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Faculty of Economy and Business

Msc. in Business Administration

Track Digital Business

Customer brand engagement on

A conceptual model and empirical analysis

Master Thesis

Author: Pien Uittenbogaard

11152435

Supervisor: Nick van der Meulen

June 22th, 2017

Final version

University of Amsterdam

Academic year 2016-2017

Statement of originality

This document is written by Pien Uittenbogaard who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.

I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it.

The faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of the completion of the work, not for the contents.

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Abstract This research has the purpose to shed more light onto the field of customer engagement through social media platform Snapchat. It focuses on exploring the relationship between customer engagement and different types of content, on Snapchat. The research question states: “What is the effect of different brand related content types on customer engagement for beauty brands on Snapchat?”

A survey with an experimental design was conducted for three conditions, representing three different types of digital marketing content. Snapchat stories were shown to the participants were after their customer engagement level was measured.

The results show that digital marketing content including remuneration on Snapchat scored the highest on two of three customer engagement dimensions, namely on cognitive processing and intention to buy. This insight is not supported by existing academic literature which states that entertainment and information based content should yield higher customer engagement. Content including entertainment scored the highest on affection, while content including information scored the lowest on all three customer engagement measurements.

This study contributes to current literature on digital marketing content and customer engagement because there has been done little research on the effect of digital marketing content in relation to customer engagement on social media platform Snapchat. This research presents additional insights to the existing literature, providing understanding of how different content types effect customer engagement on Snapchat. It sheds light on the need for expansion of theories focused on the topic of digital marketing content on new, rising social media platforms in relation to customer engagement.

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Table of content

Abstract ...... 3 Acknowledgements ...... 7 Chapter 1- Introduction ...... 8 Chapter 2- Literature review ...... 11 2.1 Digital content marketing ...... 11 2.2 Social Media and customer engagement ...... 12 2.3 Shifting perspective from sales to engagement ...... 13 2.4 Customer brand engagement ...... 16 2.4.1 Definitions of customer engagement ...... 18 2.4.2 The ‘Uses and Gratifications Theory’ ...... 20 2.5 Snapchat ...... 21 2.5.1 The seven functional building blocks to unpack Snapchat ...... 22 2.6 Research on Snapchat ...... 23 2.7 Problem statement ...... 26 2.8 Conceptual model ...... 27 Chapter 3- Methodology ...... 28 3.1 Research design and strategy ...... 28 3.2 Participants ...... 29 3.3 Manipulated content ...... 30 3.4 The brand related content ...... 32 3.5 Measurements ...... 33 3.6 The tools applied ...... 34 Chapter 4 Results...... 36 4.1 Sample characteristics and Between Group Homogeneity Analysis ...... 36 4.2 Reliability analysis ...... 37 4.3 Normality test ...... 38 4.4 Descriptive statistics and correlation matrix ...... 40 4.6 Hypothesis testing ...... 42 4.6.1 Cognitive processing ...... 43 4.6.2 Affection ...... 44 4.6.3 Intention to buy ...... 45 4.6.4 Conclusion of hypotheses test results ...... 46 Chapter 5 Discussion ...... 48 5.1 Findings ...... 48

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5.2 Contributions to theory ...... 51 5.3 Practical implications ...... 52 5.4 Limitations...... 53 5.5 Recommendations for further research ...... 54 Chapter 6 Conclusion ...... 55 Chapter 7 References ...... 57 Appendices ...... 64 Appendix A: The seven building blocks of Snapchat ...... 64 Appendix B: Examples of Snapchat stories created ...... 69 Appendix C: Experimental survey ...... 71 Appendix D: Snapchat stories Jolie Paris ...... 76 Appendix E: SPSS Data Output ...... 78

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List of Figures and Tables

Figure 1.The functionalities of different social media platforms ...... 23 Figure 2. Conceptual model for customer engagement on Snapchat content types ...... 27 Figure 3. Example of content edited from original Snapchat content of Essence Cosmetics ...... 31

Table 1. Overview of link between beauty brands Snapchat activities and digital marketing content conditions ...... 32 Table 2. Construct customer engagement measurement items, sources and scale reliabilities ...... 34 Table 3. Sample characteristics ...... 37 Table 4. Normality test for customer engagement ...... 39 Table 5. Normality test for measurements of customer engagement ...... 40 Table 6. Correlation matrix ...... 42 Table 7. Kruskall-Wallis test cognitive processing ...... 44 Table 8. Kruskall-Wallis test affection ...... 45 Table 9. Kruskall-Wallis test intention to buy ...... 46 Table 10. Results matrix ...... 47

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Acknowledgements I want to give my gratitude to those who have enabled me and helped me to carry out this research. Firstly, I would like to thank my supervisor Nick van der Meulen for his guidance throughout the writing process of this thesis. I want to thank him for his patience, understanding and the way he helped me through the most challenging moments of my research. Without the help and guidance of my supervisor I would not have been able to write this research as I did.

