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Toward a theory of customer engagement marketing

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Abstract

Customer engagement marketing—defined as a firm’s deliberate effort to motivate, empower, and measure customer contributions to marketing functions—marks a shift in marketing research and business practice. After defining and differentiating engagement marketing, the authors present a typology of its two primary forms and offer tenets that link specific strategic elements to customer outcomes and thereby firm performance, theorizing that the effectiveness of engagement marketing arises from the establishment of psychological ownership and self-transformation. The authors provide evidence in support of the derived tenets through case illustrations, as well as a quasi-experimental field test of the central tenet of engagement marketing.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Florida State University, 821 Academic Way, Tallahassee, FL, 32306-0111, USA

    Colleen M. Harmeling

  2. Louisiana State University, 2114D Business Education Complex, Baton Rouge, LA, 70803, USA

    Jordan W. Moffett

  3. Saint Louis University, 3674 Lindell Blvd, Saint Louis, MO, 63108, USA

    Mark J. Arnold & Brad D. Carlson

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  1. Colleen M. Harmeling
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  2. Jordan W. Moffett
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  3. Mark J. Arnold
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Correspondence to Colleen M. Harmeling.

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Anne Roggeveen served as Area Editor for this article.

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Harmeling, C.M., Moffett, J.W., Arnold, M.J. et al. Toward a theory of customer engagement marketing. J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. 45, 312–335 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-016-0509-2

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