Brand Community And Brand Loyalty Marketing Essay

Published Date: 23 Mar 2015

The purpose of the literature review is to provide the readers an entire overview of previous studies and researches carried out on this area of study as well as to identify gaps in the literature before showing evidences as for why this study is important. In particular, the following literature review is targeted to critically assess the concepts of brand loyalty, brand community, brand fan pages and brand fan page participation. First, it will begins to study the concepts of brand loyalty and ways to measure it. After that, it will explores the definitions of brand community and the ways how brand communities have been used to raise brand loyalty. Next, the literature review will compares between brand fan pages and traditional brand communities before examining the antecedents of brand community participation. Finally, the framework of this research will be is established based on the uses and gratification theory.

This chapter is designed on the purpose of providing readers an overview about previous studies and researches relating to the area of (give your name of research here)…. as well as identifying the gaps in the literature before showing evidences as reasons supporting the important role of my study. In particular, the following literature review critically focuses on assessing the concepts of four brands: loyalty, community, fan pages, and fan page participation. On the stream of research, concepts and measuring methods of brand loyalty are examined first. Following is brand of community with its definitions along with the ways how this kind has been used to raise the brand loyalty. Running after is the comparison between brand fan pages and traditional brand communities before discussing the antecedents of brand community participation. Finally, the framework of this research is established based on the uses and (gratification theory).

2.1 Brand loyalty

Oliver (1999, p. 34) defines brand loyalty as:

A deeply held commitment to rebuy or repatronise a preferred product/service consistently in the future, thereby causing repetitive same-brand or same brand-set purchasing, despite situational influences and marketing efforts having the potential to cause switching behavior.

This definition encompasses the two different aspects of brand loyalty - behavioral and attitudinal - that have been illustrated in previous research on the concept. Definitions of brand loyalty vary considerably among researchers. Some researchers who concentrate on the behavioral aspect of the loyalty defined brand loyalty as a sequence (repetition) or selection (purchase) of the same brand in all cases of purchase (Brown, 1952), and as a percentage of total purchases of a particular brand in comparison with other competitor brands (Cunningham, 1956). On the other hand, some scholars who are concerned with the attitudinal aspect of loyalty referred to brand loyalty as 'the extent in which a customer holds positive attitudes towards the brand, commitment and intention to repurchase this brand in the future' (Mowen and Minor, 2001, p.210). Also, there was a definition that included both the behavioral and the attitudinal concept. According to Jacoby and Kyner (1973, p.6), brand loyalty is the 'biased behavioral response expressed over time by some decision-making units with respect to one or more alternative brands out of a set of such brands and is a function of psychological (decision-making, evaluative) processes'. The difference between these definitions reflects changes in the concept of brand loyalty over time from the behavioral through the attitudinal to the combined concept.

Brand loyalty plays a vital role in the success of a company in current highly competitive business environments. Brand loyalty is a prerequisite for a company's competitiveness and profitability (Aaker, 1991, 1996; Reichheld, 1996). Also, brand loyalty can help companies to gain bigger market share when loyal consumers repeatedly purchase the same brand (Assael 1998), to reduce marketing costs, to get more new customers and to obtain greater trade leverage (Aaker, 1991). More importantly, brand-loyal customers feel pleased to pay more for a brand (Jacoby and Chestnut 1978; Reichheld 1996). Loyal consumers not only bring long-term profits to a company but also remain with the company over time even if the supplier does not offer the best price (Reichheld 2003). Additionally, brand loyal customers also create positive word-of-mouth marketing by often talking positively about the brand as well as introduce it to their acquaintances (Anderson,1998; Dick and Basu, 1994). In this context, such loyal clients become a network of unpaid sales persons and provide benefits for that brand. Since loyalty plays such a significant role in a firm's success, many studies have focused on exploring ways to accurately measure it, which is always a challenging task.

Based on the literature of brand loyalty, there are three main ways that researchers have used for measuring it, including the behavioral, the attitudinal and the combined approach. The initial studies on brand loyalty adopted the behavioral approach. Some researchers who chose this approach (Brown, 1952; Cunning ham, 1956; Ehrenberg et al., 1990; Kahn et al., 1986) believed that repeat purchasing could measure the loyalty of a consumer towards the brand of interest. The behavioral aspect of loyalty concentrates on a measure of proportion of purchase of specific brand (Dick and Basu, 1994). However, it seems to be inaccurate to consider loyalty simply as a behavior because a customer may repeatedly purchase one brand without commitment to this brand. In other words, in this case it does not indicate that she/he is loyal to the brand. For example, a client keeps on buying the same brand because of feeling indifferent, inertia, reduction of perceived risk, or comfort of not being forced to make a new choice, instead of being committed to the brand (Bloemer and Kasper, 1995; Holland and Baker, 2001). Thus, it is very easy for such a customer to change her/his mind to buy another brand that offers better benefits such as a greater deal, a sale-off coupon or promotion gifts. This situation is defined as spurious brand loyalty (Bloemer and Kasper, 1995) and the approach that is based on repeat purchasing behavior has been criticised as being too one-dimensional and unable to differentiate between true loyalty and spurious loyalty (Day 1969; Bloemer and Kasper, 1995; John and Shiang-Lih, 2001).

To overcome the limitation of the behavioral approach, researchers started to pay more attention to the attitudinal aspect in studying brand loyalty. Some researchers who adopted the attitudinal approach thought that an attitudinal loyalty to brand was premise of real loyalty. The attitudinal loyalty to brand was preferable and continuing attitudes toward the brand that purchased. For example, Guest (1964), who is one of pioneers in using the attitudinal approach, suggested the measure of loyalty through attitudinal loyalty by asking consumers to select only the brand they prefer out of a set of brands. In the framework of this approach, researchers examined the psychological commitment of customers in their purchase, without necessarily taking the purchase behavior into account (e.g., Jacoby, 1971; Jarvis and Wilcox, 1976). However, like the behavioral approach, the attitudinal approach to loyalty was also inadequate and narrow in scope to measure the real brand loyalty. Hence, researchers developed the integrated approach which takes into account both the behavioral and attitudinal models. For instance, Day (1969) recommended a combination between customers' attitude towards the brand and their repeated buying behavior to develop a composite index for loyalty. The attitudinal constituent that mentioned here refers to a strong internal disposition of customer to continue purchasing the same brand.

