The Metaverse’s virtual world is used in various industries and is expected to continue to grow in the future. In addition, the Metaverse is a new type of society that integrates various new technologies, and NFT products play an essential role. Therefore, NFT product characteristics and industry trends should be assessed to revitalize the NFT market. To this end, this study confirms the influence relationship between social presence and NFT product characteristics in the Metaverse environment and examines the impact of each characteristic on consumer satisfaction and continued engagement intention to NFT product. Statistical analysis such as exploratory factor analysis, reliability analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, correlation analysis, and structural equation modeling (SEM) using IBM SPSS Amos was conducted on data collected through a survey targeting male and female Korean consumers in their age group 10 to 50. Study results indicate that social presence significantly impacted all characteristics of NFT products (authenticity, scarcity, rarity, collectability, and interactivity). Scarcity and authenticity significantly impacted consumer satisfaction, and both authenticity and consumer satisfaction significantly impacted continued engagement intention. Thus, effective product development and marketing strategies can be established only by presenting different emphasized characteristics depending on the type of NFT product and the Metaverse’s social presence.

Fashion companies develop initiatives in the Metaverse, especially through Gamification, Non-Fungible Tokens or Shopping experience. Through a Systematic Literature Review in Metaverse and Fashion Communication and Systematic Content analysis in Vogue Business and The Business of Fashion we highlight the best actions in the metaverse and their future application.

Consumer brand engagement (CBE) signals propensity for brand purchase. A scale proposes three dimensions of CBE (i.e., cognitive, affective and activation dimensions) but the dimensions prominent and driving brand purchase intentions in an Instagram cosmetic purchase context need examination. In this context, this study tests Hollebeek, Glynn and Brodie’s (2014) 10-items/3 dimensions scale and examines an outcome of cosmetics brand purchase intention on Instagram. Data was quantitatively collected from 203 consumers who were students and non-students using convenience and snowballing non- probability sampling method. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling were used to analyse the data. The results revealed that although the three CBE dimensions were identified in a Cosmetic Instagram purchase context, it was the affective and activation dimensions that positively predicted consumers’ intentions to purchase cosmetic brands after engaging with the brand on Instagram. Theoretical and practical implications are provided.

The paper examines how omnichannel communication of sustainability of luxury fashion brands enhance consumer brand engagement. We propose a multiple case study of four Italian high-end fashion brands. The study advances the literature on sustainable luxury fashion and omnichannel communication and offers guidelines for managers to effectively communicate sustainability.

Social media has emerged as a prevalent tool for businesses in recent years through which brands actively engage in promotions. This development has resulted in several social media trends aimed at garnering increased consumer engagement on various social media platforms that brands utilize routinely. We investigate one such prevalent social media trend: brands sharing memes. Several popular brands, such as Netflix, regularly post memes on social media platforms. Therefore, it is important to study the brands’ use of memes and their resultant impact on consumer behavior.

