Abstract

This paper attempt to summarise the antecedents of both online engagement and sustainability behaviour, in order to
conjecture whether sustainability related messages have the capability to engage people with the brand. Though sustainability is a pressing concern in most of the cases, but value for sustainability does not interpret into the adaptation of sustainability in terms of managerial agenda, which predominantly focus on profitability (Caprar and Neville 2012). As companies should give consumers more opportunity and materials to communicate, which will
encourage them to involve in more interactive practices with each other and foster consumer brand engagement
(Schau et al, 2009). Sustainability marketing practice can be the answer to the challenge of providing material and opportunity for the customer to engage in social media. In this systematic literature review, Newcastle Library Website has been used to search for articles through Business Source Complete (EBSCO host). Only peer reviewed, English
articles from 4*, 4, and 3 ranked journals have been used. The keywords that have used in the search are -
Online brand engagement, Customer engagement, Consumer engagement, Virtual community engagement, Social media engagement, Sustainability, Corporate responsibility, Antecedent, and Motivation. Articles published after 2005 and 1998 have taken into consideration for engagement and sustainability related behaviour respectively. The search was restricted in this manner because, as per Brodie et al. (2011) ‘Customer engagement’ has been introduced to marketing and service literature only around 2006 ; and McDonagh, and Prothero (2014) have focused on articles regarding sustainability marketing since 1998. after reviewing the abstract, only 15 articles were taken into account.
From engagement perspective in broad term , themes like - identity expression, self-enhancement, normative pressure, persuasion of knowledge etc. have emerged, along with involvement, entertainment and economic benefit (Lowe and Johsan, 2017 ; Brodie at al., 2013; Raïes et al 2015; de Valck et al., 2009; Scheinbaum, 2016; So et al. 2014; van
Eijk and Steen 2014; Vivek et al. 2012; Yen et al., 2011 ; Marbach et al., 2016;).Cova and Pace (2006) has advocated to have marketing strategies that will enable the participants of the brand community to interact and encounter with each other, since their sense of empowerment comes from self-exhibition. Additionally, consumer brand engagement positively affect consumer self-brand connection (Hollebeek et al 2014). Social media can be the platform creating, sharing and negotiating of values and experience of the people with the same interest. This also implies that satisfaction/dissatisfaction of the customers has a global reach, which demand more brand transparency of brand ac
tivities (Habibi el al 2014). Through company’s image, reputation, mission, social initiatives, operating principles, they can elicit meaningful social identities to consumers. These consumers tend to be loyal and act as an advocate who promotes the company and the product by themselves. (Bhattacharya and Sen 2005). Identification have been described as an antecedent of consumer engagement (Algesheimer et al 2005); more specifically, the need for
identity expression act as a motivator to engage in a communication about the positive or negative experience with a product (Blazevic et al 2013). When the organisation can hold a prestigious identification, consumers seek to satisfy their self enhancement need by identifying themselves with the organisation (Ashforth and Mael 1989). Self enhancement represent the maintenance and affirmation of positive self-views, in order to have greater self-worth (Bhattacharya and Sen 2005). Point to be noted, self enhancement has been identified as a motivational factor that
may influence virtual community engagement (Dholakia et al 2004). The normative pressure of a brand community has the ability to significantly change a person’s behaviour in terms initiation and ongoing interaction (Algesheimer
et al 2005). People even partake in viral marketing because of normative pressure and status consideration (Blazevic et
al 2013). The need for social approval or self-image management often lead customers to present themselves with a specific brand or product by different means like, using a particular product or sharing photos in social media (Blazevic et al 2013). On the other hand from sustainability perspective, normative pressure, identification, self enhancement, information of the company etc, have emerged as antecedents (Phipps and Brace-Govan, 2011;Sotorrı ́o,and Sa ́nchez,
2008;Huang and Rust, 2011; Tanner and Kast, 2003;Brough et al., 2016). Fair-trade consumption, which addressed social justice and equity issues, has been linked with the way people think about the extent of their responsibility, the meaning of fair trade and people’s self-image of being an ethical consumer/citizen. Fascinatingly, these factors differs in
terms of different cultures, in other words, society (Varul, 2009). It has been proved that the need to conform the norms and values as well as the pressure from the society contribute to the adaptation of the sustainability (Caprar and Neville 2012). In order to preserve the self-image, consumers may become more environmentally responsible (Kilbourne and Pickett 2008). Involvement motive has been proved to be a main reason for the consumers to engage in
social media activity and sustainable behaviour (Minton et al 2012). Cause-related marketing and corporate philanthropy have the capability to build customer identification with the organization and thus enhance the sense of belongingness. Consumers tend to affiliate with the organisations with worthy cause or those which have undertaken
radically different policies from industry practices (Bhattacharya et al, 1995). Higher corporate social responsivity rating has been proved to have a greater possibility of having high number of online followers, which may lead to higher response rate from the users of social media (Lee et al 2013).
Consumers have displayed positive favour to companies with environmental and social commitment and vice versa (Choi and Ng 2011). Interestingly, consumers tend not to react positively to low price if the firm is having poor commitment to the environmental sustainability (Choi and Ng 2011; Davari and Strutton, 2014). People may acquire the goals of enhanced self-image, conformity of social norms and involvement with the society though sustainability. On the other hand, these are also the antecedents of online engagement. So it is proposed that the sustainability
related communication may motivate people in online engagement. Trust on virtual community, which arises from the previous communication, motivates the members to participate and communicate in virtual brand community (Casalo ́ et al 2008). But, unlike internet based social community, brand communities mediate the contents, information
and communication among the members of the community (Andersen 2005). This aligns with the fact that, user of social media trust people they are connected with, especially in social community (Kotler et al 2017). Calder et al (2009) have advocated for the use of social media to have greater advertisement effectiveness, because engagement, especially social interactive engagement, has a positive relationship with advertisement effectiveness. It has been proved that people’s consumption choice is shaped by contexts like society, education awareness etc. So sustainability
is a choice of public rather than individuals’, which can be attained through civic engagement or collective action (Banbury et al 2012).
Researches on social media show that, the contents of social media as well as the word of mouth in social media, have a dire effect on brands, consumers’ attitude towards brands and eventually purchase intension (Rosario et al,2016, Folse et al 2016). Sustainability marketing has the capability to evoke favourable consumer attitude toward the company (Caprar and Neville 2012); in other words cause-related marketing (CRM) message (Nan and Heo 2007). Evidence shows that environmental groups were successful in educating social media users about climate change
and other environmental issues (Fernando et al 2014). So this paper intends to find out whether sustainability marketing can be a motivational factor to engage consumer in social media.