To date, most researchers admit that a combination of the attitudinal and behavioral approach is the best way to measure the brand loyalty. This approach measures the customer loyalty through product and brand preferences, repurchase, the total purchased quality, and changing the brand (Hunter, 1998; Pritchard and Howard, 1997). Thus, this method raises the predictive power for measuring brand loyalty. The two-dimensional composite measurement approach has been employed as an effective tool to comprehend brand loyalty in several fields, such as retailing, recreation and airlines (Day, 1969; Jacoby and Kyner, 1973; Pritchard et al., 1992; Pritchard and Howard, 1997). It is a more completed and appropriate way of understanding loyalty, and by taking into account both the behavioural and attitudinal aspects of loyalty, firms are more likely to find out what makes a truly loyal customer. According to Gremler (1995), both the attitudinal and behavioural dimensions need to be included whenever loyalty is being measured. In that sense, the researcher of this study therefore adopted the composite approach to brand loyalty. For this study the brand loyalty was measured through the attitude, the commitment, the repurchase and the recommendation of customers toward a brand.

On the other hand, enhancing the loyalty of customers is as important as measuring it accurately. Keeping the customer satisfied and loyal enough to frequently buy just one brand has been a considerable challenge with which companies have faced for a few decades. The customer relationship management and direct marketing literatures indicates that regularly contacting with customer can help firms increase customer loyalty (Marko and Mika, 2004). In the same fashion, brand literature also reveals that by deepening consumer-brand relationships marketers can raise brand loyalty (Aaker, 1996; Fournier, 1998; Kapferer, 1998; Keller, 1998). Consistent with this, relationship marketing focuses on attracting, maintaining, and enhancing long-term customer relationships. Such long-term relationships create a competitive advantage and strategic resource for the company (Webster 1992). However, it is not always efficient to maintain one-on-one relationships with customers since time spent developing the relationship can take away from time spent actually serving the customer (Gruen and Ferguson 1994; Iacobucci 1994). To deal with this issue, companies employ brand communities to connect and interact with their customers and therefore remain their loyalty to the brand. Since brand communities can perform important functions on behalf of the brand such as sharing information, perpetuating the history and culture of the brand and providing assistance, they provide social structure to the relationship between marketer and consumer (Muniz and O'guinn, 2001). They also add that by exerting pressure on members, communities can maintain and raise the members' loyalty to the brand. The literature of brand community as well as the link between brand community and brand loyalty will be studied in the next section.

2.2 Brand community and brand loyalty

A brand community is a specialized, non-geographically bound community, based on a structured set of social relationships among admirers of a brand (Muniz and O'guinn, 2001, p.412).

Since the last decade, brand community has been a central topic of branding research, and marketers have increasingly focused on building, managing, and maintaining brand communities (Muniz and O'Guinn 2001; McAlexander et al., 2002). The definition of brand community has considerably varied over time. Rheingold (1993) defines it as a group of people who have longtime interactions with rich individual affection, which is mediated by computers online. Differently, Cova and Pace (2006) define a brand community as any group of people that possess a common interest in a specific brand and create a parallel social universe rife with its own myths, values, rituals, vocabulary and hierarchy. Despite the difference between the definitions, it is believed that there are stable relationships within brand community. Initially, some scholars who focused on studying brand loyalty argued that there is merely the customer-brand relationship within brand communities (Gardner and Levy 1955; Aaker 1996; Aaker 1997). This argument is likely limited because it does not take into account the relationship between brand community's members. After that, the topic was more extensively studied, and Muniz and O'Guinn (2001) revealed that there are two crucial relationships in a brand community: the relationships between the customers and the brand and between community's members. However, their statement is inadequate because it does not encompass the company and the product. Subsequently, McAlexander et al. (2002) added two other relationships, including the relationship between the customer and the firm and the relationship between the product and the customer.

Based on those findings, brand communities have increasingly been used as an effective approach to establish and foster such consumer-brand relationships. A brand community can provide a useful venue for consumers to share brand experience and information, to solve problems and to meet peer consumers and company representatives (McWilliam, 2000). Consequently, brand communities bring great benefits for companies. For example, building brand communities can help companies not only nurture brand champions and 'super users' but also reduce service costs through customer-to-customer solution for product issues (Noble et al., 2012, Bagozzi and Dholakia, 2006). More importantly, brand communities can allow companies to enhance their relationship-marketing communication since brand communities are viewed as an additional communication channel that is used for establishing linkages to devoted users (McAlexander et al., 2002; Adersen, 2005). Hence, brand community can be utilised to support marketers in building and maintaining the brand loyalty of customers.

A number of previous studies on brand community reveal that brand community has a positive effect on brand loyalty. According to Muniz and O'Guinn (2001), brand communities directly affect all four of these components of brand equity, namely perceived quality, brand loyalty, brand awareness, and brand associations (Aaker, 1991). A strong brand community can result in a socially embedded and entrenched loyalty, brand commitment (Jacoby and Chestnut 1978; Keller 1998), and even hyper-loyalty (McAlexander and Schouten 1998). Furthermore, Kim et al (2008) demonstrate that there is a link between online community commitment and brand commitment. Their research also discovers that members of a brand community had stronger brand commitment than customers who are not members of the brand community. In the context of consumer-brand relationship, community commitment indicates members' attitude toward the community. In this regard, members expose their community commitment through actual behaviors in the community, such as participating in community activities, providing help to the community and solving problems for others (Won-Moo et al, 2011). On the other hand, studies on the mediating role of community commitment have examined that this construct positively impact on brand loyalty (Jang et al., 2008; Fuller et al., 2007). According to

Algesheimer et al. (2005), brand community members who are committed to the brand community perceive brand more positively and clearly, and they also show stronger attachment to brand relationship quality. Therefore, it can be concluded that there is a positive link between brand community commitment and brand loyalty.