Introduction Brand community influences consumer behavior due to the growing impact of social media in both virtual environment and in real life. Social networks for the brand - it's an opportunity to simply, accessible and round the clock talk about all the important events of its audience within an online brand community. The subject of our research is based on the type of user and the motivations for participating in the online brand community. We investigate how the brand relationship quality and online brand community engagement are related and what consumer motives influence the online brand community engagement. This study represents how brands and consumers make interactions in a virtual environment. Theoretical Development Past research demonstrates that members of brand communities are motivated to join or participate in life of brand communities for various reasons. Some scholars distinguish motives, values, drivers, stimulating the attention, activity, relationship with the online brand community or brand commitment and engagement as well. They include: information or knowledge-seeking motives, entertainment, remuneration, personal identity, integration, social interaction, sense of belonging, level of communication, self-discovery and hedonic benefits (Muntinga, Moorman, & Smit, 2011; Dholakia & Bagozzi, 2004; Yen, Hsu & Huang, 2011; Wang, Fesenmaier, 2004). The benefits gained by consumers through engaging in an OBC are obvious, which were discussed in prior studies (Yen, Hsu & Huang, 2011) such as entertainment, gratification, social – appreciation or learning (Wang, Fesenmaier, 2004). But accordingly to Tseng, Huang & Setiawan (2017) the main initial reasons why people join the online brand community are usually pragmatic, for example, they seek information or entertainment. Tseng, Huang & Setiawan (2017) focus on two pragmatic motives, knowledge- and entertainment seeking motives, that served as the members‟ initial drives to participate in online brand communities. They categorized motivations into pragmatic (functional-related) and symbolic (social-related) motives. In this case, not all of the motives are on the same level. Hennig-Thurau, Gwinner, Walsh (2004) demonstrated that the crucial factor that influence on the interaction of consumers with online brand communities is that consumers are more actively involved in online communities when there are economic incentives (discounts, actions, competitions). Zhou, Zhang et al. (2012) came to a similar conclusion, that companies should provide material assistance and also deliver care and rewards to the brand community as well. Communication can relate to the necessity to receive feedback from the brand on the issues of consumer‟s interest as well as communication with community members, which may be caused by motives such as social – appreciation, creating a status or self-esteem status, sharing personal experience, self-confidence or establishing relationships (Dholakia, Bagozzi, and Pearo 2004). For brands, on the one hand, it is important to understand the motives of the community members, and on the other, to help them achieve their goals. Directly concerned the online brand community allows not only to increase brand awareness, establish brand identity to the consumer's perception, but also promotes the penetration of the brand's personality into the consumer's lifestyle. That is why such serious importance should be paid to the content (filling) of the brand pages: external events, news, which can be popular in the internet environment, or simply congratulates subscribers on holidays (Schau, Muñiz, & Arnould, 2009). Great attention is paid to the diversity of content in the brand communities of well-known cosmetic brands: video lessons, make-up instructions, contests for every new product launch, interesting facts about the brand, beauty memories for instance. In the brand communities of sports goods the content of expert materials about sports and their benefits is used, about the nuances of performing certain exercises, about proper nutrition, about new scientific discoveries concerning sports and health, and even food recipes. But qualitative content is not a frequent phenomenon, as mass borrowings of other people's materials and ideas are most often observed. If the content is really useful and qualitative, then the community will gain tremendous trust from subscribers or active members (Habibi et al., 2014). Motivational content is important for brand promotion as well. For example, motivation is often not enough for people to start a healthy lifestyle. And due to the lack of motivation many consumers throw begun half-way. If the company gives selfconfidence to the community members, then it will become a loyal friend to them and will be able to gain trust, create an emotional connection with them. This variety of content in one account is useful for different categories of subscribers. Therefore it is worth emphasizing that for communities it is important UGC (user generated content). According to Muntinga et al. (2011) the term „user-generated content‟ (UGC) is used for the content produced and uploaded by consumers rather than companies. Schau, Muñiz, & Arnould (2009) demonstrate that companies can encourage the interaction of practices to foster greater customer engagement with the brand in the process of value co-creation. Choi, Ko and Kim (2016) emphasized that value cocreation means that customer emotional, cognitive, and behavioral experiences are the basis of the value, impressions, recognition, and internalization they accord to the brand. Some people like to participate in the creation of content, give some recommendations. Accordinly to Schau, Muñiz, & Arnould (2009) if the firms give consumers the opportunity to construct brand communities and the