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.

Luxury companies are striving to improve their communication with customers while paying attention to online promotion and marketing activities. As companies interact with customers in luxury brand communities via various channels, they yield consumers higher value throughout the effective consumption process. In addition, this connection enhances customers’ understanding of the company, making it easier for companies to acquire empathy from customers. This study aims to analyze the value factors that affect luxury brand community members’ purchase intention and brand attitude. This study utilizes online survey results of four hundred prestige brand community users in China. The results reveal the positive effects of customer engagement on customer psychological empowerment and flow, the positive impacts of customer psychological empowerment and flow on community identity and brand attachment, the positive effects of community identity on purchase intentions, and the positive effects of brand attachment on purchase intentions and brand attitude. Furthermore, the results show that community types and fashion involvement partially moderate customer engagement. This study provides theoretical suggestions for relationship marketing in the luxury brand community environment. Last, this study presents practical implications that companies could utilize to create an emotional connection with their community members, resulting in an increase of customer support.

This conceptual paper drew on the uses and gratifications theory to theorize about what drives consumers to engage in social media activation campaigns. This paper proposed that satisfying the needs for integration and social interaction, personal identity, information seeking, entertainment, and utilitarian reward through a social media activation campaign can enhance consumers‘ engagement with it. Finally the way in which cognitive, affective, and behavioral engagement with such campaigns affect brand image was explained theoretically. The developed conceptual framework can help marketing managers to create engaging social media activation campaigns, thereby improving the image of their brands.

Recently, marketing researchers have started to explore the impact of Social Media Brand Communities in digital marketing strategies. However, in spite of this interest, scant attention has been paid to the micro-mechanisms stimulating electronic word of mouth (E-WOM) within social media brand community. In this sense, this exploratory research aims to explore how consumers‟ engagement is related with positive E-WOM.

본 연구는 디지털 미디어 기반의 환경에서 증가된 콘텐츠 소비 성향에 맞는 콘텐츠 마케팅 전략으로 나타난 브랜디드 콘텐 츠(branded contents)와 인게이지먼트(engagement), 소비자 공감, 브랜드 태도 간의 구조적 관계를 살펴보고자 한다. 소비자가 브랜디드 콘텐츠에 얼마나 몰입, 관여, 집중하였는지를 가늠할 수 있는 정성적 지표인 인게이지먼트 속성을 핵심변수로 상정하였으며, 이러한 인게이지먼트 속성이 소비자 공감과 브랜드 태도에 어떠한 영향력을 미치는지 살펴보고자 하였다. 연구결과 브랜드 인게이지먼트와 크리에이티브 인게이지먼트는 소비자 공감에 정(+)의 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났 다. 반면 미디어 인게이지먼트는 유의한 영향을 미치지 못하는 것으로 나타났다. 크리에이티브 인게이지먼트, 미디어 인게 이지먼트, 브랜드 인게이지먼트는 브랜드 태도에 모두 유의한 영향을 미치지 못하는 것으로 나타났다. 마지막으로 소비자 공감의 경우 브랜드 태도에 정(+)의 영향을 미치는 것으로 브랜디드 콘텐츠 인게이지먼트는 소비자 공감의 완전매개를 통 해 브랜드 태도에 영향을 미치는 것을 알 수 있다. 이는 소비자들이 스토리텔링에 몰입되어 동일시되면서 브랜드에 자신을 거울처럼 비추는 반응을 통해 브랜드 태도에 긍정적 영향을 미치는 것으로 해석할 수 있다. 소비자가 스토리에 대한 관심과 몰입을 통해 자기 실재감을 강화시킨다는 측면에서 브랜디드 콘텐츠를 기획, 제작 단계에서 실무적으로 고려해야 할 중요 요소임을 시사한다.