The effects of social media based brand communities on brand community markers,value creation practices,brand trust and brand loyalty

Social media based brand communities are communities initiated on the platform of social media. In this article, we explore whether brand communities based on social media (a special type of online brand communities) have positive effects on the main community elements and value creation practices in the communities as well as on brand trust and brand loyalty. A survey based empirical study with 441 respondents was conducted. The results of structural equation modeling show that brand communities established on social media have positive effects on community markers (i.e., shared consciousness, shared rituals and traditions, and obligations to society), which have positive effects on value creation practices (i.e., social networking, community engagement, impressions management, and brand use). Such communities could enhance brand loyalty through brand use and impression management practices. We show that brand trust has a full mediating role in converting value creation practices into brand loyalty. Implications for practice and future research opportunities are discussed.     

Testing an extended model of consumer behavior in the context of social media-based brand communities

Due to the benefits of brand community initiatives and the potential advantages of social media, many marketing managers made significant investments in building brand communities based on social media. A noticeable issue is how to measure the success of such investments in ways that are understandable and comparable to other marketing initiatives. To address this issue, it is essential to understand how social media-based brand communities influence customers' perceptions and behaviors. The purpose of this article is to develop and estimate an extended model of how different aspects of customers' relationships with such communities influence their perceptions and behaviors. The paper describes a way a customer's identification with a brand influences relationships with brand community elements, brand community markers, and ultimately brand relationship quality and brand loyalty. Then using a large sample of brand community members in social media and structural equation modeling, the authors estimate how social media-based brand communities influence brand relationship quality and brand loyalty. Managerial implications are discussed.     

Can consumers be persuaded on brand microblogs? An empirical study

Building upon the persuasion theory in the social psychology literature, this study investigates how companies can use microblogging services to influence consumers’ participation and brand loyalty. We develop and empirically test our research model using an online survey in China. Our findings show that persuasion factors, including information quality, perceived similarity, and source credibility, increase community commitment. Perceived similarity and source credibility exhibit bias effects on information quality. Community commitment affects participation and brand loyalty, which is also influenced by participation. We expect that this research can contribute to the existing literature and provide marketers with important practical suggestions.     

Becoming Friends in Online Brand Communities: Evidence From China

With the aid of information technology, consumers have increasingly engaged in social interaction in online brand communities. How can these strangers make friends online? Drawing on embeddedness theory and media richness theory, we examine the antecedents and intermediate mechanisms of online friendship. We theorize that online brand community interactivity aided by instant messaging technology is the main driving force of online friendship, whereas social presence and a sense of yuan (a Chinese concept describing predetermined relations) mediate online friendship development. Online friendship in turn enhances consumer online brand community commitment. We test our conceptual model with a sample of consumers from Chinese online sporting goods forums. The results support our hypotheses and inform online brand community research and practice.     

Understanding massively multiplayer online role‐playing game addiction: A hedonic management perspective

Massively multiplayer online role‐playing game (MMORPG) addiction presents a serious issue worldwide and has attracted increasing attention from academic and other public communities. This article addresses this critical issue and fills research gaps by proposing and testing a research model of MMORPG addiction. Building on the conceptual foundation of the hedonic management model of addiction and the technology affordance perspective, we develop a research model explaining how MMORPG affordances (ie, achievement, social and immersion affordances) are associated with the duality of hedonic effects (ie, perceived positive mood enhancement and perceived negative mood reduction) and the extent of MMORPG addiction. Using structural equation modelling, we empirically test our research model with 406 MMORPG players. The results show that both perceived positive mood enhancement and perceived negative mood reduction positively correlate with the extent of MMORPG addiction. Furthermore, achievement and immersion affordances are positively associated with the duality of hedonic effects, whereas social affordance is not. Our study contributes to the growing body of technology addiction literature by revealing the relationships between the two hedonic effects and the extent of MMORPG addiction, and by offering a contextualised explanation of the role of MMORPG affordances in these relationships. We offer an alternative perspective on the far‐reaching, unintended relationships between technological affordances and addictive technology use. Our study provides game developers and policymakers with insights into preventing MMORPG addiction to create an entertaining, healthy virtual playground.     

大型多人在线角色扮演游戏的下一地点预测

近年来,大型多人在线角色扮演游戏(MMORPG)已经成为最流行的网络娱乐活动之一。MMORPG在游戏环境中形成虚拟社会,其中每个玩家扮演某个虚构角色,并控制该角色的大多数活动。游戏的迅猛发展累积了海量数据,其中包含游戏虚拟社会的语义和拓扑信息。研究者针对游戏数据开展了一系列研究工作,如玩家退出预测、游戏服务器整合等。游戏角色的下一地点预测对提升游戏体验、改善游戏设计和检测游戏机器人均有十分重要的意义。目前,该项预测任务主要使用统计分析完成。然而,由于游戏数据具有海量特征,因此需要一种自动化的计算方法。文中提出了基于隐马尔科夫模型的游戏角色下一地点预测模型,该模型能够考虑与位置特性相关的不可观测的属性,同时兼顾游戏角色前期行为的影响。实验结果表明,与现有方法相比,该方法具有建模直观的特点,在稠密分布的MMORPG数据中能够得到更准确的下一地点预测结果。     

