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Effects of
Effects of enduring involvement enduring
and perceived content vividness involvement

on digital engagement
Erik Ernesto Vazquez
Research Center, Léonard De Vinci Pôle Universitaire, Paris,
France and University of Monterrey, Monterrey, Mexico Received 30 May 2018
Revised 7 December 2018
6 August 2019
Accepted 8 August 2019

Abstract
Purpose – Retail marketers use brand communities (BCs) on social media (SM) to create digital engagement
and reach new customers. However, this marketing form needs perceived content vividness and enduring
involvement with products. The purpose of this study compares digital engagement (measured as an
intention to recommend a retail brand online) produced by BCs of retailers at three levels of cognitive load
(measured as exposure time to website).
Design/methodology/approach – Online quasi-experiments were conducted to analyze how SM
platforms with diverse levels of enduring involvement with products, perceived content vividness and
cognitive load influence digital engagement.
Findings – Results show enduring involvement with products produced digital engagement. In addition,
cognitive load produced an inverted U-shaped effect on digital engagement in the condition of high content
vividness (perceived). In the low content vividness condition, cognitive load produced similar or greater
positive effects on digital engagement than those produced in the high content vividness condition.
Research limitations/implications – The study implies a willingness to recommend online serves as a
proxy of digital engagement failing to capture the reciprocal activities from the firms to customers. It also
assumes that measuring product importance and usage frequency of the product serve as proxies of enduring
involvement failing to capture the hedonic motivations related to products.
Practical implications – Practitioners should prioritize enduring involvement with products over
perceived content vividness to improve digital engagement and reach new customers through their BCs on
SM platforms. In addition, managers should use SM with content perceived with low vividness to improve
digital engagement.
Originality/value – The study shows the influence of enduring involvement with products on digital
engagement. It supports applying the resource-matching theory in SM platforms. It offers an alternative
operationalization of constructs. The study compares multiple products and SM platforms providing
empirical evidence of distinct levels of content vividness between SM platforms, not considered in previous
studies.
Keywords Online marketing, Online advertising, E-commerce, Customer analytics,
Customer data management, Marketing information systems, Retailing, Virtual communities,
Analytics, Marketing psychology, Online retailing, Computer-mediated environments
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
Recent industry figures show that 90 per cent of companies use brand communities (BCs) on
multiple social media (SM) platforms to gain business value (Culnan et al., 2010; Internet
Retailer Magazine, 2016). Many retail brands strive to engage with their customers by
sharing content on SM platforms, so affiliated BC members may recommend the brands’ Journal of Research in Interactive
Marketing
products online (Sonnier et al., 2011). In 2016, revenue from global SM advertising increased © Emerald Publishing Limited
2040-7122
about 27 per cent to $27bn, which accounts for 14 per cent of the total digital advertising DOI 10.1108/JRIM-05-2018-0071
JRIM market (Statista, 2017). Marketing strategists now create content for BCs on SM to produce
digital engagement, and thus, increase their sales (Lipsman et al., 2012). For example,
Facebook fans of Zara, the international fashion store, spend on average 138 per cent more
than non-fans (Hotspex, 2013).
Digital engagement produced by BCs on SM may have a greater impact on consumers
than other forms of advertising exposure (Laroche et al., 2013). The evaluation of retail
products in digital environments has become one of the key drivers of e-retail (Duarte et al.,
2018). However, the question is whether all digital BCs produce similar results for retailers
and if not, which platforms and products produce the best results. All SM platforms that
host BCs are different (Habibi et al., 2014), as are the products promoted in each community
(Girard and Dion, 2010).
When examining the digital engagement produced by retail BCs, marketers should
account for the effects of enduring involvement with product and perceived content
vividness. First, products differ in how they are perceived by customers because of their
enduring involvement with them (Chun and Lee, 2016). Second, perceived content vividness
captures the essence of internet communications and the persuasiveness of the medium
(Swani and Milne, 2017). Third, online purchase intention rates have doubled for more than
half of the retail product categories, and more than 46 per cent of retail customers used
multiple SM platforms to learn about retail products (Nielsen, 2012, 2014). Enduring
involvement with product and perceived content vividness vary, making them relevant in
driving digital engagement with retail BCs on SM platforms. Thus, this study used different
products showing different levels of enduring involvement and used diverse BCs on SM
platforms marking distinctly perceived content vividness.
This research focused on the effect of retail BCs as continuing advertisements on
Twitter, Facebook and YouTube serving as tools for digital engagement. These three
platforms were selected following the study of Smith et al. (2012), which focused on
comparing clothing brands on SM. The goal of this study was to extend the work of Smith
et al. to other products such as electronics and food supplements. Furthermore, these
platforms represent three distinct types of sites according to Hoffman and Fodor (2010); for
instance, Twitter is a microblogging site, Facebook is a social networking site and YouTube
is a video sharing or content community site.
In contrast to previous advertising studies on SM (Taylor et al., 2011; Vázquez-Casielles
et al., 2013), this study focused on e-retail brands unfamiliar to participants. To do so, retail
brands from the UK, mostly unfamiliar to the participants (who were all from the USA),
were selected. Focusing on new participants is important because engaging new customers
determine community growth (Lipsman et al., 2012). In addition, this study focuses only on
participants with online purchasing experience and active use of SM platforms.
Part 1 of this paper surveys relevant literature to present a theoretical background and
proposes research hypotheses. Part 2, pretests and a main study serve to evaluate enduring
involvement with product and perceived content vividness of BC on diverse SM platforms,
as well as to test research hypotheses. Finally, the papers outline the theoretical
contributions and managerial implications of this study.