2.3 Brand fan pages and traditional online brand communities

Brand fan pages are viewed as a special type of brand community because they are created and organised around a single brand, product or company (De Vries et al. 2012). Brand fan pages are one of services that are introduced by Facebook for companies in order to contact and communicate with their customers. Facebook is the most popular social networking site with more than 873 billion active members (Facebook statistic, 2012). Social networking sites are defined as 'web-based services that allow individuals to construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system' (Boyd and Ellison, 2007, p.211). One of prominent property of social networking site is that it allows its users to post information about themselves, post links of websites or pictures they like, comment on postings of their friends, and accept invitations for events. These users also can receive invitations to become fans of particular brands, organizations, or celebrities (Raacke and Bonds-Raacke, 2008).

Since brand fan page is a special category of social networking sites, it possessed all such features. Furthermore, brand fan page has its own distinguishing attributes. One distinct feature of Facebook brand fan page is that it belongs to a brand or a company instead of individuals, and the purpose of operating a brand fan page is to help companies to establish and build up the brand-customer relationship with their customers. Therefore, brand fan page is an open social networking site that allows each fan to actively interact with both the company and other peers. The other special feature of brand fan page is the ability to connect with fans' Facebook profiles. To become fans of a brand fan page, a Facebook user needs to press the "like-button" on the page, which implies that he/she likes this brand. Subsequently, this preference is added to the user's profiles, and any new content of this brand will automatically appear on the user's personal Facebook news feed. Therefore, with this function brand fan page is considered as an excellent vehicle for fostering relationships with customers (De Vries, Gensler and Leeflang, 2012).

Although brand fan pages and traditional online brand communities (forums, bulletin boards) are quite similar and are sometimes used interchangeably, there are differences between the two types. One of the crucial distinctions is that fan pages are embedded in an organic grown and not brand-related network of social site ties (Benedikt and Werner, 2012). Hence, members of a fan page can connect to other people called "friends" who are not fans of the brand within the social network site (Boyd and Ellison, 2007). This function allows these friends to update all their friends' activities on brand fan pages, and they can also comment on some topics or post something on the wall of pages although they are not fans of these brand fan pages, whereas other categories of traditional brand communities do not have this property. Furthermore, in a classical brand community, most activities often focus on the brand, and the community is 'based on a structured set of social relationships among admirers of a brand' (Muniz and O'Guinn, 2001, p.412). In contrast to this, a brand fan page gives more priority to a connection between customers and the brand and activities include both brand-related and non-brand-related topics. Thus, fan-page usage and engagement motivation might differ from traditional brand communities.

2.4 Brand fan page participation

One of the most important purposes of developing a brand fan page is to develop a setting that makes consumers committed and willing to participate in interaction with both the brand and peers. Members' participation in a virtual brand community is viewed as a key to warrant the success of the community (Casaló, Flavián and Guinalíu, 2007), a principal factor for the development and sustainability of the community (Luis, Carlos and Miguel, 2007). Therefore, exploring antecedents and effects of consumers' participation in virtual brand communities has been one of central topics of brand community research (Mathwick, 2002; Luis, Carlos and Miguel, 2007). In organizational context, participation is defined as an activity taking part in or contributing to events, and it is measured by specific behaviors, activities and assignments (Barki and Hartwick, 1994; Vroom and Jago, 1988). In a virtual brand community, participation refers to posting messages, reading messages posted by others and engaging in dialogue with others by answering messages posted by others (Mathwick, 2002; Nonnecke, Andrews, & Preece, 2006). These activities raise group cohesion because members can share information and experiences relevant to the brand around which the community is developed (Luis, Carlos and Miguel, 2007). Once a consumer has the high level of participation in a virtual community, she or he tends to share knowledge, disseminate ideas and create emotional supports for other members (Koh and Kim, 2004). Algesheimeret al (2005) also state that the participation may enhance the members' identification with the community and therefore raise the value of the community. Besides, members' participation in the virtual community is considered as a significant element to ensure the community's survival in the long term (Koh and Kim, 2004).

As for antecedents of participation, in order to increase the level of participation of consumers in the virtual brand community, it is recommended that trust and satisfaction must be created in the community. Casaló, Flavián and Guinalíu (2007) confirm that trust in a virtual community has a positive and significant effect on members' participation in the virtual community activities. Besides, firms also must satisfy some of consumers' needs to promote consumer participation in virtual communities (Luis, Carlos and Miguel, 2007). In addition, the result of previous interactions between members and the brand also affect the level of participation. Ridings et al (2002) argue that a key factor that affects significantly on members' participation is perceived responsiveness in the community. If a member posts some messages and there is no response, consequently the level of participation of the member will go down (Luis, Carlos, and Miguel, 2007). On the other hand, some researchers note that the content of posts in brand communities has a huge impact on the participation of members. For instance, Holland and Baker (2001) emphasize that to ensure customers' involvement brand communities must provide relevant and valuable content as well as create sufficient depth and breadth. As can be seen from previous research, it is clear that there are many various factors that significantly affect the participation of members to an online community. However, their findings are insufficient and unconvincing because they are unable to encompass all possible motives of members systematically.

In terms of outcomes of participation, there are a number of previous studies prove that participation in a brand community may increase customers' loyalty to the brand (Andersen, 2005; Algesheimeret al., 2005; Muniz and O'Guinn, 2001). Some researchers have found that there is a positive link between the level of participation in a brand community and the intention to purchase and use the brand products in the future. For example, in research on a Jeep community, McAlexander et al. (2002) discover that members who regularly participate in events of the community have the higher level of intention to buy this product in future than others. With a study on free software (FS) virtual communities, Luis, Carlos, and Miguel (2007) also demonstrate that customer loyalty to the FS products is directly and positively affected by the level of participation in a FS virtual community. Additionally, Algesheimer et al (2005) illustrate that once customers actively participate in a brand community, their commitment, identification and emotional ties with brand are increased. These linkages likely arise from the interaction with other community members through discussion about topics related to the brand. Thus, it can be concluded that there is a positive linkage between high participation and high loyalty.

