Effect of Brand Loyalty States on Psychological Customer Engagement in Virtual Brand Communities – By the Case of Smartphone Brands

Brand loyalty is a positive feeling towards a brand in which consumers commit themselves to a specific brand and make repeated purchases over time. Brand Loyalty can be viewed as a sequential process comprised of 4 different states namely cognitive, affective, conative and behavioral loyalty. Customer engagement is a new phenomenon and multidimensional view defines it as psychological states comprised of cognitive, emotional, physical and behavioral factors. This study explores the effect of brand loyalty states on psychological customer engagement states in the context of virtual brand communities for smartphones. A study was conducted on a sample of 260 members in branded communities. Results showed that Cognitive Loyalty has a positive effect on cognitive engagement, Affective and conative engagement has an effect on emotional engagement and behavioral loyalty has an effect on physical engagement.