Theoretical background
Social media and digital engagement
A SM are communication systems that allow internet users to create and to exchange
content as several authors concur (Banerjee and Longstreet, 2016; Swani and Milne, 2017).
The same authors mention the foundation of SM platforms is Web 2.0, which is a group of
internet technologies that strengthen bidirectional communication and exchange of social
content. A SM simplifies content production and its diffusion, as well as it enables internet Effects of
users to perform social functions such as managing digital identity and presence enduring
(Kietzmann et al., 2011). SM serves retail companies to promote their products and brands
directly with end consumers; in addition, companies use these platforms to build BCs and
involvement
encourage digital engagement with their consumers (Culnan et al., 2010; Felix et al., 2017).
Engagement is a tangible process between the customer and a product or brand that
results in behavioral affinity (Alvarez-Milán et al., 2018; Calder et al., 2009; Hollebeek et al.,
2014). Engagement includes interactions that strengthen customers’ relationships with
brands and the literature often ties together distinct concepts such as customer engagement,
product engagement, BC engagement, online brand engagement and digital engagement
(Algesheimer et al., 2005; Chaffey, 2007).
Previous studies addressed digital engagement in terms of value co-creation with a
service-dominant logic (Hollebeek et al., 2014). Although definitions of engagement vary,
engagement implies a connection and participation resulting in customer behavior (Vivek
et al., 2012). Marketing scholars consider engagement to be branded behavior that goes
beyond transactions (Alvarez-Milán et al., 2018; Verhoef et al., 2010). In practitioner
literature, digital engagement is measured in terms of online recommendations or positive
actions such as “likes” or “shares” by BC members on SM (Hoffman and Fodor, 2010). This
is because digital engagement represents the investment of a customer in the brand and
digital engagement is fundamental to produce marketing recommendations on SM (Chaffey,
2007; Chun and Lee, 2016; Felix et al., 2017).
This research proposes to measure participants’ intentions to recommend online as a
proxy of digital engagement for five reasons. First, it shows the willingness of customers to
strengthen their relationship with e-retail brands through others (Chaffey, 2007). Second,
recommending an unfamiliar retailer is an interactive investment of the customer toward the
brand because it represents a reputation risk, which is a precondition of behavioral affinity
present in BCs (Algesheimer et al., 2005; Calder et al., 2009; Hollebeek et al., 2014). Third,
intention to recommend online on SM has the elements to provide emotional and behavioral
bonds making customers feel grateful, influenced and engaged by these BCs on SM (Hall-
Phillips et al., 2016; Simon and Tossan, 2018). Fourth, in the practitioner literature, digital
engagement is measured in terms of online recommendations such as shares on SM
(Hoffman and Fodor, 2010). Finally, customers who recommend online are ready to send and
receive branded content creating an open dialogue and capturing the essence of digital
engagement (Andrine, 2016).