In the context of brand fan pages, since it is only one of additional functions of Facebook that has been introduced to companies for two years, there are few studies on brand fan pages, particularly in marketing aspects. One of early studies in this field is a work of Cvijikj, Spiegler and Michahelles (2011) that investigates the relationship between posts and the levels of interaction of members based on the data collected from 14 brand fan pages. By analysing the effects of moderator post characteristics, such as post type, category and posting day, on the user interaction in terms of number of comments and likes and interaction duration, they reveal that there is a significant effect of the post type and category on number of likes and comments as well as on interaction duration. They demonstrate that different types of moderator posts, categories and posting weekdays cause different levels of member's interaction. However, their research has two main limitations. First, although they unveil the relationship between categories of posts and interaction of members, it could not identify which category attracts member most. Second, the level of interaction of each category in their study is determined according to the number of likes, comments and time of interaction. This may result in inaccurate conclusions because the number of comments is also influenced by the content of comments that members create. For example, if one member posts some initial controversial comments for a particular topic, this will create a high number of responses.

Another research that has the same approach is a study of De Vries, Gensler and Leeflang (2012). The research is based on analysing 355 brand posts from 11 international brands spread across six product categories to identify possible drivers for brand post popularity. The findings of the study indicate that the position of a brand post may escalate its popularity. For instance, these posts that are located at the top of the wall of a brand fan page seem to attain more likes and comments than at other positions. They indentify three main drivers that impact on the number of likes and the number of comments. Different drivers have different impacts on the number of likes and the number of comments. They conclude that the number of likes can be enhanced by using vivid and interactive brand post characteristics as well as sharing positive comments on a brand post while the number of comments can be escalated by the interactive brand post characteristic and the shares of both positive and negative comments. Although their study unveils some determinants of brand post popularity in order to recommend marketers ways to enhance the participation of members, these findings are inadequate due to their approach of conducting the research. Since they determine key drivers of the participation of members based on counting the number of likes and the number of comments on each brand post characteristic, it is unconvincing and limited because the results depend significantly on the number of brand post characteristics that marketers often use to post on their brand fan pages. For example, posting a quiz can enhance the participation of members, but the marketers do not recognise its important roles and they therefore do not use it. Consequently, this factor could not be taken into the research if researchers use the above approach. De Vries, Gensler and Leeflang (2012) also admitted that they excluded a few variables such as quizzes and events from the analyses because brands did not of post them.

As can be seen from two above studies, analysing the number of likes and comments of brand posts to determine key drivers of the participation of members is limited. Therefore, the studies could not include all possible determinants that enhance the participation as well as identify elements that motivate members to participate in a brand fan page. To overcome these weaknesses, a new approach is designed for this research to investigate main drivers of the participation of members as well as examine outcomes of high participation on brand fan pages. First, the researcher will establish a theoretical framework by reviewing literature and constructing hypotheses. After that, these hypotheses will be tested through analysing data that will be collected by conducting a survey in which brand fans will answer a questionnaire. In the next section, the theoretical framework of this research will be introduced.

2.5 The theoretical framework

After reviewing literature, the researcher established a theoretical framework. The basic idea of the framework is that people participate into a brand fan page to satisfy their particular needs, if the brand fan page fulfils their needs adequately, their participation will increase. Once the participation of members is enhanced highly, it results in high brand loyalty. In order to identify key drivers of the participation of members on a brand fan page, the researcher considered reasons that motivate people to enjoin into the brand fan page based on the uses and gratification (U&G) theory, introduced by Katz (1959). U&G theory attempts to explain why people have different media-usage patterns. According to U&G theory, individuals utilise media to satisfy various needs and to reach their goals. Many scholars who have used this theory confirm that it is useful for application to new media like the internet, online communities, social networking, and blogs (Raacke and Bonds-Raacke, 2008; Sheldon, 2008; Ko et al., 2005; Ruggiero, 2000). In general, essential needs of participants can be classified into two main areas, including a content-oriented area based on the information provided by the media and a relationship-oriented area based on social interaction with others. In the content area, the researcher distinguishes between the functional and hedonic values that are created by brand fan pages. Similarly, in the relationship area, the researcher also differentiates two major types of interaction, namely the interaction with other users, and the interaction with the brand or company behind the brand.

2.5.1 Functional values

Functional values refer to purposeful and rational values derived from completing pre-determined tasks, such as buying a product, solving a problem, or obtaining and providing information using the Internet (Dholakia et al., 2004). One of main purposes of community members when they access to the internet is to seek functional benefits. These benefits may include advice, information and expertise for learning. Researchers state that members participate in online communities for exchanging information and other resources what are aggregated in the online community (Hagel and Armstrong, 1997; Preece, 2000; Maria and Mariola, 2008). Virtual communities enable users to give and receive information on topics they may be interested in. This exchange of information can allow all online community members to access to a greater amount of essential information needed to make decisions. Sangwan (2005) identifies three key drivers for virtual community use, including functional, emotive and contextual needs. He also emphasise that the most significant motivation is related to the information acquisition and more for surfing for entertainment. Dholakia et al. (2004) also argue that informational value is one of benefits that members want to achieve from getting and sharing information in the virtual community. For example, members of a virtual community may obtain knowledge about the attributes of a particular product or technology, or gain up-to-date information. Tonteri et al.,(2011) reveal that participation in a virtual community is significantly driven by the expectation of functional benefits, which in this case means obtaining knowledge on business- and economics-related issues. Based on this the researcher propose the following:

Hypothesis 1: There is a positive relationship between functional value and fan page participation.

