Abstract
The marketing literature has drawn increasing attention to the consumer-brand affective relationship-building process, experiential engagement and self-definitional issues within online network-based communities. However, research attempting to develop an integrative perspective of experiential engagement and social identity theory is still fairly scant. Integrating social identity theory with the experiential engagement and brand love literatures, this paper proposes a social identity approach to consumer-brand affective relationships in online network-based communities. Specifically, this study develops a conceptual model in which social-interactive engagement influences social identity directly and brand love indirectly through the mediating effect of social identity. The model was empirically validated by conducting a survey (n=387) on the Facebook fan pages of 20 leading international brands based primarily in Europe and the US. Structural equation modelling was performed to assess the significance of the hypothesised linkages. The results obtained confirm the positive effects of social-interactive engagement and social identity on consumer-brand affective relationships in terms of brand love and the full mediating effect of social identity on social-interactive engagement and brand love. Implications for consumers and marketers are finally addressed.