Enduring involvement
The linkage of engagement and involvement is historically documented in organizational
and psychology studies (Bakker et al., 2008; Kanungo, 1982), however, enduring
involvement differs from engagement because it does not entail an open dialogue.
Involvement with products refers to enduring customer interest and product use even in
online settings (Belanche et al., 2017; Zaichkowsky, 1985, 1986). This study defines enduring
involvement as an internal variable of an individual representing an arousal potential of a
product that causes personal relevance and it is intrinsically motivated by the degree to
which the product is related to the pleasure received from the use of the product (Higie and
Feick, 1989).
Although products differ from each other in many ways, enduring involvement with the
product may be the most important factor for determining marketing success in retail (Fang
et al., 2011). The way customers link a product to their life (enduring involvement) affects
directly the affinity behavior of customers (engagement), customer affinity behavior with
JRIM products arises more often in customers with high involvement than customers with low
involvement with products (Brucks, 2014; Hudson et al., 2016). The feeling of involvement
promotes customer participation and willingness to recommend (i.e. affinity behaviors
byproducts of engagement) based on hedonic motivations (Davis et al., 2019; Nelson and
Borkovec, 1989; O’Brien et al., 2018).
Empirical research has demonstrated that product involvement positively affects
customer’s brand trust and advertising effectiveness in BCs on SM (Laroche et al., 2012). As
brand trust is positively correlated to engagement, considering customer’s enduring
involvement with the product is crucial to driving digital engagement (Chun and Lee, 2016;
Wirtz et al., 2010). In addition, Lin et al. (2012) found there is an interaction effect between
product and visual information on customer variables such as purchase intention and
product interest, which are variables related to the concepts of this study. Thus, the first
hypothesis is the following:

H1. Enduring involvement with product will positively affect digital engagement.

Perceived content vividness

Besides the variable of enduring involvement, the customer’s perception of perceived
content vividness is an important factor that affects digital engagement because it conveys
branded messages aiming to persuade customers (Chun and Lee, 2016; Keller and Block,
1997). Considering the perceived content vividness of an SM platform is crucial for digital
engagement because of the medium and the perception of the medium influence the
receiving and circulating of unpaid advertising messages (D’Urso and Rains, 2008). This
study defines perceived content vividness as the degree to which a stimulus has evoked
relevant and clear images in a customer, which can help to resolve ambiguities, change
beliefs and persuade customers during a certain amount of time (Han and Stoel, 2017).
The literature explains that time exposure to stimuli and vividness could have a
simultaneous effect on attitude toward a website because potential new customers can
participate in modifying the content of a mediated environment in real-time, a concept is also
known as interactivity (Coyle and Thorson, 2001). The joint effect of vividness and time
exposure, which is an indicator of cognitive load, on digital engagement is of great
importance when analyzing BCs on SM. In addition, perceived content vividness can also
undermine the persuasiveness of messages on SM (Frey and Eagly, 1993). Therefore, this
study proposes the following hypothesis:

H2. Perceived content vividness of BCs on SM platform and cognitive load have
interaction effects on digital engagement.
Previous studies suggest a potential inverted U-shaped relationship between levels of
cognitive load on the effectiveness of advertising messages when the medium is vivid, as
well as a linear relationship between cognitive load on effectiveness of advertising messages
when the medium has low vividness content (Keller and Block, 1997; Pantoja et al., 2016). A
plausible reason of the latter comes from the resource-matching theory explained in the
paper of Keller and Block (1997). According to this theory, a message achieves its maximum
persuasive impact when the cognitive resources allocated to elaborate communication
content match those required for this task. Pantoja et al. (2016) suggest cognitive overload
will prevent the activation of associative networks and empirically shows an inverted U
effect on brand attitude in a high vividness condition. Over a sufficient range such as in a
high vividness content condition, cognitive load forms an inverted U to message persuasion
and for low vividness content condition the relationship between cognitive load on Effects of
effectiveness of advertising messages is linear (Keller and Block, 1997). Thus, this research enduring
proposes the following hypotheses:
involvement
H3. The level of cognitive load produces an inverted U-shaped effect on digital
engagement for high content vividness (perceived) of BCs on SM platform.
H4. The level of cognitive load produces a linear and positive effect on digital
engagement for low content vividness (perceived) of BCs on SM platform.