2.5.2 Hedonic values

Hedonic values indicate to feelings of amusement, relaxation and refreshment that can be created in accessing to a virtual community (Tonteri et al., 2011). When joining into an online brand community, individuals have opportunities not only for informational search but also for enjoyable experience. Previous U&G studies on traditional and new media have identified two principal motives for media consumption, namely information seeking and entertainment (Rafaeli, 1986; Korgaonkar and Wolin, 1999; McQuail, 2000). Some researchers also discover that many users use the Internet for enjoyment and relaxation through random browsing and surfing (Ko, Cho, and Roberts, 2005; Sheehan, 2002). As for social network sites, individuals are motivated to use social network websites if they find them enjoyable, searching for hedonic values is, therefore, considered as a very important reason for users' participation. Social network websites often have rich entertainment contents such as Youtube, Facebook and Twister, so users can obtain great enjoyment when using them. Based on a study employing utilitarian and hedonic purpose frameworks, Shin (2007) illustrate that perceived enjoyment as a hedonic purpose powerfully impacts on online use for entertainment purposes. Therefore, it can be hypothesized that:

Hypothesis 2: There is a positive relationship between hedonic value and fan page participation.

2.5.3 Social interaction values

Social values refer to social benefits derived from establishing and maintaining interaction with other users (Dholakia et al., 2004). People may participate into a brand fan page in order to establish and maintain contact with other members such as social support, friendship and intimacy. A number of previous studies demonstrate that many participants join some online communities principally to dissipate their loneliness, meet like-minded others and receive companionship and social support (McKenna and Bargh, 1999; Ellison et al., 2007; Dholakia et al., 2009). Some users participate into virtual communities mainly to answer others' questions and to provide information for recognition by other members. Tonteri et al. (2011) prove that the participation of members into a virtual community is largely driven by the anticipation of social interaction values. Also, Shao (2009) demonstrates that there is a positive linkage between the participation of users and social-integrative benefits of an online brand community. Regarding the social network sites, they can offer instant posting and messaging features that allow users to connect and interact with their friends or other members from different geographical locations, so they can satisfy users' social interaction needs.

Hypothesis 3: There is a positive relationship between social interaction value and fan page participation.

2.5.4 Brand interaction values

In the context of brand fan pages, brand interaction refers to the communication between members and the brand or a company behind the brand. The existence and development of a virtual community is directly based on postings and their responses by both the community's members and the brand (Ridings et al., 2002). They also add that once a user posts a message, the speed and frequency of response is viewed as key elements of the communication in the community since they allow the creation of conversation. Nonetheless, responses must be valuable for the user to ensure that the communication must be effective. If there is no response or responses are valueless, the user will not be motivated to participate in that virtual community (Casaló, 2008). Following this consideration, the researcher proposes the hypothesis:

Hypothesis 4: There is a positive relationship between brand interaction value and fan page participation.

2.5.5 The relationship between participation and brand loyalty

A number of previous studies confirm that participation in a brand community directly support for the development of the relationship between the brand and its customers (Andersen, 2005; McAlexanderet al.; 2002). Also, some scholars argue that since a principal outcome of participation in brand communities is the intention to buy and use products of the brand in the future (Algesheimeret al., 2005), the participation may foster customers' loyalty to the brand (Muniz and O'Guinn, 2001; Benyoussefet al., 2006). Additionally, Algesheimer et al. (2005) demonstrate that customers' identification and emotional ties with a brand will enhance if they actively participate in a brand community. The interaction with both the brand and other members based on topics related to that brand creates these emotional ties. Based on these considerations, the researcher proposes the hypothesis:

Hypothesis 5: There is a positive relationship between fan page participation and brand loyalty.

Hypothesis.png

2.6 Summary and research questions

2.6.1 Summary

Due to the increasingly competitive business environment, establishing and maintaining customer loyalty play a vital role in marketing strategies. There have been some types of online brand communities that are used to escalate the relationship between companies and their customers, including forums, bulletin boards and websites. However, these platforms have low interactive features that limit the interaction between firms and customers. With the tremendous increase in the number of users as well as its high interactive properties, Facebook has been become a powerful platform for relationship marketing. Particularly, brand fan page, one of Facebook marketing tools, has substantially contributed to developing brand and enhancing customer loyalty. Hence, companies have invested in brand fan pages to build their brand image and to interact with their customers more closely.

As for brand loyalty, it has been a central topic of marketing research for few decades and there are a number of different definitions of brand loyalty. To measure brand loyalty, researchers often use three main ways, namely the behavioral, the attitudinal and the combined approach. Many companies have been used brand communities as an effective channel to maintain and enhance customers' loyalty since some previous studies discover that a strong brand community has a positive effect on customers' loyalty (Jacoby and Chestnut 1978; Keller 1998; McAlexander and Schouten 1998; Kim et al., 2008). More specifically, some scholars have found that the level of participation of members of a brand community positively influences on their loyalty to the brand (Andersen, 2005; Algesheimeret al., 2005; Muniz and O'Guinn, 2001). Therefore, it is concluded that high loyalty is an outcome of the high participation of members. With regard to antecedents of the participation of members, different researchers have found different motives that urge individuals actively to join a brand community. While Casaló et al. (2007) believe that trust in a virtual brand community has a positive effect on members' participation, Luis et al., (2007) state that the level of the satisfaction of consumers with the brand is a principal driver. Additionally, Holland and Baker (2001) inform that relevant and value content is one of main determinants of the participation. However, their findings are unconvincing and inadequate because they are unable to encompass all possible motives of members systematically. Hence, it is inappropriate to adopt these findings for the research. Eventually, the researcher employed the uses and gratification (U&G) theory, introduced by Katz (1959) to determine four key drivers of the participation and then constructed five hypotheses.