MMORPG服务器软件体系结构研究——非形式化构造

提出MMORPG服务器软件体系结构模型的设计目标,根据“4+1”模型以UML构造了MMORPG服务器模型,重点在开发视图和逻辑视图中描述了MMORPG服务器模型的4个层次:核心层、服务层、逻辑层与交互层,最后对设计的模型进行了分析和评价。     

Product‐to‐Service Extension: The Impact of Brand Equity on Upscaled Service

A recent trend in the luxury industry shows many companies using brand extension strategies to leverage their assets among competitors. Despite the popularity of brand extensions, limited research has been conducted to determine its effectiveness when using parent product brands in order to introduce new service brands. Thus, the primary purpose of this study is to propose the framework to increase the understanding of luxury brand extensions by focusing on the horizontal category brand extension from product to service. The impact of perceived quality, brand association and brand loyalty of the luxury car brand on consumers’ perception and attitude toward the rental car service brand was observed to differentiate from other research that focuses on brand extension within product categories. A total of 324 samples were collected and analyzed using structural equation modeling with AMOS. The brand association of the parent brand showed a significant impact on the evaluation of the extended service brand. In addition, a high level of the brand association was also found to influence the final purchase decision of the extended service brand. However, this study could not find any significant effect of perceived quality and brand loyalty for the parent product brand on the extended service brand. The framework proposed in this study has merit to increase the understanding of service brand extensions by exploring luxury car brands and luxury rental car brands. In the service brand extension, there was a gap in consumer perception between the product brand and the extended service brand. In order to maximize the positive impact of the parent brand, marketers and retailers should investigate the different roles of the brand equity items.     

Beyond the fascination of online-games: Probing addictive behavior and depression in the world of online-gaming

This study examined problematic gaming behavior and depressive tendencies among people who play different types of online-games. Other game-related variables were investigated to determine if other differences between three game types could be established. Participants in the current research (n = 468) can be classified into three independent groups. Subjected users either solely played massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) or they preferred online-ego-shooters (OES) or real-time-strategy games (RTS). Results indicate that MMORPG users show more often problematic gaming behavior, depressive tendencies and lower self-esteem compared to users playing other online-games. MMORPG users reported to playing significantly more often in order to escape from real-life problems, which might be a valuable coping strategy but might also lead to problematic gaming behavior.     

Cars, phones, and Tamagotchi tribes

As if life isn't already crowded enough with obligations, “Tamagotchis” (virtual pets) would seem to be at odds with the Information Age, but cars, phones and TV-like appliances will become more like Tamagotchis as the friction-free economy once again expresses itself in tribalism. My premise is simple: the friction-free economy rewards retro-cultures that yearn to return to agrarian tribalism. Selling hi-tech products in this new economy becomes ritual, and the greater the ritual, the greater the financial rewards. Some may use different names-database marketing, targeting or niche marketing-but the key to expanding the computer industry will be to build a tribe around your brand and flaunt it. Successful product design and sales will increasingly require targeting products, services and ideas to various tribes. An idea long understood in the entertainment and services industry, this is only now becoming a computer industry mantra. The question is, how will this impact the design of future computer products? Study the Tamagotchi and other Christmas season best-sellers to find out     

论新时代的品牌形象设计

有感于我国上世纪八十年代以来的"CI热"开始转变为"品牌形象风",也有感于我国经济转型背景下,自主品牌形象力亟待实实在在提升的问题,本文对品牌识别与品牌形象的内涵进行探讨,提出了品牌识别的创新性、系统性、前瞻性与品牌沟通中的整合性、策略性、艺术性的框架性思考,提出如何战略性地运用设计因素提升品牌形象力是中国品牌设计师当前重要的课题之一。     

Effect of Network Quality on Player Departure Behavior in Online Games

Understanding the impact of network conditions on player satisfaction, which is one of the major concerns of network game designers, is a popular research topic. Of the various ways to gauge user satisfaction, in this paper, we focus on how network quality affects a player's decision to leave a game prematurely. To answer this question, we analyze a 1,356-million-packet trace from a large commercial massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) called ShenZhou Online. We show that both network delay and network loss significantly affect a player's decision to leave a game prematurely. It is feasible to predict whether players will quit prematurely based on the network conditions they experience. The proposed model can determine the relative impact of different types of network impairment. For our traces, the degrees of player intolerance to network delay, delay jitter, client packet loss, and server packet loss are in the proportion of 1:2:4:3 approximately. The model can also be used to make system design decisions. Through simulations, we show that by prioritizing server processing according to the goodness of network conditions, employing dejitter buffers, or replacing TCP with a more lightweight transport protocol, the probability of premature departure can be significantly reduced. In this way, we demonstrate how our model of players' network experience provides feedback for the design of online games.     