Pretests
This study conducted pretests before the main study; the objective was to ensure that all
participants would perceive considerably different levels of content vividness in the selected
SM platforms and different levels of enduring involvement with the selected products.
Participants for both the pretests and main study were recruited using Amazon mechanical
turk (MTurk). Primary data collected with MTurk are reliable and of better or similar
quality when compared to data collected via traditional methods (Kees et al., 2017).

Pretest 1: enduring involvement with products

Aiming to explore distinct levels of enduring involvement, this study asked 72 participants
(50 per cent men; Mage = 35.7; SD = 11.0) to evaluate enduring involvement with different
groups of products. Pretest 1 selected products following empirical research that suggested
customers have considerably different involvement with electronics, clothing and food
supplements (Girard and Dion, 2010; Korgaonkar et al., 2006). To build empirical context,
this study first selected popular e-shops with a presence in popular SM platforms to
represent different groups of products based on the results of a popular search engine
(Appendix).
The study measures enduring involvement based on a Likert scale derived from the
literature, which emphasizes the importance a customer gives to a product in his/her life, as
well as his/her repurchase affinity for that product (Brucks, 2014; Hamilton et al., 2011;
Hudson et al., 2016). It attempts to capture the pleasure received from the use of product
outlining the hedonic motivations behind behavior affinity in repurchasing, which also
affect digital engagement on SM platforms following the literature (Davis et al., 2019; Higie
and Feick, 1989; O’Brien et al., 2018). The scale of three items resulted with high reliability
(M = 5.6, SD = 1.9 and Cronbach’s a = 0.84; Table AI).
The empirical setting was prepared for between-subject comparisons; a one-way
ANOVA was used to compare the product groups. Results from a one-way ANOVA showed
different enduring involvement for each product type (Melectronics = 6.3, Mclothing = 6.2 and
Msupplements = 4.3; F (2, 69) = 9.7 and p < 0.01). Results from a Tukey’s post-hoc comparison
showed that participants were similarly involved with electronics and clothing (p > 0.1).
The scores of enduring involvement in both types of products were significantly different
from that of food supplements (p < 0.01). Thus, two levels of enduring involvement were
found.

Pretest 2: content vividness of brand community on social media platform

The pretest was conducted to check perceptions about the content vividness of the three SM
platforms also investigated by Smith et al. (2012). For the pretest, 45 participants (48.9
per cent men, Mage = 21.5 and SD = 1.5) were asked to visit a retail BC in Twitter, Facebook
and YouTube presented and then to evaluate its content vividness. Each participant visited
JRIM three retail BCs in random order to avoid primacy effects. Perceived vividness of the website
was measured by a six bipolar nine-point Likert scale as in the study of Oh (2017): “not
colorful–colorful,” “drab–rich,” “vague–graphic,” “abstract–concrete,” “not descriptive–
descriptive” and “low equality visual–high-quality visual” (M = 6.4, SD = 1.5 and
Cronbach’s a = 0.87). Paired t-tests were used in the analysis because the empirical setting
was prepared for within-subject comparisons, these tests are robust even for comparing
small sample sizes and the risk of obtaining false positive results is very low (De Winter,
2013). Results of paired t-tests showed the selected BC in Twitter was perceived with higher
perceived content vividness than the one in YouTube (MTwitter = 6.8, MYouTube = 6.4; t (44) =
2.7, p < 0.01) and the one in Facebook (MTwitter = 6.8, MFacebook = 6.2; t (44) = 3.1, p < 0.01).
However, BCs on Facebook and YouTube were perceived with a similar level of perceived
content vividness (MYouTube = 6.4, MFacebook = 6.2; t (44) = 1.1, p > 0.1), therefore, only two
levels of perceived content vividness were found.

