The relationship between customer-based brand equity and customer engagement: An example of online brand community

In today's job environment, brands and marketing professionals attach importance to the concepts of particularly brand equity and customer engagement in order to get a competitive advantage. An online brand community which is created by customers or firms, it has become an important research field in marketing by the increasing technological developments. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between consumer-based brand equity and customer engagement as an integrated marketing model. Volkswagen Online brand communities were chosen for this study. The reason was, Volkswagen Facebook brand page is having the greatest number of the followers on their Facebook pages if compares all brands which run in Turkey market. During the study period, the researcher has become a member of the Volkswagen brand communities. The results show that there is a positive relationship between dimensions of consumer-based brand equity (CCBE) and customer engagement (CE). These consumer-based brand equity dimensions are brand awareness and perceived quality and brand loyalty. In addition, CE has a positive impact on overall CBBE and these dimensions of CBBE. The previous studies verified the relationship between customer loyalty and engagement while the integrated consumer-based brand equity and its dimensions were not considered. Another important result of the study is; some people who participate in the brand community, don't have a Volkswagen vehicle. Besides, in these groups, there are also some members who never had Volkswagen vehicle before. Customer engagement can include both existing and potential consumers. At the end of collecting survey period, the responses of 39 respondents were deleted listwise and 451 usable questionnaires from Facebook Online Brand Communities were collected. For analyses were used SPSS statistical program.