Understanding “Baby Boomers” and “Millennials” motivations to interact with brands on Social Media

• Autor(a) principal: Oliveira, Rute Sofia Matos de
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/21865
• topic: Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Economia e Gestão

The emergence and importance of social media and, in particular, social networking sites (SNS), has made it possible for an accessible integration between consumers and brands, by providing unlimited reasons for users to express, share and create content. The aim of this dissertation is to explore what motivates consumers to interact with brands on social media and to understand the relevance of those variables in explaining consumers’ loyalty toward a brand. Members of two distinct generations were studied and compared: Millennials and Baby Boomers. A scale suggested by Enginkaya and Yilmaz (2014) is analysed and comprise five different motivations: Brand Affiliation, Opportunity Seeking, Conversation, Entertainment and Investigation. Concerning brand loyalty, the scale used is proposed by Jacoby and Chestnut (1978). In terms of methodology, the study is exploratory and quantitative. An online, structured and self-administered questionnaire was performed to collect data, resulting in 324 valid responses. The main findings suggest that for Millennials, Brand Affiliation, Opportunity Seeking and Entertainment are the main motivations that drives these consumers to interact with brands. On the other hand, Conversation and Investigation are the principal motivations when concerning Baby Boomers. Additionally, it was concluded that the older generational cohort is more brand loyal when compared to its younger counterpart, where Entertainment, Opportunity Seeking and Brand Affiliation are the motivations that influence their loyalty. Concerning Millennials, Brand Affiliation is the only motivation that influences this behaviour. Lastly, theoretical and managerial contributions are discussed, where some implications for further research are therefore identified.