Main study
This study involved 900 e-retail customers in the USA (50 per cent men; Mage = 32.5; SD =
9.8) and followed a two (perceived content vividness level of SM platform)  three (level of
cognitive load) factorial design with a continuous independent variable (enduring
involvement with product type). The study follows the selected e-shops with a presence in
the SM platforms resulting from pretests. Facebook and YouTube represented low content
vividness, whereas Twitter represented high content vividness. Exposure time to stimulus
(BC on SM) was used as a proxy of cognitive load because exposure time to stimulus has
been studied as a key variable in the study of vividness and has been positively correlated
with levels of cognitive load and levels of interactivity (Coyle and Thorson, 2001; Frey and
Eagly, 1993). For convenience, this study divides the sample into three groups following
previous empirical research about the relationship of cognitive load, vividness and exposure
time to stimulus (Frey and Eagly, 1993; Keller and Block, 1997; Pantoja et al., 2016). It does
so, according using quartile statistics of the exposure time variable. Group 1 included those
participants with exposure time below the first quartile threshold (48.3 s), Group 2 included
those participants with exposure time between the first quartile and the third quartile
thresholds (48.3 s and 72.83 s) and Group 3 included those participants with exposure time
above the third quartile threshold (72.83 s). The level of content vividness and the time of
exposure group served as between-subject factors. Six groups (each with 150 participants)
were used in this study.
Participants were recruited using MTurk, and only participants with previous
experience purchasing online and using the three SM platforms were admitted. This
research validated these admission criteria with four questions (yes/no answers). After
passing these admission criteria, participants were assigned to one BC (treatment group) to
continue with the online quasi-experiment. Then, the participants were instructed to visit for
at least 30 s a BC on SM before responding to items for the dependent variable. A minimum
time of exposure was enforced by giving the participants specific instructions, as well as
showing them a timer and temporarily disabling the next button in the survey. As explained
in the theoretical background, the intention to recommend online a retailer’s brand of a
product type was used as a proxy of digital engagement. The Likert scale proposed by
Gelbrich (2011) was adapted for this study with high reliability (Cronbach’s a = 0.98;
Table AI).
Before testing hypotheses, familiarity with selected BCs in SM was evaluated resulting in a
low level (M = 1.4; SD = 0.7) as intended in this study focused on new customers for e-retailers
and equivalency of groups was verified showing homogenous treatment groups (Table AI). A
factor analysis with varimax rotation showed that the items used to measure enduring Effects of
involvement and those used to measure digital engagement would explain 78 per cent if enduring
grouped in two factors. This analysis provided evidence of the discriminant validity of the involvement
measures used in this research as items loaded high only within each construct (Table AI).

Results
Linear regression analysis served to test all hypotheses. The effect of enduring involvement
was positive and statistically significant on digital engagement as Model 1 in Table I shows;
therefore, H1 was supported. An interaction effect of perceived vividness and cognitive load
resulted significant as Model 1 in Table I shows; thus, H2 was supported. Figure 1 shows an
interaction plot to visualize the effects produced by cognitive load and content vividness on
digital engagement.
An inverted U-shaped relationship produced by cognitive load under the high content
vividness condition is visible in Figure 1. It shows that means of digital engagement were
similar when the cognitive load was low (Level 1) and high (Level 3), as well as both means
were lower than the mean of digital engagement when cognitive load was moderate (Level 2)
where digital engagement peaked. In the high content vividness condition, the effect of
moderate cognitive load was positive and statistically significant on digital engagement
(higher than the effect of low and high cognitive load) as Model 2 in Table I shows; therefore,
H3 was supported.
In the low content vividness condition, the cognitive load does not have a statistically
significant effect on digital engagement as Model 3 in Table I shows; thus, H4 was not
supported. Following Figure 1, it was evident that comparing the effect of high vivid content
vs the effect of low vivid content effect under the three conditions of cognitive load was
valuable; hence, t-tests were used for this purpose. Results of these comparisons showed that
low perceived content vividness produces a greater positive effect on digital engagement
under the low cognitive load condition (MLowVividness = 4.5, MHighVividness = 3.8; t (223) = 1.2,
p = 0.02) and under the high cognitive load condition (MLowVividness = 4.9, MHighVividness =
3.9; t (223) = 3.4, p < 0.01). Low and high perceived content vividness produces similar
effects of digital engagement on the medium cognitive load condition (MLowVividness = 4.3,
MHighVividness = 4.6; t (448) = 1.2, p > 0.1). Finally, Table II presents a summary of the
results.

