Second Person Pronouns Enhance Consumer Involvement and Brand Attitude

Ryan E. Cruz, James M. Leonhardt and Todd Pezzuti

Journal of Interactive Marketing, 2017, vol. 39, issue C, 104-116

Abstract: Online brand messaging, e.g., blogging or posting on social media platforms, has an important role in digital marketing strategy. Such messaging is largely text based and provides an opportunity for brands to interact with many consumers simultaneously. The marketing literature, however, has yet to provide sufficient guidance on effective online brand messaging strategies. In particular, research has yet to address how the inclusion of second person pronouns in online brand messaging affects relevant consumer outcomes. The present research proposes that second person pronouns should work to enhance consumer involvement and brand attitude as a result of increasing the extent that consumers engage in self-referencing. A field study involving actual brand posts on Facebook and two subsequent experiments provide support for this hypothesis. In addition, drawing on cultural dimensions theory, individual levels of collectivism are identified as a boundary condition. The presence (vs. absence) of second person pronouns in online brand messaging enhances involvement and brand attitude for consumers that are lower, but not higher, in collectivism. The results provide marketers with needed guidance for creating effective online brand messaging.

Keywords: Second person pronoun; Self-referencing; Consumer involvement; Brand attitude; Collectivism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1094996817300348
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joinma:v:39:y:2017:i:c:p:104-116

DOI: 10.1016/j.intmar.2017.05.001

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Interactive Marketing is currently edited by B. T. Ratchford

More articles in Journal of Interactive Marketing from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().