2.6.2 Gaps identified

Brand fan page is considered as a new category of brand community, so it has been used as an effective and efficient tool for building customer-brand relationship. Compared to traditional brand community, brand fan pages' properties are more interactive than other channels since they connect directly to users' Facebook profile. Therefore, in marketing communication today brand fan pages have been an effective and efficient channel for businesses. However, empirical research on fan pages and its role for the customer-brand relationship is limited due to its recent advance in the social communication aspect. There are only two main studies on brand fan pages in relationship marketing facet. One of early studies is a work of Cvijikj et al. (2011) that examines the relationship between posts and the levels of interaction of members based on counting the number of likes and comments of each type of postings. Although they point out that different types of moderator posts, categories and posting weekdays cause different levels of member's interaction, their research is limited because it could not examine which category attracts member most as well as identify key drivers of the participation of members.

Similarly, De Vries et al. (2012) determine possible main drivers for brand post popularity based on counting the number of likes and comments. They identify three main drivers that significantly influence the popularity of brand posts, namely the level of vivid characteristics, the level of interactive characteristics and the shares of positive comments. These studies have only focused on classifying all types of postings and evaluating the popularity of each type according to its number of likes and comments. This approach only helps researchers to identify which type of postings attracts consumers most, but it could not explain why a particular type is more attractive than others and what main motives of consumers are. Thus, it is necessary to use a new approach for investigating the key drivers of the participation of consumers into a brand fan page.

In order to answer these above questions, this research will use a new approach that concentrates on needs of individuals rather than types of postings. The researcher will adopt the uses and gratification (U&G) theory, introduced by Katz (1959), to identify principal motives of consumers that prompt them to participate in a brand fan page as well as establish hypotheses. Additionally, Vietnam is viewed as an emerging market with a tremendous increase in the number of Facebook users every year, and brand fan pages have been used nationwide as an efficient marketing channel for two years. However, there is no research on this topic in Vietnam, so it is meaningful to conduct this research to evaluate the effect of brand fan pages on customer loyalty and find out key drivers of brand fan page participation. This research will provide insights in brand fan pages and recommend feasible suggestions to marketers in Vietnam to help them to employ their brand fan pages more effectively and efficiently.

2.6.3 Research Objectives

The target of this research was to obtain an in-depth understanding of the role of brand fan pages in building up customers' loyalty as well as main factors that induce users to participate into brand fan pages. Taking into account the previous research conducted in this specific area of study, the main objectives of this research were:

To examine the fan-page participation and brand loyalty and assess the relationship between the two.

To investigate main factors that influence fan-page participation and assess the relationship between each factor and fan-page participation

2.6.4 Research Questions

Based on the past literature and the intended objectives for this study, the following research questions were explored:

Is there a relationship between fan-page participation and brand loyalty?

What are main drivers that affect the fan-page participation?

How do drivers affect the fan-page participation?

Based on the previous studies and literature, hypotheses were investigated:

H1: There is a positive relationship between functional value and fan page participation.

H2: There is a positive relationship between hedonic value and fan page participation.

H3: There is a positive relationship between social interaction value and fan page participation.

H4: There is a positive relationship between brand interaction value and fan page participation.

H5: There is a positive relationship between fan page participation and brand loyalty.

Chapter 3: Methodology

This chapter is targeted to justify the choice of the methodology which the researcher has adopted in this study to answer the research questions and to meet the research objectives.

3.1 Research Philosophy

The methodology of this research is based on research "onion" model developed by Saunders et al. (2009).

Identifying the research philosophy is one of the most important initial steps in doing research because the research philosophy contains essential assumptions about the way the researcher view the world. These assumptions will support for the research strategy and methods that are chosen for the research (Saunders et al. 2009; Johnson and Clark, 2006). According to Saunders et al. (2009), there are four main research philosophies in management research, including Realism, Interpretivism, Pragmatism and Positivism. The research philosophy used for this study was positivism. The philosophy of Positivism advocates working with an observable social reality. It underlines a highly structured methodology to facilitate replications (Saunders et al., 2009). Additionally, Positivism is the approach in which, "the only meaningful phenomena that can be studied scientifically are those that can be directly observed and measured quantitatively" (Coolican, 2004, pg.47). Burrell and Morgan (1979) define Positivism as an epistemology "which seeks to explain and predict what happens in the social world by searching for regularities and causal relationships between its constituent elements" (Burrell and Morgan, 1979 cited in Goles and Hirschheim, 2000). This research was targeted to search for causal relationships between main drivers, the fan-page participation and brand loyalty so the philosophy of Positivism was an appropriate choice for this research.

According to many researchers, there are two of the most significant characteristics of Positivism. First, Positivism involves only directly observable phenomena that is excluded any reference to the intangible or subjective things. Second, Positivism is concerned with the testing of theories in a "hypothetico-deductive" fashion by examining the facts of a readily observable external world (Keat and Urry,1975; Giddens,1979; Gill and Johnson, 2002). The hypotheses of a theory are often developed from existing theories before they are tested through the collection data and analysis of results. The purpose of the testing is to confirm, in whole or part, or refute the hypotheses in order that the further development of theory will be inferred and then will be tested by further research (Saunders et al. 2009). Based on the reviewing and analysing existing theories, this research formulated hypotheses and tested these hypotheses in order to develop previous research and increase our knowledge of the phenomena.

3.2 Research Approach

This research adopted deductive approach. The deductive approach involves the development of a theory and hypotheses that are subsequently tested through collecting and analysing data (Saunders et al. 2009; Partington, 2002). The deductive approach is often attached to Positivism while the inductive approach is attached to Interpretivism (Saunders et al, 2009). In order to help researchers to choose an appropriate research approach, Creswell (2002) highlights some practical criteria. If a topic has a wealth of literature from which researchers can establish a theoretical framework and a hypothesis, the deductive approach should be used. Conversely, if a topic is new, has much debate and has little existing literature, it is more appropriate to use the inductive approach (Creswell 2002, Remenyi et al. 1998, Saunders et al. 2009). Additionally, Saunders et al (2009) state that the inductive approach is often used when the data is limited to access or existing knowledge of the subject is insufficient. On the other hand, Saunders et al. (2009) also identify several important characteristics of deduction. First, this approach is used for explaining causal relationships between variables. Second, the concepts are operationalised in a way that allows facts to be measured quantitatively. Finally, problems as a whole are divided into the simplest possible elements to be better understood.

