Today, the ability to engage customers is a key factor of brand competitiveness in global markets. Not surprising, marketers are scrambling to figure how to utilize social media and other digital platforms to motivate customer engagement (CE), defined as brand-focused behavioral manifestations, other than purchases, resulting from individual and group motivational drivers. In this study we adopt consumer investment in trademarks perspective, suggesting that consumers proactively use global brand’s signs to express themselves, affirm values, communicate, and experience pleasure in digital platforms. The brand owners deploy trademarks to protect the symbols, which can distinguish the goods or services of a brand owner from those of other enterprises. We hypothesize that by registering trademarked signs in the host markets, global brands may facilitate CE and achieve superior performance. We empirically test these proposition using data for 125 global brands and trademark finings these brands in the twenty largest economies. The results of model confirm expectations that both trademarking in the host markets and consistency in using protected signs positively affected brand’s market share. The study provides managerial, theoretical, and policy insights in context of global brand protection.

• Alexander Krasnikov(HSE University, Russian Federation)
• Vera Rebiazina(HSE University, Russian Federation)