freedom to modify their products, they will be ready to take the initiative. Different motives, values, brand trust, brand loyalty, brand identification and brand community identification are related. Martínez-López, Anaya, & Molinillo (2017) explain in their study, that members‟ OBC engagement and participation based on their relationships with other members and with the community sponsor (companies/brands). But there are points of view that determine that the relationship between motives and community commitment can be both direct and indirect. Bagozzi & Dholakia (2004), Zhou & Zhang et al. (2012) support the positive influence of brand community identification on brand identification and attachment. Previous studies find that members‟ commitment to a brand community leads to their commitment to the brand (Kim, Choi, Qualls, & Han, 2008) and consequently consumers tend to purchase the same brand consistently (Algesheimer et al., 2005). Positive aspects of the community's influence will lead to positive behavioral intentions, such as consumer recommendations for joining this community to friends and acquaintances (Hennig-Thurau, Gwinner, Walsh, 2004). Therefore electronic positive word-of-mouth‟(eWOM) on social media is significant tool for online consumer-to-consumer interactions both about brands (Muntinga et al., 2011) and about brand communities (Pop & Woratschek, 2017): consumers can generate and spread brand related information to their friends, peers, and others without constraints (Kim & Ko, 2012). The best channel for promotion at any level is a positive experience that a person receives from the use of products, and the desire to share it arises as a consequence. Cooperation with opinion leaders has recently become a priority for many brands. In addition, collaboration with different bloggers allows to establish contact with a wider audience, because in the last few years it is the authors of popular blogs that shape the tastes and preferences of the public. Leaders of opinion help shape the brand's image in the eyes of the widest audience of consumers and, as a result, influence sales. Quite often, when bloggers become brand ambassadors, they take part in advertising campaigns. Research Design In our study we attempt to determine the influence of the type of consumer (innovators, opinion leaders, status seekers, etc.), the motives for participating in the online brand community (entertainment, information search, reward, hedonistic motives, self-expression) on online brand community engagement (interaction), positive WOM online brand community. Therefore, this study particularly addresses the following research questions: 1. What consumer motivations influence the online brand community engagement and the positive WOM online brand community? 2. Does the brand identity influence the online brand community engagement (interaction) and the positive WOM online brand community? 3. What factors influence the promotion activity of brand and online brand community? Our study suggests that consumer motivations (social interaction, knowledge seeking, hedonic motives) and type of consumers (innovators, opinion leaders, status seekers) positive influence on the online brand community engagement and WOM brand community. Accordingly, we have developed the following hypothesis: H1: Hedonic consumer motives influence online brand community engagement positively. Н2: Knowledge seeking consumer motives influence online brand community engagement positively. Н3: Creation UGC consumer motives influence online brand community engagement positively. H4: Opinion leaders influence brand relationship quality positively. H5: Innovativeness (consumer innovators) influence brand relationship quality positively. H6: Brand relationship quality influences e-WOM online brand community positively. Today in Russia, social networks reach 70% of the population (about 87 million people), and many users are active on multiple sites (http://mandmglobal.com/digital-marketing-trends-in-russia-social-networks). 87% of Internet users use social networks, including 51% have accounts in several online communities. Studies by Nielsen show that people increasingly buy online or choose goods and things on social networks, and then buy them offline. Recently most Russian and international fashion, cosmetics, clothing companies have began to use social media actively as a channel of communication with end customers. Data collection took place between March and December 2017. We developed two online questionnaires, using www.esurveycreator.com and conducted research on two topics – interaction with cosmetic and sportswear brand-communities. The popularity of a healthy lifestyle is constantly gaining momentum, and at the same time the number of new sports brands is growing. The survey questionnaires were originally designed in English then translated into Russian using a translation/ backtranslation procedure. All of the constructs used in this study were adapted or modified from extant research and multiple item statements were measured by seven-point Likert type scale. Result and Conclusion A total of 444 respondents from Russia were included in this study: 216 respondents interacted with cosmetic online brand-communities and 228 respondents from sportswear brand-communities. The survey involved young people, as the most active part of social networks users. We found that respondents are mainly subscribed to the community brand in the networks: VK (Vkontakte) and Instagram. Less popular are Facebook and Twitter. Russian social network Vkontakte has the largest audience with a monthly user-base of 82-90 million monthly users (it is most popular with younger users (ages 18-34)), then it is followed by OK, Instagram (about 30-17 mil) and Facebook (21 