Customers’ Understanding of Engagement Advertising

Although the construct of engagement has received considerable attention in market research in recent years, it has hardly been researched in the context of advertising. The aim of this exploratory study, therefore, is to undertake a theoretical conceptualization of customer engagement advertising (CEA) and to reach an understanding of how this type of advertising, which strategically embeds its messages into customers’ everyday life, is related to customers’ cognitive processes. Of particular interest is the question of whether strategically created CEA is related to a different everyday customers’ advertising knowledge than non-CEA. To answer this question, we use the brand concept map method, by means of which we are able to create a CEA consensus map (N = 53) and a non-CEA consensus map (N = 56). These present visually the basic persuasion knowledge of the study participants concerning these two types of advertising. Results indicate that, in coping with CEA, customers activate a different advertising knowledge than with non-CEA. CEA knowledge shows a higher association strength and is, in contrast to non-CEA knowledge, more strongly characterized by the two associations creativity and benefit. On the other hand, the association that advertising addresses customer’s needs plays a less important role in CEA than in non-CEA.