning firm reputation, measured in trust within the organization.
Control variables for this survey included gender, age, household composition, education level, professional situation, region, and customer or no customer of the organization.
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Results
In total, 1103 respondents have taken part in the three studies, 381 in the 0-study, 625 in the 1-study and 97 in the 1-study taken after the event. For the 0 and 1 1-study, the average completion time was 9:12 minutes. The respondents were selected according to the constraints of Golden Standard of the Market Research Association and CBS. The age of the respondents were spread out from 18 to 66+, with the vast majority older than 45. Furthermore, 45% of the of the
respondents are married and have children. Only 2% did not completed any study, and even 40% are well educated. Moreover, most of the respondents have a job, three-quarter of the group. The rest is either enjoying their retirement or are unable to work. The group of
respondents earn on average quite modally incomes, although 11% earns a minimum income. Respondents were representing all Dutch topographic regions.
Exposed to marketing campaign (Passive participation)
Independent t-test
The first analysis to discover the possible effects of the marketing campaign on the variables social engagement, individual engagement and trust is an independent t-test. This analysis is done to estimate whether there are differences between the means of the group of
respondents before the launch of the marketing campaign, and the respondents that were exposed to the marketing campaign. In the following tables, the results of this analysis is presented.
27 In table 1, the statistics of the two groups are presented. As can be seen, the means of the 0-study and the 1-0-study differ on all variables. To investigate whether there are differences in the means, the output of the independent t-test is presented and interpret below.
Table 2: output independent t-test
To interpret the output of the analysis, the Levene’s Test on all variables is analyzed. This metric shows whether there is equality in variances between the two groups. We approve that there is no equality in variances at a significance level <0.05. As can be seen in the table, this is the case for social engagement. For this dimension, we should look at the bottom row of the table. For the metrics individual engagement and trust in the organization the scores are >0.05 and therefore we look for these categories at the top row of the table.
Concerning social engagement, the level of significance of the t-test is <0.05 and therefore it can be concluded that there is a significant difference for this dimension of engagement before and after the marketing campaign. From the group statistics it could be concluded that this score is higher for the group exposed to the campaign.
28 For individual engagement, it is a different case. There is no significant prove (p= 0.152 > 0.05) that there are variances in the means. Therefore, the independent t-test does not convince that there is a significant difference between the two groups concerning this dimension of
engagement.
However, trust within the organization shows a significant variance between the two groups, as this factor shows a high significance level of p=0,005. It can therefore be assumed that there is a difference in level of trust after the marketing campaign. This level of trust is higher, as can be seen in the group statistics.
However, these analyses are not enough to measure the effects of the marketing campaign on the different dimensions of engagement and its relationship on the level of trust of the possible increase of these dimensions, after being exposed to the campaign. After all, we want to know whether the marketing campaign increases the level of engagement, and therewith also the level of trust in the organization. Therefore, additional regression analyses are needed. In the following sections, theses in-depth analyses are presented.
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Correlation analysis and Regression analysis within 0-study
To estimate the effect of “De Andere Tour” on brand engagement and trust in the organization, one first has to estimate the correlation between brand engagement and trust among
respondents that have not been exposed to a certain marketing campaign, in order to produce a 0-study. As mentioned before, brand engagement is divided into two dimensions; individual engagement and social engagement. Therefore, a correlation analysis between the variables is executed using SPSS.
As can been seen in table 3, both social engagement (“Sociaal_engagement”) as individual engagement (“Individueel_engagement”) are in some way positively correlated with trust in the organization (“Vertrouwen_organisatie”) as the Pearson correlation indicated a positive
correlation value both at a significance level >0,05. However, social engagement is weakly correlated, as it only shows a correlation coefficient of 0,173. Besides, we discover a correlation of individual engagement with trust, with a coefficient of 0,458.
Hence, the results show that individual engagement has a stronger positive correlation with trust in the organization than individual engagement has.
30 However, this correlations proves no causal relationship between the engagement factors and trust within the organization. Therefore, a regression analysis is conducted with use of SPSS. The results of this analysis are shown in table 4.
Table 4: Regression analysis 0-study
As we can see, trust in the organization is the dependent variable, and social engagement and individual engagement the predicting variables. The model summary states that these variables correlate with 0.464 with trust within the organization and the model explains 21,5% of the dependent variable.
31 The ANOVA analysis shows us that the relationship is significant, as the value is <0,05. However, the coefficients table learns us that this is the case for individual engagement (significance of 0,000), but not for social engagement (significance >0,05).