Trust and commitment within a virtual brand community: The mediating role of brand relationship quality

This study seeks to clarify the antecedents and consequences of trust and commitment within the brand fan page context on Facebook, examining a sample of 210 respondents using structural equation modeling. The results highlight the positive effect of economic and hedonic benefits on trust and commitment within the brand fan page. Mediation analysis reveals that trust and commitment developed within the brand fan page will be transformed into positive “word of mouth” for the respective brand if fans have a strong relationship quality with the brand. Further, we found that young and female fans with a high level of engagement, having a strong relationship with the brand, spread positive WOM. Our findings broaden ways for developing relational governance in a firm-initiated virtual brand community by providing new levers and guidance for marketers to build strong customer relationships.     

Responses to an advergaming campaign on a mobile social networking site: An initial research report

Advergames are a form of branded entertainment that feature advertising messages, logos, and trade characters in a game format. This paper reports a preliminary examination on the effects of an advergame on perceived brand value in a context of mobile social networking sites (SNSs). Drawn upon categorization theory, the study posits that, while mobile SNS engagement stimulates electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) intention among game players, perceived brand-game fit also drives eWOM intention, which in turn positively affects perceived brand value. Furthermore, perceived brand-game fit is contemplated to be a direct driver of perceived brand value. A research model is validated by a large-scale online survey. Using a real promotional campaign for a popular consumer good (Procter & Gamble’s Pringles), the authors create an advergame for one of the most popular mobile SNSs in Japan. The results from structural equation modeling corroborate all hypothesized relationships. This article closes with some theoretical and managerial implications, as well as recognition of important limitations.     

Brand followers’ retweeting behavior on Twitter: How brand relationships influence brand electronic word-of-mouth

Twitter, the popular microblogging site, has received increasing attention as a unique communication tool that facilitates electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). To gain greater insight into this potential, this study investigates how consumers’ relationships with brands influence their engagement in retweeting brand messages on Twitter. Data from a survey of 315 Korean consumers who currently follow brands on Twitter show that those who retweet brand messages outscore those who do not on brand identification, brand trust, community commitment, community membership intention, Twitter usage frequency, and total number of postings.     

浅谈品牌服装橄榄形商品组合方法

本文基于对品牌服装组合现象的调研,从需求角度进行品牌分类,并概括出需求是组合本源,对其进行分析,介绍怎样组合可以映射满足同类需求,结合品牌案例对组合要素进行详细深入的剖析。同时根据剖析整理具体组合方法论,最后概括提炼出橄榄型主题组合模型。以期为品牌运营者提出建立品牌的宏观货品架构。     

针对中国市场的雷朋眼镜产品开发研究

文章通过深入研究品牌经营、市场营销、产品策略等学科理论,提出了品牌经营与产品开发的对接工具,主要从行业解析、品牌解析和产品开发研究三个方面入手,搭建了市场解析工具和品牌目标体系解析工具,建立了品牌战略和产品开发之间的桥梁,从而提供更有针对性的产品开发研究工具,旨在提高产品的针对性、功能性和竞争性,满足当前状态下变化的市场和消费需求。     

An app a day keeps a customer connected: Explicating loyalty to brands and branded applications through the lens of affordance and service-dominant logic

The rise of mobile apps is compelling ambitious companies to rush to market their own branded apps in hopes of building customers’ brand loyalty. By applying service-dominant logic, the lens of affordance, and two brand perceptions (brand competence and brand warmth), this study explores critical determinants of app continuance intention and brand loyalty among app users. Five affordances of branded apps are linked to value-in-use, which contributes both directly and indirectly to the two loyalty-related outcomes, through either brand competence or brand warmth. Data collected from 634 app users support all proposed hypotheses. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Advergames and the effects of game-product congruity

Electronic games transcend demographic boundaries and are a prevalent cultural phenomenon. Marketers see potential of this immersive venue as a way to reach a highly receptive audience with brand messages. Designing games around a brand – advergames – has become a common marketing practice. However, few empirical studies have tested the effectiveness of this communication strategy in delivering the brand message. This paper serves to fill some research gaps and explores the influence of game-product congruity on brand memory and attitudes toward the game. A product-congruent advergame is compared to a product-incongruent advergame using a stimulus brand for a low-involvement product category. The findings indicate that highly congruent games lead to superior memory for the sponsoring brand. However, benefits of these positive memory effects may be negated by the negative attitudes players have toward the highly thematic game for a low-involvement product. Implications are discussed.     

Conflict and identity shape shifting in an online financial community

Abstract.  This paper challenges traditional explorations of online communities that have relied upon assumptions of trust and social cohesion. In the analysis presented here, conflict becomes more than just dysfunctional communication and provides an alternative set of unifying principles and rationales for understanding social interaction and identity shape shifting within an online community. A model is advanced that describes the systematic techniques of hostility and aggression in technologically enabled communities that take the form of contemporary tribalism. It is argued that this tribe-like conflict embodies important rituals essential for maintaining and defining the contradictory social roles sometimes found in online environments. This research offers a critical interpretive perspective that focuses on the link between identity shape shifting behaviours and the power relations within an online financial community. The analysis reveals how conflict between positions of power can help to align the values and ideals of an online community. With this study we seek to motivate a re-examination of the design and governance of online communities.