This research aims to investigate relationships between main drivers of fan-page participation, fan-page participation and brand loyalty; and the existing theories and early research on the topic are sufficient to build up the hypotheses to answer the research questions. Therefore, the deductive approach was adopted for this study.

One of significant advantages of the deductive approach is that it allows researchers to anticipate the phenomena, to predict the occurrence and therefore to control them all (Collis and Hussey 2003). According to Robson (2002), deductive research will pass through five consecutive stages:

Formulating a hypothesis from previous theories;

Presenting the hypothesis in the way which proposes a relationship between two variables;

Testing this hypothesis;

Analysing the results of the hypothesis testing in order to support or suggest change to existing theory;

If required, modifying the theory in accordance with findings.

This study applied the above process to test its hypotheses and examine relationships. The way in which the hypotheses were deduced, tested and analysed was subsequently outlined.

3.3 Research Purpose

The purpose of research is considered as a useful guideline for researchers in formulating research questions and research objectives in initial stages of doing research. It is inevitable for researchers to start to think about the purpose of research before thinking about research questions (Saunders et al, 2009). The research purpose has three types, namely exploratory, descriptive and explanatory. Explanatory studies are concerned with establishing causal relationships between variables based on examining and analysing a problem (ibid.). This research seeks to establish relationships between the variables being investigated and therefore can be considered an explanatory study. The principal purpose of explanatory research is to explain the relationships between variables (Saunders et al, 2009).

3.4 Research Design

Research design is a general plan of how a researcher will do in order to address research questions. At this point, there are two main approaches that researchers can employ for their research - quantitative and qualitative research. The quantitative research concentrates on numeric data, whereas the qualitative research focuses on non-numeric data (Saunders et al, 2009). The questionnaire technique is predominantly used for quantitative research whilst the interview technique is associated with qualitative research (Johnson and Harris, 2002; Gill and Johnson, 2002; Jackson, 2009). Quantitative research, which is closely connected with the positivist research approach, investigates the relationships between variables through analysing the data of large samples (Creswell, 2009; Gray, 2009). Therefore, the quantitative research can help researchers to test the hypotheses and examine relationships between variables (Gray, 2009; Saunders et al, 2009).

Based on considering all the characteristics of the quantitative research, the researcher decided to adopt the quantitative approach for this study since not only does it allow answering the research questions and obtaining research objectives, but also it offers many benefits. It ensures accuracy through reliable and valid measurement, control through method of sampling and research design, it also allows sophisticated analyses, and it is able to be replicated easily (Burns 2000). Also, Johnson and Harris (2002) have the same view, and they highlight that the quantitative research is an efficient means for analysis of large amounts of data and it is also an excellent way to test hypotheses. Hence, with the variables being investigated and the objectives at hand, a quantitative approach is the most appropriate choice.

3.5 Data Collection

This research used primary data. Primary data is defined by Hox and Boeije (2005) as information that is collected using processes that can effectively answer particular research issues. Primary data has not been changed or altered by researchers, whereas secondary data has already been manipulated by investigators. Thus, primary data is more reliable, authentic and objective than secondary data. In order to collect the primary data for this research, survey strategy was adopted due to its advantages. First, this strategy allows the data can be quantitatively collected and analysed through descriptive and inferential statistics so that the data can be used to propose causes of particular relationships between variables and to depict models of these relationships (Saunders et al, 2009). Second, surveys are considered as an economical and easy way used for collecting a large amount of data from a sizeable population (Gill and Johnson, 2002; Jackson, 2009). Finally, the survey strategy is viewed as authoritative by people in general and is both relatively easy to explain and to understand (Saunders et al, 2009; Jackson, 2009).

Primary data can be collected through observation, interviews or questionnaires (Saunders et al, 2009). This study used the questionnaire technique because it offered an efficient and effective way of gathering responses from a large sample before quantitative analysis. This technique requires each respondent to answer the similar set of questions, so it enables studies to be conducted broadly with a huge number of participants (ibid.). With using standardised questions, questionnaires allow all respondents to interpret the questions in the same way (Robson 2002). Furthermore, if questionnaires are worded accurately, they require less skill and sensitivity to control than observation and interviews (Jankowicz 2005).

3.5.1 Sampling Population

This research is targeted to analyse the variables of drivers of fan-page participation, fan-page participation and customer-brand loyalty in the marketing environment of Vietnam. Hence, the population was Vietnamese adults who are fans of Facebook brand fan pages.

3.5.2 Sampling Method

This research employed convenience sampling technique to select a sample. Convenience sampling, known as accidental or haphazard sampling, is a non-probability technique in which participants are selected based on accessibility (Tharenou et al, 2007; Saunders et al, 2009). Since in some cases it is infeasible to include the entire population, convenience sampling is often used and is one of the most common techniques. This method is quick and inexpensive (Tharenou et al, 2007).

3.5.3 Sample

A convenience sample of this research has 254 participants. There are 110 males and 144 females, aged from 18 to 35, with majority between the ages of 18 - 23. A sample size was chosen based on conditions that ensure that it effectively represents the population. According to Biau et al. (2008), a larger sample size will produce more accurate and precise results. For this research, 254 fans were an acceptable number of the sample for analysing.

The data was collected through the use of questionnaires. An online questionnaire had been designed on Isurvey website, an online survey website, then the hyperlink of the questionnaire and an introduction about the survey were sent to brand fan page users in two main ways. Email was used for acquaintances of the researcher and famous brand fan pages, such as Coca-cola fan page, Pepsi fan page and Vietnam Airline fan page, were used for other potential participants. Sixty emails were sent out and the hyperlink was posted on 20 different brand fan pages that have been the highest number of fans in Vietnam during one month from 15th July to 15th August in 2012. Finally, there were 485 participants who took part in the survey. Of these, 254 people completed the survey while the rest of them - 231 people - have abandoned. The response rate is 52%. The online questionnaire included a cover letter explaining the study and providing the researcher's details for further enquiry. Also, complete anonymity was ensured and participants were announced that they are free to withdraw at any time.