This indicates that social engagement does not predict trust in the organization. This validates the much lower correlation that we have seen before on this specific factor.
Apparently, interacting and sharing comments about an organization on social media does not relate to the level of trust in that specific firm. Besides this, individual engagement shows a high correlation and a significant predictive value on trust within the organization.
Correlation analysis and Regression analysis within 1-study
After we estimated the correlation and causal relationship between the engagement
dimensions and trust within the organization among respondents that not have been exposed to the marketing campaign, the effect of the marketing campaign “De Andere Tour”on this relationship is tested. In order to do this, a similar study is executed among a comparable group of respondents. This group is exposed to the marketing campaign through online exposure or the television items.
Again, a correlation analysis is conducted to check whether the correlation changed among the group of people exposed to the marketing campaign. The results of this analysis are presented in table 5.
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Table 5: Correlation analysis 1-study
Within this correlation analysis, both social engagement and individual engagement correlate with trust within the organization. When compared with the correlation analysis of the 0-study mentioned earlier, we detect an increase in correlation on both dimensions. The correlation of social engagement with trust within the organization increased from 0,173 to 0,406, with a higher level of significance. Furthermore, also the correlation of individual engagement and trust increased, from 0,458 to 0,586 on a continuously high level of significance.
This implicated that the correlation increased on all dimensions of engagement on the group of people that were exposed to the marketing campaign from a weak to moderate correlation. Especially the increase of social engagement is notable.
To analyze whether the predictive value of the dimensions of engagement on trust within the organization also increases after being exposed to the marketing campaign “De Andere Tour”, a similar regression analysis is also conducted among these respondents. These results are
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Table 6: Regression analysis 1-study
In the model summary, one can see that the variables correlate with 0,605 with trust within the organization, and this model predicts trust with 36,5%. This is again a significant increase, from 21,5% a growth of 15%. The Change Statistics do not add anything to this analysis, as only one model is tested.
As the ANOVA analysis emphasizes, the model shows a level of significance <0,05 and therefore trustworthy. However, the regression analysis shows that social engagement increased in predictive value but is again not significant. Therefore, the predictive value of social engagement on trust within the organization cannot be supported. However, individual engagement positively affects trust within the organization, and this increased within the respondents that were exposed towards the marketing campaign “De Andere Tour”.
34 To conclude, the results of the two studies implicates that the dimensions of engagement correlate with trust within the organization, and that this generally increased when exposed to the marketing campaign “De Andere Tour”. Furthermore, also the causal relationship between these variables increases after seeing the campaign. However, we cannot support this
statement for social engagement, as this relationship is not significantly proven.
Involved in marketing campaign (active participation)
As mentioned before, there is also a group of consumers actively involved in the marketing campaign “De Andere Tour”. This relatively small group is worth analyzing because they took part in the campaign by visiting an event and have therefore a significant different experience with the campaign. It is therefore interesting to examine what the campaign had for an effect on the brand engagement and trust towards the brand a.s.r. Limitation of this study however is that the respondents are too few to be representative and the results should therefore be interpreted explorative way. Therefore, it is suggested that the results will be tested in further research.
An important part of the marketing campaign “De Andere Tour” was an event on which customers of a.s.r. of 65 years or older were invited to take a bicycle tour, do a fittest on a fitness device, get tips from professional cyclists and meet cycling icons from their own age. Furthermore, visitors could compete in a race to become part of the campaigns cycling team that would ride the stages of the Tour de France and be part of the campaign broadcasted on national television. With this event, a.s.r. wants to prove and support that seniors are still active citizens that can enjoy live and still have a lot to offer to society.
There were 300 people present on the event, from which 97 respond to the questionnaire. The questions presented were the same as in the other studies, focussing on individual
engagement, social engagement and the trust in the organization. Explorative analysis of the results show that the group respondents that were actively involved in the campaign scored much higher than the 0-study.
35 Concerning individual engagement, actively involved consumers are scoring significantly higher on all statements in the questionnaire than the respondents in the 0-study which represent the Dutch population. Surprisingly, 20% more consumers wants to know more of the organization, but even more than 60% talks about the organization in public and would defend the brand when other people are negative about the firm. These scores are considerably lower in the 0-study.