mil), (http://mandmglobal.com/digital-marketing-trends-in-russia-social-networks). Basically, Instagram is interesting for the audience at the age of 18-24 (36.6%) and 25-34 (34.22%). Older social media users generally prefer the social media site OK (originally Odnoklassniki – “classmates”). OK.ru has over 31.5 million viewers a month, with the majority (69%) being women. (https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/top-8-russian-social-networks- makes-great). A Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), using AMOS 19.0, was first employed to assess the properties of the constructs. Relevant loadings were significant, and construct reliability values ranged from 0.6 to 0.885. Discriminant validity relies on average variance extracted (all AVEs are at level of 0,5-0,7) and it was supported. The Structural Equation Modelling was conducted for examining the model (fig. 1). Overall model fit indices are satisfactory: RMSEA is = 0.06 (according to Hu & Bentler (1999)), x2/df = 2,9 (Chi-Square=3373, df=1153), CFI =0.87, IFI = 0.819, P-value<0.001. Thus, according to the results of the research, not all hypotheses have been confirmed. We find that hedonic consumer motives, creation UGC consumer motives influence on the online brand community engagement (table 1). Social interaction benefits have significant impact on creation UGC consumer motives (ß=0.96, t=16.86, p<0.001). Knowledge seeking motives has negative influence on the Online brand community engagement (ß= - 0.96, t=-5.086, p<0.001). Finally, our findings reveal that, brand relationship quality has no significant impact on WOM Online Brand Community (ß=0.192, t=3.81, p<0.001), it is not related to the Online Brand Community Engagement. Construct of brand loyalty was completely excluded from the model due to poor findings. Online communities can follow distinctive norms of interaction, contain rituals or general agreements (Jang H., Olfman L., Ko I., Koh J., Kim K., 2008). Accordingly, our further research should include research on the influence of online brand community atmosphere (norms, rituals, traditions) on the intentions to continue to be a member of the community. In addition, we would like to pay more attention to the impact of content types on the intentions of the participants.

Introduction The social Web is becoming more and more visual. While Facebook remains the leading social networking site (SNS), visual-based platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest have showed a significant increase in the proportion of online users worldwide (Greenwood, Perrin, & Duggan, 2016; Statista, 2017; Pew Research Center, 2017). The trend toward visual communication on SNSs is influenced by the emergence of advanced mobile technologies and the shifting habits of how social media users consume content today. While images displayed on Instagram are past-oriented sharing of memories, or present-oriented displays of creativity, Pinterest presents opportunities for future-oriented inspiration to evolve (Jin, Lin, Gilbreath, & Lee, 2017; Phillips, Miller, & McQuarrie, 2014). Pinterest also serves as a searchable archive of visual content, allowing users to seek and include brand-relevant pins and boards into their own aspirations and inspirations, thus facilitating the sharing of branded content (Phillips et al., 2014). Extant industry reports also suggest that Pinterest users are more likely to image-search for products, interact with sponsored pins, and show favorable attitudes toward advertising, compared with Facebook or Twitter users (McMullen, 2015; Ruscillo, 2017; Williamson, 2015). Considering the benefits of social media for global marketing and the role that imagery plays for developing international brands (Mikhailitchenko, Javalgi, Mikhailitchenko, & Laroche, 2009), this research focuses on the visual aspects of consumer engagement with branded content on Pinterest and investigates how such engagement leads to consumer-brand relationship building and Pinterest-inspired purchase intention. Theoretical Frameworks The extant consumer research has documented the superiority effect of visual content on facilitating persuasion (Childers & Houston, 1984; Miniard, Bhatla, Lord, Dickson, & Rao, 1991). Recent research on social media marketing also suggests that branded content with visual elements help generate favorable consumer responses (De Vries, Gensler, & Leeflang, 2012; Trefzger, Baccarella, & Voigt, 2016). The presentation of branded posts is directly related to the flow construct and trust (Bart, Shankar, Sultan, & Urban, 2005; Hoffman & Novak, 1996). Along this logic, consumer engagement, the degree to which consumers consume, contribute, and create social media content in relation to brands (Schivinski, Christodoulides, & Dabrowski, 2016), is likely to be influenced by brand-related visual cues on Pinterest. While consumption refers to consumers’ acquisition of both brand-created and user-generated content (Muntinga, Moorman, & Smit, 2011), contribution refers to consumers’ inputs to content created by brands or by other consumers (Shao, 2009). Further, creation is the highest level of engagement, which refers to consumers’ generation of brand-related content that could stimulate further consumption and contribution (Muntinga et al., 2011). Therefore, the visually dominant and appealing presentation style, such as appearance, layout, and images, on Pinterest would provide users with high information content, and is likely to increase both active and passive consumer engagement with brands (Bart et al., 2005). Consumer engagement is then expected to encourage social media users’ willingness to actively promote and endorse brand-related content, including organic and sponsored pins. Such volunteer display of their preferred brand-related content is likely to help engender eWOM