Brand evangelism tendency: A scale development study

Evangelism, a religious terminology, started to appear in the marketing literature in the early 2000s to describe the propaganda behavior characterized by a strong commitment to a brand. This concept, called brand evangelism in the marketing literature, is the subject of more and more studies because it defines a unique type of consumer behavior. Despite the growing interest, there is no comprehensive definition of the concept in the literature and in this context, there is no scale that allows the concept to be measured in all aspects. The purpose of this study is to provide a comprehensive definition of the concept of brand evangelism, including the altruistic and authentic aspects of evangelistic behavior, and to test its validity by developing a scale to measure the concept. In the context of this study, the concept is defined as a consumer tendency and named as brand evangelism tendency. In order to form the basis of the scale to be developed, theories from the disciplines of psychology and sociology were utilized and comprehensive reviews were made in psychology, sociology, theology and marketing literatures. First of all, existing scales in the literature were examined and 65 statements were added to the pool by adapting the statements deemed appropriate. Then, based on 5 in-depth interviews and 1 focus group study, 183 statements were developed and added to the statement pool. At this stage, 10 statements that were considered to be missing were developed based on the literature and added to the statement pool. As a result of these processes, a total of 258 statements were reached. The statements were examined by 4 researchers and those with close meaning were merged and those that were not suitable for the context were eliminated from the statement pool. Then, expert opinions were taken and the pilot application was carried out with 71 statements obtained as a result of the arrangements made in this direction. As a result of the pilot application, 41 statements were eliminated and the final field application was carried out with a form of 30 statements. The population of the study is defined as consumers aged 18 and over living in Turkey. The sample was selected from this population using convenience sampling method. The final field application was conducted through an online survey and reached 900 participants. The questionnaires were evaluated through the screening criteria developed and explanatory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted with 807 eligible questionnaires. As a result of the analyses, 18 statements were eliminated and a two-dimensional scale was reached in line with the theory. The scale consists of a total of 12 statements, 6 in the propaganda dimension and 6 in the attachment dimension. Nomological validity of the developed scale was also tested, providing additional evidence for the validity of the scale. It is predicted that the brand evangelism tendency scale will be a useful tool for both researchers and practitioners.