Influences of customer participation and customer brand engagement on brand loyalty

Purpose Value co-creation assumes that customers take active roles and create value together with firms. This paper aims to investigate the short- and long-term effects of customer participation on brand loyalty, through brand satisfaction. Participation effects were also examined among social media-using customers with the additional explanatory factor of brand engagement. Design/methodology/approach Two studies were conducted among insurance customers: a cross-sectional study using a nationwide sample (N = 954) and a subsample of social media users (N = 145) to examine short-term effects, and a longitudinal study using data from three assessment timepoints (N = 376) to enable empirical long-term testing. Findings The cross-sectional study showed positive short-term effects of customer participation on brand loyalty, mediated by satisfaction. Among customers using social media, positive participation effects gained from brand engagement strengthened brand satisfaction. The longitudinal study did not show similar positive long-term effects of customer participation. Practical implications These findings help deepen service marketers’ understanding of the possible short-term effects of customer participation and customer brand engagement, and caution them to not expect that customer participation will have long-term positive satisfaction and loyalty effects. Originality/value This research provides interesting short- and long-term findings, due to the complementary cross-sectional and longitudinal study designs.