This study explores the relationship between customer engagement (affective, cognitive, and behavioral aspects) and its impact on brand happiness, evangelism, and love within an emerging African market context, where masstige brands are increasingly prevalent.
A mixed-methods approach was used, beginning with a qualitative pre-test involving 70 participants to identify relevant masstige brands across service and product sectors. This phase laid the groundwork for the quantitative phase (Study 1), which included 517 participants and employed structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze the data.
Study 1 reveals that cognitive, effective, and behavioral engagement directly and indirectly influence brand evangelism and love through brand happiness. The findings in Study 2 validated the findings from Study 1.
This study adds to the masstige brand literature by introducing a novel approach and emphasizing the role of engagement in building brand evangelists and lovers among masstige brand customers in emerging markets.