Respondents were asked to underpin these scores. They state for example that “A.s.r. does
more than other insurers for eldery people”, “A.s.r. is commited to seniors”, “I don’t know any other insurance company that organizes such kind of events, well done!” and “If a.s.r. continues organizing these kind of events, I would definitely defend them”. These statements emphasize
that the people that were actively involved in the campaign increased their individual engagement towards the brand. Also for the dimension social engagement, scores were considerably higher for the visitors of the event. Scores varying between 10% to 20% increase on all statements concerning word of mouth activity on social media. It should be taken into account that visitors of the event were all older than 55 years, hence not the most active group on social media. Therefore, it can be assumed that being involved in a marketing campaign could possibly affect social engagement possibly even more for consumers that are active on social media. Concerning trust in the organization, scores were also much higher for the actively involved consumers. Almost 75% of the visitors state that they have very much faith in the organization. This is more than 50% more than the average Dutch population.
Concluding on the results of the qualitative study amongst the actively in the marketing campaign involved consumers one can state that this has a high effect on consumer brand engagement and trust within the firm. However, the few visitors and respondents makes it questionable whether these results are representative for a greater population of consumers. A comparable study on a bigger sample should be conducted to in further research to analyze these relationships in a statistical way. However, this explorative study implies that actively involving consumers in a marketing campaign are assumable more engaged towards a brand than consumers that are not aware of the campaign or only passively involved.
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Discussion
This research was carried out to investigate the relationship of brand engagement on trust within an organization and whether it is possible to influence this relationship with a marketing campaign. The case is tested within the financial industry, hence in a low interest market with a relative low level of trust. Because of this contradiction, it is interesting to investigate whether it is possible to increase brand engagement and therewith also trust in an industry by
undertaking a certain kind of marketing campaign. In the following sections, conclusions and theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.
Theoretical Implications
Brand engagement is a relatively new concept and therefore also new in scientific literature. However, in the past years interest in the subject increased, and therewith also the variety of definitions and dimensions of brand engagement. Many researchers described various definitions, which helped Vivek et al. to come up with the first measurable scale of brand engagement. This scale was validated within a certain specific context that deviates much from other industries. Therefore, practitioners research is needed in order to research the concept in different settings. This underpins the reason to conduct a case study analysis within a totally different context. However, this asked for alterations in the scale of Vivek et al. Furthermore, the relationship with the dimensions from Vivek’s research with the level of trust within an organization was examined, which is also an addition to earlier research.
In this paper, brand engagement is divided in two dimensions, derived from Vivek’s scale. These dimensions, social and individual brand engagement, were separately researched and linked to trust within the organization. Social engagement is about engagement behavior in the form of word of mouth activity, in this case measured in various social media activities. Individual engagement is more about engagement behavior that an individual initiates, sometimes in presence of other people. This can be vulnerable, because associating yourself with a brand in public can lead to judgeful reactions.
37 Therefore, this is a higher degree of engagement behavior. Within this paper, before examining the effect of a marketing campaign on these types of behavior, the relationship with trust within the organization was investigated.
To answer this first research question, correlation analyses and regression analyses were carried out among respondents before the marketing campaign was launched. What we discovered was that social engagement weakly correlates with trust within the organization. However, individual engagement shows a moderate correlation with trust within the
organization. This implicates that that these kind of engagement dimensions correlate with trust within the organization can only be partly stated. If there might be a correlation at all, it would be with individual engagement and trust.
To test the predictive value of these engagement behaviors before a marketing campaign was launched, a regression analysis was carried out. This analysis shows that there is a significant positive relationship between these engagement dimensions and trust within the organization. However, when looked at the the two dimensions separately, social engagement does not show a significant relationship.
This means that we can only partly support the research question that both dimensions have a positive effect on trust within the organization, as only individual engagement is proved to be significant in the situation before launching the marketing campaign.
To measure whether the marketing campaign had an effect on this relationship, similar analyses were conducted in the period after the marketing campaign, to people that were exposed to this campaign. This resulted in an increase in correlation, in which especially a notable growth in the correlation between social engagement and trust within the organization is notable. This correlation is proved to be significant and increased from a weak relationship to a moderate relationship, indicating that the marketing campaign could have a positive effect on this relationship. Furthermore, also the correlation with individual engagement slightly
increased. Thus, the marketing campaign may cause a higher degree of engagement behavior towards the brand.
38 This analysis shows a significant and stronger relationship between the engagement dimensions and the trust within the organization. This implicates that also on this relationship, the
marketing campaign may have had a positive influence. However, also in this case social engagement does not show a significant relationship, with a coefficient of >0,05. This means that also for the 1-study, the research hypotheses can only be partly supported, even though the strength of the relationship increased.