Furthermore, I want to thank my father for his support and advice on my thesis. He has always encouraged me to be confident in my actions and to believe in myself.

Finally, I want to thank all the participants who completed my survey. Without their participation this research would not have been achievable.

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Chapter 1- Introduction Snapchat started in 2011 in a world where and Twitter were the kings of social media. A lot of new applications arise and fight to win users. Unfortunately, a lot of application don’t succeed and need to be shut down (Sashittal, DeMar, & Jassawalla, 2016). This is not the case for Snapchat; Snapchat began the year 2016 with 100 million daily active users and ended the year with 50 million extra daily active users, and the majority of the users are millennials. Furthermore, Snapchat even passed Twitter to become the third most popular social media platform among 18- to 34-year-olds (Tornoe, 2015).

The kings and queens of social media land feel threatened by the increasing popularity of Snapchat; Facebook did a three billion dollar offer to buy Snapchat, which Snapchat refused (Bercovici, 2013). And in November 2016 introduced a new feature called Instastories, thanking Snapchat for the idea (Constine, 2016). These two facts show that Snapchat earns a crown as well. Nevertheless, there is no to little academic research on Snapchat for marketing purposes in the existing literature (Bayer, Ellison, Schoenebeck, & Falk, 2016).

Snapchat is an communication application whereby friends can share pictures and for as long as 10 seconds before it will be deleted. Data from ComScore shows that 70% of young adults in the VS have Snapchat on their phone and Snapchat has 235 million daily active users. In the beginning of February 2017 Snapchat was headlines in the newspapers due to the fact it’s going public on the stock market and Snapchat is estimated being worth approximately 25 billion dollar (Volkskrant, 2017).

Companies these days cannot just sell a product anymore, they have to build a personal relationship with the customer, feel connected with them, listen to what the customers have to say and the company needs to show the added value of the brand (Woodstock, Green, & Starkey, 2011). Snapchat can offer this real-time, personal relationship companies need and no other social media platform can offer. One of the few studies that focused on the social media platform found out that Snapchat users share content only with close ties and the content is personal and intimate (Sashittal et al., 2016).

“There is a massive opportunity for marketers to reach college students through the app. Nearly 7 out of 10 college social networkers in the US said they would add a brand on Snapchat simply because they follow it on another social network” (eMarketer, 2017).

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Companies are using social media to connect on a more personal level with their customers. One of many reasons for the use of social media of companies is to increase customer engagement. “Social media activities for a brand can foster the consumer base of the brand” (Xie & Lee, 2015, p. 204). Many studies have researched the topic of customer engagement in the social media environment (Hollebeek, Glynn, & Brodie, 2014; Sashi, 2012; Baird & Parasnis, 2011). However, Snapchat is still verily new and therefore has not been given a lot of attention on the relation between the social media platform and customer engagement.

Pulizzi (2012) explains that content marketing has the opportunity to deliver the right content to fulfil the needs of the target audience by creating relevant content that engages customers and increases brand loyalty. A focus on the beauty branch was made because beauty brands are currently active on Snapchat, sharing different types of content but no research has been done on the effect of these activities (Shen & Bissell, 2013). Additionally, the Digital IQ Index stated in their yearly report of 2015 that Snapchat is a rising social media platform for the beauty industry (Digital IQ index, 2015). Therefore the following research question will be answered: “What is the effect of different brand related content types on customer engagement for beauty brands on Snapchat?”

The scope of this study consists of millennials, the biggest user group on Snapchat according to Sashittal et al., (2016), who are interested in beauty and that are located in the Netherlands. By conducting a survey on the university campus of Amsterdam the right audience will be reached. Examining the reaction of millennials on different types of content and measuring the level of customer engagement will provide the proper insights for this study.

First will be elaborated on existing literature on the topics digital brand related content and customer engagement. After which, more in depth into the Snapchat application will be provided to get a broader understanding of the platform, the features and the strengths and weaknesses that need to be considered. Next, the type of research methodology used for this study will be explained and the most important results will be presented. Further, the author will provide a discussion and limitation part and the study ends with a conclusion and suggestions for further research.

This study contributes to existing literature first of all due to the fact that there is little to no academic research on the use of Snapchat for marketing purposes. This study will extent the existing literature with a framework that can be used to study the effects of different content types on customer engagement through the use of social media platforms.