Linear regression Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

Variable b SE b SE b SE

Enduring involvement 0.23** 0.03 0.26** 0.04 0.21** 0.05

Vividness – Level 2 0.73* 0.27
Cognitive load – Level 2 0.17 0.20 0.70* 0.20 0.16 0.29
Cognitive load – Level 3 0.26 0.24 0.21 0.24 0.27 0.32
Familiarity with selected e-retailer 0.66** 0.10 0.75** 0.12 0.63** 0.20
Vividness – Level 2  Cognitive load Level 2 0.01* 0.34
Vividness – Level 2  Cognitive load Level 3 0.04 0.39
R2 0.12 0.15 0.11
F for change in R2 8.89** 4.56** 6.67**

Notes: The three models have control variables (i.e. geolocation, age, gender, level of income and Table I.
education) that were not statistically significant (p > 0.05); *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01 Regression analysis
JRIM Cognitive Load Level
1 Low 2 Medium 3 High
Perception of High Content Vividness M = 3.8; SD = 2.1 M = 4.6; SD = 2.2 M = 3.9; SD = 2.3

Perception of Low Content Vividness M = 4.5; SD = 2.2 M = 4.3; SD = 2.1 M = 4.9; SD = 2.0

4.9 4.9

4.7

4.6
Digital Engagement

4.5 4.5

High Contet Vividness

4.3 4.3 Low Content Vividness

4.1

Figure 1. 3.9 3.9

Interaction plot of 3.8
content vividness 
3.7
cognitive load on
1 2 3
digital engagement
Cognive Load Level

H1: Enduring involvement with product will positively affect digital engagement Supported
H2: Perceived content vividness of BCs on SM platform and cognitive load have interaction Supported
effects on digital engagement
H3: The level of cognitive load produces an inverted U-shaped effect on digital engagement for Supported
high content vividness (perceived) of BCs on SM platform
Table II. H4: The level of cognitive load produces a linear and positive effect on digital engagement for Not
Summary of results low content vividness (perceived) of BCs on SM platform supported

Theoretical contributions
The influence of enduring involvement with products on digital engagement is relevant
for the marketing literature because customer engagement increases customer loyalty,
which, in turn, improves business performance (Hapsari et al., 2017). From all variables
analyzed in this study, the effect of enduring involvement with products produced the
greatest effect on digital engagement. This insight departs from the majority of the
marketing literature that focuses on other characteristics of online recommendations in SM
platforms such as spread or valence (Bi et al., 2018; Fang et al., 2011; Li and Shiu, 2012). The
results suggest an inverted U-shaped effect of cognitive load on digital engagement in high
content vividness conditions. This supports the resource-matching theory as explained in
previous studies (Frey and Eagly, 1993; Keller and Block, 1997); in doing so, the present
study extends the application of this theory in the new digital context of SM platforms.
 Previous studies have reported mixed results regarding the effect of cognitive overload Effects of
on marketing variables. The works of Huang et al. (2013) and Soto-Acosta et al. (2014) enduring
suggest cognitive overload exerts a positive effect on marketing variables such as
willingness to pay price premiums or purchase intention. In contrast, the works of Furner
involvement
and Zinko (2017) and Pantoja et al. (2016) suggest cognitive overload exerts a negative effect
on marketing variables such as purchase intention and brand attitude. Mixed results are the
product of diverse operationalization of studies and there may be other relevant variables
such as perceived risk or distractions that could play an important role in this interplay
(Chen et al., 2009; Pantoja et al., 2016; Soto-Acosta et al., 2014). The results in this study show
digital engagement reaches a peak at medium level of cognitive load in the high content
vividness condition. For the low vividness content condition, the results show that a high
level of cognitive load produces the greatest positive effect on digital engagement. This
supports that low vivid content is more persuasive than high vivid content when people are
not focused on following instructions (Frey and Eagly, 1993; Keller and Block, 1997) as it
was the case in this quasi-experimental study.
The study offers an alternative operationalization. It empirically proves the discriminant
validity of the measure proposed for the concept of enduring involvement. These results
extend the work of previous studies on the concept (Chun and Lee, 2016; Giese et al., 1996;
Higie and Feick, 1989) as it provides a new understanding and application of enduring
involvement with products for digital marketing. Digital engagement and involvement have
been studied as separate constructs in SM platforms that impact customer loyalty or
repurchasing (van Asperen et al., 2018; Robert, 2019). This study extends previous research
because it provides an alternative measure (i.e. intention to recommend online) for digital
engagement. Although some scholars acknowledged differences between SM platforms,
there is a gap of studies comparing SM platforms (Christodoulides et al., 2012; Smith et al.,
2012). This study contributes to this gap by comparing multiple SM platforms. It was able to
provide empirical evidence of the existence of at least two levels of perceived content
vividness between selected SM platforms.

