Brand Love in the Scroll Economy: Emotional Dimensions of Online Consumer–Brand Engagement

Abstract

Social media marketing has emerged as the most popular and highly effective marketing communication strategy for brands worldwide. Engagement and Reach are the new go-to solutions for start-ups and established brands. The study tactically analyses how social media engagement nurtures consumers’ love for brands and how much of a role brand love plays in the consumer-brand social media relationship. The study employs a close-ended, undisguised and structured questionnaire to collect data from a sample of 810 young individuals in Delhi NCR. Data analysis was performed using IBM SPSS Statistics 25 version, which used Spearman’s correlation coefficient statistic. Findings indicate that active participation behaviours such as brand content creation have strong ties with emotional brand attachment, suggesting deeper affective involvement. The study offers a nuanced understanding of the importance of emotional brands in social media spaces and contributes a multi-theoretical perspective of brand love, self-determination, social cognitive and social exchange theory. Brands using these insights to seek and nurture loyalty and advocacy within digital ecosystems could inform emotionally calibrated engagement strategies.