3.5.4 Questionnaire

The questionnaire (Appendix 1) that was delivered to participants contained seven sections. The first section aimed to obtain more comprehensive information from participants such as the number of fan pages they have participated, how often they have used Facebook and a brand fan page, as well as demographic information, including gender, age and education.

The second section comprised four items that determine participants' satisfaction with functional values that have been provided by the brand fan page in which they are fans. The measurement of functional value was adapted and changed for this research based on a scale from Voss et al. (2003). A five-point liker scale, ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree was used for each statement in order to examine the extent to which participants agreed with. Similarly, the third section included four statements that were constructed based on a study of Voss et al. (2003). All four statements also used a five-point liker scale. This section aimed to measure to the extent to which participants were satisfied with the hedonic value of a brand fan page.

Both the fourth section and the fifth section had four statements and used a five-point liker scale for measurement. The former was designed for participants to evaluate the social interaction value of a brand fan page based on the social component of the social networking sites gratification system of Barker (2009). The latter was targeted to measure the level of participants' satisfaction with the brand interaction value of a brand fan page. Four statements of the fifth section were composed according to a study on communication component of the web-interactivity scale (Song and Zinkhan, 2008).

The sixth section consisted of six statements that were supposed to measure the level of respondents' participation into a brand fan page. These statements were formed based on a study of van Doorn et al. (2010) focusing on elements like community participation, identification and integration. The final section had thirteen statements that were used for measuring the level of fans' brand loyalty. These statements were created reliance on reviewing three previous studies (Oliver, 1999; Moorman et al., 1992; Johnson et al., 2006). Two last sections also used a five-point liker scale to measure.

3.7.5 Reliability and Validity

According to Tharenou et al. (2007), there is no measure that is a perfect representation of an underlying construct which is conceptualied as a variable. Therefore, maximising the reliability and validity of measures is an important part of empirical research.

Reliability

Reliability refers to the consistency or stability of a measuring instrument (Jackson, 2009). In other words, it is expected that a measure to measure exactly the same way each time it is used. In order to assess the reliability of the research, a pilot test was conducted in which a convenience sample of twelve respondents who were 18-35 year olds. The aim of pilot test is to eliminate potential problem in the wording or understanding of the questions (Malhotra and Birks 2007). The results of the pilot test recommend that the questionnaire needed some change in a few questions for easier understanding.

Once all multi-item measures had little random measurement error, the items of each measure were tested to make sure that they are consistent with each other. Internal consistency reliability is used for multi-item measures. Internal consistency reliability is typically measured by a statistic called Cronbach's alpha coefficient (Tharenou et al., 2007). Thus, a Cronbach's Alpha test was conducted for each section of the questionnaire, exception the first section. In general, it can be concluded that a measure is reliable if it has alpha coefficient over 0.7. Conversely, the alpha coefficient is less than 0.7, the measure will be said that it is unreliable.

* (results of Cronbach's Alpha Test).

Validity

Validity refers to a measure of the truthfulness of a measuring instrument. It indicates whether the instrument measures what it is supposed to measure (Jackson, 2009). The questionnaire of this study was assessed content validity by two marketing experts who are brand marketing managers in Vietnam. According to Jackson (2009), to determine whether a test has content validity, researchers should consult experts in the area being tested. On the other hand, the questionnaire is valid if it is based on the literature review and it can answer the research questions as well as meet the research objective (Tharenou et al., 2007). The questionnaire of this research was developed from considering a few of previous studies. In addition, the questionnaire was deemed appropriate by the brand marketing specialists. Therefore, it was concluded that the questionnaire had content validity.

3.8. Ethics

Since the data was collected through online questionnaire, the possible ethical issues were considered carefully. The questionnaire was composed logically and precisely to ensure that the time a respondent can spend on answering within seven minutes. The content was also familiar with participants. Age limitation (18 year olds or more) was announced in the invitations. The questionnaire was totally done by volunteers. Since the invitations were sent via email, Facebook messages and postings, this method was considered not to negatively influence attitude of participants.

3.9 Data Analysis

To analyze quantitative data, the researcher used SPSS software. This software can make data analysis simple and time-saving. However, it requires the user to have basic skills in using SPSS software because these skills likely influence the accuracy of results considerably. Since there are various types of questions on the online questionnaire, including multiple choice and rating questions, the data input is in forms of nominal, ordinal and interval data. According to the research questions and the research objectives, component factor analysis and regression analysis need to be conducted in order to investigate relationships between variables.

Chapter 4: Data Analysis

This chapter will reveal the results of the analysis of data that was collected using the questionnaire.

4.1 Descriptive Statistics

Descriptive statistics aims to provide a better understanding of the participants that make up the sample of this research.

4.1.1 Gender

Gender Distribution.jpg

As can be seen from the table 1 and figure 3, the number of female participants was considerably higher than male participants with 144 females (57%) and 110 males (43%).

4.1.2 Age

Age Group.jpg

Both Table 2 and Figure 4 show that there are three sets of age groups of participants, including 18 - 23 year olds, 24 - 30 year olds and over 30 year olds. The youngest group (18 - 23) had the highest number of respondents with 160 made up 63 %, whilst the oldest group (over 30) was the smallest group with only 6 answerers made up 2.4%. The middle group (24-30) consisted of 88 participants and made up 34.6%. Therefore, it is clear that the age distribution was not even between age groups and the majority of respondents were aged between 18 and 23.

4.1.3 Education

Education 1.jpg

Table 3 and Figure 5 illustrate the highest level of education of participants. There were four main levels, namely GCSEs, A-levels, Undergraduate degree and Postgraduate degree. It can be se