Managerial implications
The emerging attention on content characteristics of SM such as vividness detracts from
enduring product involvement. However, the results of this study highlight the importance of
product involvement over perceived content vividness on SM for the digital engagement of new
customers. This could induce practitioners to set different priorities to produce greater digital
engagement. As traditional outlet managers place products on every shelf according to
importance and frequency of use (product involvement), digital managers should consider
similar strategies to manage content on SM. By applying product category management to
their content in BCs, retail marketers could improve their resource allocation across SM
platforms, gain digital engagement for potential customers and grow their communities.
The results of this study show that low content vividness (perceived) produces greater or
similar positive effects than high content vividness on digital engagement. Thus, marketers
should also prioritize the use of content with low content vividness to produce digital
engagement rather than investing in high content vividness (perceived) when aiming to gain
new customers through their BCs on SM. Conversely, managers could alleviate the negative
effect of cognitive load on marketing outcomes in high vivid contexts with associations of
human characteristics and their brands to reduce customer’s perceived risk (Hudson et al., 2016;
Soto-Acosta et al., 2014). To build these associations, practitioners should integrate SM
platforms as emotional touchpoints and sources of online recommendations in a consistent
customer journey (Hudson et al., 2015; Maechler et al., 2016). Finally, managers should leverage
JRIM the social support and online recommendations in SM platforms to improve their marketing
outcomes derived from customer engagement such as repurchasing (loyalty) behavior as
recommended by recent studies (Carlson et al., 2017; Lin et al., 2018; Zhang et al., 2018a).

Limitations and future directions

The results apply only to the population of the USA with high digital literacy that has
experience purchasing online and using SM platforms because MTurk provides
convenience samples biased for high digital literacy. Another important limitation is the
number of retail BCs included in this study. A larger sample of retail BCs with diverse
products is necessary to generalize the findings of this study. The quasi-experimental
design enforced controls that required participants to spend at least 30 s visiting the retail
BC on the SM of a retailer unfamiliar to them. In practice, potential customers may spend
less time visiting a BC because attention spans are increasingly limited in SM platforms.
Additionally, the use of exposure time as a proxy of cognitive load in this research should be
validated with other methods to induce diverse levels of cognitive load.
The study implies a willingness to recommend online serves as a proxy of digital
engagement, which fails to capture and open dialogue between customers and firms, as well
as reciprocal activities from the firms to customers (Andrine, 2016; Zhang et al., 2018b).
Willingness to recommend online also fails to capture other forms of customer participation
and value co-creation such as participation in feedback or distinctive programs to get
rewards or exclusive access to offerings (Hollebeek et al., 2014). The study assumes that
measuring product importance and usage frequency of the product would serve to
operationalize the concept of enduring involvement, however, these measurements fail to
validate the hedonic motivations and pleasure obtained from products as acknowledged in
the definition of involvement (Davis et al., 2019; Higie and Feick, 1989; O’Brien et al., 2018).
Future studies could validate the appropriateness of measuring digital engagement and
enduring involvement with products, as well as proposing novel measurements to capture
the essence of these constructs in a practical manner.
A future study could consider traditional methods to induce cognitive load such as
asking participants to remember numbers or computing mathematical operations before
stimulus exposure. Future studies may investigate how perceived content vividness and
enduring involvement with products affect other measures such as brand trust, brand
loyalty, brand centrality, brand sentiment and promotional self-presentation, as in the
studies of Laroche et al. (2013) and Smith et al. (2012). It may also be prudent for future
researchers to control for consumption speed of content, such as the average reading speed
of text (Noyes and Garland, 2008; Ziefle, 1998). Measuring and controlling the speed of
content consumption for video and images are broad and interesting paths for future
research. BCs combine diverse types of content, and thus, controlling for the consumption
speed of content may help to optimize quasi-experiments. The latter would help to produce
better insights into content design across BCs on multiple platforms and improve resource
allocation for retail marketers.

