Brand Engagement

Meaning and Concept

Brand Engagement is a term loosely used to describe the process of forming an attachment (emotional and rational) between a person and a brand. It comprises one aspect of brand management. What makes the topic complex is that brand engagement is partly created by institutions and organizations, but is equally created by the perceptions, attitudes, beliefs and behaviors of those with whom these institutions and organizations are communicating or engaging with.

As a relatively new addition to the marketing and communication mix, brand engagement sits in the space between marketing, advertising, media-communication, social media, organizational development, internal communications and human resource management.

There is still lack of clarity and debate about whether this is a “soft” or hard measure, and whether it can be linked to any consumer or employee behavior change – e.g. sales activity, trial, or recommendation.

External Brand Engagement

Brand engagement between a brand and its consumers/potential consumers is a key objective of a brand marketing effort.

In general, the ways a brand connects to its consumer is via a range of "touch points" -- that is, a sequence or list of potential ways the brand makes contact with the individual. Examples include retail environments, advertising, word of mouth, online, and the product/service itself.

Internal brand engagement

Much internal communication and employee engagement practice is based on measurement of effectiveness or business contribution. The key elements in creating a model of employee engagement is the measurement of "engagement drivers" -- that is, what are the factors or combination of factors which have an impact on productivity and commitment and can be monitored and addressed through people, process or technology changes?

Many of the “engagement drivers” currently in use internally are HR focused, and in many cases do not delve deeply into the employee’s role in delivering the brand/customer experience as a distinct element.

Example

Probably the most compelling example of this is the service-profit chain. The first real case study of this appeared in "The service Profit Chain" (the so-called Sears Model, Harvard Business Review, 1997). This statistical model tracks increases in employee “engagement drivers” to correlated increases in customer satisfaction and loyalty, and then correlates this to increases in Total Shareholder Return (TSR), revenue and other financial performance measures.

Since the service-profit chain emerged, it’s been developed, and criticized, but the general consensus is that employee engagement can contribute roughly 20% to an organization’s TSR (various Vivaldi, Watson Wyatt, Towers Perrin studies 2004, 2005, 2006).