communication and make such content become more influential in the social Web (Chu & Kim, 2011). As a result, users’ brand-related Pinterest activities are likely to enhance their relationships with brands (Rapp, Beitelspacher, Grewal, & Hughes, 2013) and their intention to purchase from the brands featured in the pins and boards (King, Racherla, & Bush, 2014). All hypothesized relationships are therefore formulated and displayed in Figure 1. Methods To test the proposed conceptual model, an online survey was conducted with participants recruited from a consumer panel administrated by Qualtrics. A total of 467 Pinterest users (58.2% female, Mage = 28.9, SDage = 5.6) comprised the sample, including Caucasian (76%), African American (7.5%), Hispanic (7.4%), Asian (6.9%), multiracial (1.3%), and others (.9%). The participants spent an average of 9.5 hours on Pinterest per week. Smartphones (54.8%) emerged as the most dominant devices for their Pinterest usage, followed by computers (34.9%) and tablets (10.3%). They had an average of 33.7 boards (Range = 1,233), 1,384.1 Pins (Range = 69,000), 930.1 likes (Range = 100,000), 319.0 followers (Range = 44,231), 65.0 following topics (Range = 3,442), 173.0 following people (including brands, Range = 7,000), and 102.0 following boards (Range = 6,000). To note, 78.3% of the participants reported that they made Pinterest-inspired purchases frequently (including 24.8% always, 24.4% usually, and 29.1% often). In addition, the participants were asked to answer questions pertaining to their perceptions of visual cues related to a self-selected brand on Pinterest, engagement with brand-related content, brand endorsing behavior, consumer-brand relationships, and Pinterest-inspired purchase intention (see Table 1). Results To test the proposed hypotheses, a two-step modeling approach following Anderson and Gerbing’s (1988) procedures was employed. The results of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) showed that the measurement model achieved acceptable fit for the data (χ2 = 1178.30, df = 393, χ2/df = 2.99, RMSEA = .065, SRMR = .054, CFI = .930, TLI = .922). The constructs had good composite reliability (>.70). Factor loadings of the construct indicators were all above .70 with significant t values, which indicated good convergent validity for each of the construct items (Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994). Following Fornell and Larcker’s (1981) criteria, the results achieved satisfactory discriminant validity because the average variance extracted (AVE) for each factor was above .50 and greater than the squared correlations between each pair of constructs. The factor scores were then used to perform a path analysis for hypothesis testing which showed satisfactory fit of the conceptual model (see Figure 2). The results indicated that visual cues positively influenced consumer engagement with brand-related content (β = .68, p < .001), which positively led to brand endorsing behavior (β = .86, p < .001). Consequently, brand endorsing behavior positively enhanced the development of consumer-brand relationships (β = .97, p < .001) and increased Pinterest-inspired purchase intention (β = .48, p < .001). In turn, all hypotheses were supported. Discussion and Conclusion In response to the thriving academic interests in understanding how social media users connect and interact with international brands across SNSs (Hennig-Thurau, et al., 2010), this research sheds light on factors that determine social media users’ active discovery, creation, and distribution of visual branded content and the effects of consumer engagement on social media marketing outcomes. By focusing on Pinterest, the research findings showed that users, both men and women, actively seek inspiration from Pinterest across brand-relevant categories. They are highly engaged, open to brand activities, and ready to take Pinterest-inspired actions in the real world. The visual presentation of branded content plays an important role in generating consumer engagement, which is likely to act as a form of perceived relationship investment and subsequently stimulates brand endorsing and advocacy behavior (Simon & Tossan, 2018). Engaged Pinterest users search and select brand-relevant visual content, including sponsored pins, as part of their self-presentation to others (Phillips et al., 2014). Through such interactions with brands and other like-minded users on the platform, their relationships with brands and purchasing behavior are likely to be further enhanced. This research integrates several important literature streams in the conceptual model and employs a representative adult sample to provide theory-driven and generalizable insights into how visually-focused social media marketing works. Marketing managers face opportunities and challenges that social media and the interconnected international business environment present. Therefore, it is crucial to understand how social media users interact with brands on different platforms in order to tailoring brand strategies accordingly for fostering consumer engagement. Specifically, as Pinterest’s popular visual discovery engine continues to attract myriads of global users, managers should harness the power of visual content marketing and engage current as well as potential consumers on the platform, which could have a significant impact on consumer-brand relationship building and business performance in domestic and foreign markets. Building on the findings of this research, future studies should further delve into the psychological underpinnings and motivations that drive consumer engagement with visual branded content on SNSs across cultures and discover how paid, owned and earned brand communication on visual-based SNSs can help strengthen consumer-brand relationships.