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Corresponding author
Erik Ernesto Vazquez can be contacted at: erik.vazquez@devinci.fr
Appendix. Queries in search engine to find an select BCs Effects of
enduring
Text used to find BCs of electronics
involvement
Online shop OR webshop OR e-retail AND Computers electronics appliances AND PCs OR MP3 OR
players OR CDs OR microwaves OR printers OR cartridges AND twitter.com AND youtube.com

Text used to find BCs of clothing

Online shop OR webshop OR e-retail AND Apparel and accessories AND clothes OR shoes OR
fragrances OR sunglasses AND facebook.com AND twitter.com AND facebook.com

Text used to find BCs of supplements

Online shop OR webshop OR e-retail AND Nutritional supplements AND vitamins OR herbal
supplements OR diet pills AND youtube.com AND twitter.com AND facebook.com
JRIM Treatment group
Sample demographics 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Age (years)
< 20 0 5 0 6 4 4 7 6 4
21-28 44 46 43 37 36 39 36 35 46
29-34 17 18 18 21 26 21 20 18 20
35-49 31 28 33 32 26 28 30 35 26
>50 8 3 6 4 8 8 7 6 4
M 33.2 30.5 33.8 32.2 33.1 33.0 32.6 32.7 31.2
SD 9.9 8.6 9.9 9.4 10.2 10.5 10.3 9.7 9.5
Gender
Female 50 for each treatment group
Male 50 for each treatment group
Income (US$ per year)
< $25K 24 18 19 22 28 17 25 28 26
$25-$50K 26 28 36 31 28 26 24 21 32
$50K-$100K 27 37 31 33 25 45 24 33 28
$100K-$150K 16 11 9 12 17 11 10 15 13
> $150K 7 6 5 2 2 1 7 3 1
Ma 4.5 4.5 4.3 4.2 4.1 4.4 4.3 4.2 4.2
SDa 2.2 2.0 1.8 2.0 2.1 1.8 2.1 2.1 1.9
Education
< High School 2 1 2 0 0 2 5 5 3
High school 8 10 12 10 14 8 9 15 13
Some college/associate deg. 43 35 43 41 43 45 39 42 35
Bachelor’s 30 40 28 33 29 32 31 25 37
Graduate’s degree 17 14 15 16 14 13 16 13 12
Ma 10.7 10.8 10.5 10.8 10.6 10.6 10.6 10.2 10.5
SDa 1.9 1.8 2.1 1.7 1.9 1.8 2.1 2.0 2.0
Geographic location (coordinates)
Latitude M 37.8 36.6 37.0 37.3 37.1 36.8 37.7 37.8 37.3
Latitude SD 5.5 5.4 4.9 5.5 5.6 6.2 5.7 4.8 5.2
Longitude M 90.7 87.8 90.7 88.8 87.6 86.7 88.9 90.5 88.6
Longitude SD 26.5 27.1 23.1 26.8 25.6 24.8 24.2 15.7 23.6
Time of exposure (seconds)
M 62.5 59.0 63.9 60.3 59.7 62.1 65.3 62.0 59.5
SD 18.1 17.6 17.2 18.3 16.7 16.9 16.2 16.3 15.11
Familiarity with e-retailer
Ma 1.4 1.4 1.3 1.5 1.3 1.3 1.3 1.5 1.4
SDa 0.5 0.7 0.7 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.6 0.7 0.7
Total 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100

Notes: *Treatment groups: 1. High vividness and high enduring involvement | Twitter and electronics,
2. High vividness and high enduring involvement | Twitter and clothing, 3. High vividness and low
enduring involvement | Twitter and food supplements, 4. Low vividness and high enduring involvement |
Facebook and electronics, 5. Low vividness and high enduring involvement | Facebook and clothing,
6. Low vividness and low enduring involvement | Facebook and food supplements, 7. Low vividness and
high enduring involvement | YouTube and electronics, 8. Low vividness and high enduring involvement |
YouTube and clothing, 9. Low vividness and low enduring involvement | YouTube and food supplements;
Table AI. a
Means and standard deviations come from nine ordinal categories presented for Income, fifteen ordinal
Description of the categories presented for Education, and a nine-point Likert scale for familiarity with retailer brand, all data
sample sets and source code used in the statistical analyses are available upon request