Revisiting the consumer brand engagement concept

Marketing researchers and practitioners almost unanimously agree that consumer engagement has major economic and social benefits. Many published works have attempted to conceptualize, develop, and validate measures of consumer engagement. One seminal study (Hollebeek, Glynn, & Brodie, 2014) developed a scale for consumer brand engagement (CBE) within the context of social media and has since become one of the most cited and employed measures of engagement. The purpose of the current study is to reinvestigate the validity of the CBE scale. We integrate views from marketing research and practice to introduce a new conceptualization of engagement. Examining the CBE scale through the lens of our new conceptualization, we find that, although reliable and valid as an instrument, it does not truly capture the engagement concept. Finally, we introduce and validate a new instrument that more comprehensively captures the engagement concept.