Despite the recent promising findings on the influence of social media engagement on brand performance outcomes (e.g., De Vries & Carlson, 2014), researchers suggest that consumer engagement in social media sites requires a deeper understanding (Islam & Rahman, 2016). To respond to this call, we conducted this research to examine an important, yet under-researched, question on the underlying mechanism by which consumer engagement on social media drive improved brand performance. In this research, we develop and empirically test a conceptual model to investigate the relationships among consumer engagement, psychological brand ownership, brand loyalty, brand performance, and consumer’s word of mouth (WOM) in the context of social media. The findings suggest that consumer engagement influences brand outcomes through its indirect impact on consumers’ psychological ownership of the brand. When consumers engage themselves with the brand at social media sites, they tend to form bonds with the brand and develop a sense of community, of which they feel they are a part. Feelings of ownership motivate consumers to care for and nurture the growth of the brand, which manifests itself in terms of brand loyalty, positive word of mouth, and improved brand performance. The focus of consumer engagement in social media communities provides convincing evidence to support the benefits of using social media to connect with consumers. This research offers promising insights on how relationship with a brand can help create sense of community and feelings of ownership among consumers, which in turn drives better brand performance.

A company’s collaborative competence to seamlessly engage with its customers within the service industry becomes one of the primary sources of competitive advantage. Increasingly more customers expect more personalized and contextualized services to maximize the value they can obtain from each transaction, and companies are actively seeking opportunities to listen and learn from customers to enhance their value proposition. Scholars in the service marketing literature suggest that service recovery encounter represent one of the situations where a company can effectively leverage its collaborative competence to restore the company-customer relationship damaged due to an initial service failure. One of the important benefits customers can obtain from actively engaging in recovery is enhanced control. However, they are required to put additional personal resources which count as an increased cost for customers. Also, depending on the nature of a collaborative outcome (positive vs. negative), customers tend to ascribe responsibility differently (more credit to oneself for a positive result and less blame for an adverse result). This study attempts to 1) investigate the role of enhanced control and increased self-effort in customers’ equity perception toward a service recovery encounter and 2) examine how attributional bias intervene in the process. A 2 x 2 web-based experiment with a service recovery scenario was designed and administered to collect the data. The results indicate that when the resulting outcome is not desirable, the increased self-effort from customers counteracts the positive effect of enhanced control. When the recovery outcome is positive, on the other hand, customers with a low level of involvement in recovery process tend to overestimate their self-effort. However, such effect does not exist for customers with a high level of engagement. This study contributes to the extant literature by contemplating adverse impacts of effort and positive impacts of empowering customers with more control. It also provides valuable insight into the usefulness of customer engagement as a pre-emptive recovery strategy.

This study aims at identifying a novel framework that further explains the relationship between brands and customers in the online context at different touchpoints (e.g. social media, website) of the customer journey. In pursuing this goal, authors expect online brand experience as the main trigger in determining specific customer brand engagement (CBE) behaviours.

New communication challenges for companies that use social media are: 1) the knowledge and control of the degree of alignment between communicated and perceived brand personality in order to measure the effectiveness of competitive positioning, and 2) the measurement of engagement among consumers who share comments about brands in online communities. Our research proposes research tools that can help fashion companies meet these challenges. In particular, we present an innovative methodological approach that combines netnography and text-mining to extract and analyze data from online communities of fashion brands.