The impact of the Subjective, Social and Behavioral Drivers on Consumer Brand Engagement: Comparison between Hedonic and Utilitarian Goods

Consumer -brand engagement is a new concept in marketing literature that has attracted increasing attention of academics and researchers. The impact of consumers’ engagement with a specific brand on corporate performance is the factor that has caused this concept to receive increasing attention in recent years. The present study is an attempt to investigate the effect of subjective drivers (involvement, brand jealousy, brand love), social drivers (social identity, social norms) and behavioral drivers (brand usage experience, functional benefits) on Consumer -brand engagement according to the nature of goods. The research methodology is applied in terms of objectives, and descriptive in terms of nature. The population of the study consisted of customers of Apple and Samsung brands in Tehran. 334 questionnaires were filled by the customers. Structural equation modeling and subgroup correlation test were used to analyze the data. AMOS and SPSS software were used to analyze the data. The results showed that the subjective, social and behavioral drivers have a positive effect on consumer brand engagement. The results also showed that the relationship between brand jealousy and consumer brand engagement is stronger for Hedonic goods. Finally, the research results showed that consumer brand engagement has a positive and significant effect on satisfaction, loyalty, word of mouth and customer confidence.