This paper adds a practical perspective to the to the existing literature, in which not only Vivek, but also Van Doorn, Bowden and Patterson took effort to define and measure brand
engagement as a concept and as forms of behavior. Their research adds up upon each other and eventually led to a measurable scale which could only be validated in limited contexts. This paper tests elements of their research in a practical case study, to convert their findings in actionable information. Furthermore, as it is crucial to not only measure the degree of
engagement but especially the effects of this engagement behavior on important antecedents as Van Doorn describes them, the scale is extent with the relationship of the behavior with trust within the organization. In this way, the theoretical implication of this case study is that the concept of brand engagement is operationalized in a way that it can be measured in
relationship to important important engagement antecedents that are currently relevant for the industry in which it is measured. By doing this, it does a first attempt of bridging the gap between scientific and practical research and therewith takes the brand engagement concept out of the definition stage.
Besides measuring the degree of engagement behavior and its effect on trust within the organization among people that were exposed to the marketing campaign “De Andere Tour”, we were also interested in the effects of actively involving people in the marketing campaign. These people were invited to an event and actively participated in activities around the theme of the campaign. Although we were not able to quantify the effects of actively involving these people on the degree engagement behavior, exploratively interpreting the results leads to valuable insights. Taking the low amount of respondents into account, these first results indicate that involving people in marketing campaigns tremendously increases the degree of
39 engagement behavior people initiate and therewith also the trust within the organization. In a low interest industry such as the insurance market, this could be a powerful way of engaging customers. However, this relationship should be validated in further research.
Managerial implications
Because of the growing interest in the concept of brand engagement on the one side, and the lack of practical research on the other, this study can help to find applicable insights in
marketing strategy. Furthermore, the link that this study made with the relationship with trust within an organization is interesting from a managerial perspective. Especially in the financial industry, a sector in which trust in the financial service providers is at a low level, engaging with customers and regaining trust of the consumer is a high priority on the board’s agendas.
Therefore, it is useful to investigate what tools a firm has to stimulate engagement with its customers.
For the Dutch insurer a.s.r., subject of analysis in this study, it is of high importance to measure the effect of their unconventional marketing campaigns. The campaigns are partly aimed at increasing brand engagement, but “De Andere Tour” is the first campaign in which an attempt is done to measure this. The results are useful for evaluation and adaptation to following campaigns.
The first important finding is that the two dimensions of brand engagement that were formulated partly show a correlation with the degree of trust within the organization.
For social engagement, which is about word of mouth activity and interaction on social media, shows a non-significant weak correlation with trust. This implies that social engagement does not necessarily lead to higher levels of trust towards the firm. Hence, however there is
interaction with the firm, this does not increase trust in that particular brand, in this case a.s.r. A possible reason for this could be that however interaction between a brand and a consumer on social media is public, it is still quite non-committal. In today’s society, social media activity has become such a normal part of consumer lives, that interaction on this network is pretty random and maybe even a bit meaningless. The threshold to like, share or comment on posts or
40 articles has become very low. This is underpinned in the present study, in which these kind of interactions did not correlate with the level of trust within a.s.r. Furthermore, it could also play a role that insurers are currently not really the front runners concerning social content, which it makes it more difficult to form an opinion about an insurer through this channel.
For individual engagement, the results of the study show a moderate, significant correlation with trust within an organization. In this case, we see that engagement behavior that is initiated by the individual consumer and is aimed at getting to know more about the company or express a public opinion about the brand shows correlation with the degree of trust in that particular brand. It could be the case that this kind of behavior requires more conscious action from this consumer and therefore will only be undertaken when there is a certain level of trust within the organization. Hence, when a.s.r. has the ambition to increase this level of trust, stimulating this kind of behavior could contribute to this. This can be done by delivering good service, but this study shows that it can also be achieved by certain marketing activities.
Interpreting these notes, it seems to be important to focus on individual engagement instead of social engagement when increasing trust in the organization is the main goal. Social
engagement could contribute positively to brand awareness, but not intentionally to trust. It is not stated that this is the case for all organizations, but according to the presented study it is the case for this specific insurance company. It could be that the on average low degree of trust that consumer have in financial service companies, can not be recovered by offering interesting content on social media. It takes more than that, and that explains why individual engagement contrary does lead to an increase in trust within the organization. Apparently, increasing trust requires a higher level of consumer brand engagement in the financial industry. Insurance should therefore focus on stimulating consumer to talk positively about the brand in real life, instead on social media.
In the results of this study, correlation of the dimensions of brand engagement and trust within the organization increased after “De Andere Tour” ended. There could be other reasons that contributed to this growth, but assuming that the marketing campaign played a role in this, one can state that this unusual way of conducting marketing could be effective.