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It will provide understanding of the relation between different brand related content types and customer engagement dimensions.

In this study the focus will be made on content for beauty brands, nevertheless this study is expected to provide insights for brands in other industries who are interested in Snapchat as well. The results of this study will help companies better understand what kind of content generates different dimensions of customer engagement through the use of Snapchat.

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Chapter 2- Literature review This chapter provides an overview of different important academic literature on digital marketing content and customer engagement to understand the research gap, resulting in a conceptual framework. Firstly, digital content marketing will be discussed followed by the connection between social media and customer engagement. The shift from sales to engagement will be explained to further go in to depth on the subject of customer brand engagement and the variety of definitions given to the term in the academic literature. The ‘Uses and Gratification Theory’ will end the literature review on customer engagement. After looking into the literature of digital content and customer engagement, a focus on Snapchat will be provided through the use of seven building blocks explaining the social media platform and the existing research on the subject is discussed. Eventually the problem statement, the hypotheses and the conceptual model are formulated.

2.1 Digital content marketing “Digital content marketing is the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating, and satisfying customer requirements profitably in the context of digital content, or bit-based objects distributed through electronic channels” (Rowley, 2008, p. 522).

Pulizzi (2012) defines content marketing as “creation of valuable, relevant and compelling content by the brand itself on a consistent basis, used to generate a positive behavior from a customer or prospect of the brand” (Pulizzi, 2012, p. 116). Furthermore, Pulizzi (2012) explains that content marketing has the opportunity to deliver the right content to fulfil the needs of the target audience by creating relevant content that engages customers and increases brand loyalty.

The results of Erdogmus & Muset Cicek (2012) study shows that , funny contents, instructional videos and technological contents were the most popular by users on social media. Followed by product reviews, sports, extraordinary content and movies. However, advertisements and self-content material, gaming and horror are not favourable with social media users. The authors encourage companies who want to use social media in an effective way to firstly consider the benefits, values and advantages their target group want, resulting in being loyal to the brand.

The ‘Uses and Gratifications Theory’ (UGT) by Katz (1959) is generally used in the academic literature to understand the motivations of individuals to engage with different types of content.

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Previous studies incorporating the UGT for brand communities and social media have shown that entertaining and informative content are the most important factors for customers to engage with brand related content. (Dholakia, Bagozzi, & Klein Pearo, 2004; Raacke & Bonds-Raacke, 2008; Muntinga, Moorman, & Smit, 2011). A more in depth focus on this theory is provided further in the literature review.

2.2 Social Media and customer engagement “Social media can be defined as “a group of -based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content” (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010, p. 61).

The Global Web Index reported in January 2016 that there are 3.419 billion internet users worldwide and 2.307 billion active social media users. In January 2009 Facebook measured 175 million active users and by 2016 this was increased to 1.590 million active users (Chaffey, 2016). New social media platforms and applications arise every day and social media evolved enormously related to a few years back. Traditionally, internet was used mainly for buying products and services, however, today consumers are utilizing platforms to create content, communicate, share their opinions and experiences on the web. To this day, companies are still not overly confident in how they should use social media for their business. They see the potential of social media in interacting and connecting with customers but they don’t fully understand the opportunities and are hesitant to learn and become active on social media. (Kietzmann, Hermkens, McCarthy, & Silvestre, 2011; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). However, the 2015 industry report by Social Media Examiner found that over 96% of businesses use social network sites to market their brands and products, attempting to increase brand exposure, attracting website traffic, developing loyal fans, and gaining marketplace intelligence (Stelzner, 2015).

Social media puts pressure on organisations to engage with their customers when and where the customer wants to do so. Customers can engage at whatever level is suited to them; on a more loose level or a level with more interaction with the brand. Companies can personalize content, design it to either inform, educate or entertain in a way that fits their brand image and the way the brand wants customers to think about them. Through social media brands can connect with customers and communicate with those that are interested with the goal of increasing conversion and advocacy.

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“Marketers are working in challenging times. Never before have we been able to get so close to our customers and engage with them in such a timely and relevant manner” (Woodstock et al., 2011, p. 50).

Kaplan & Haenlein (2010) present tips on how to use social media and they advise companies to make content that really interests the target audience. “If you would like your customers to engage with you, you need to give them a reason for doing so- one which extends beyond saying you are the best airline in town, or manufacture the most robust kitchen blender” (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010, p. 66). The first step is listening to your customers, what they would like to talk about; what they might find interesting, enjoyable, and valuable. Then, you have to develop and post content that fits those expectations.

These days there is a wide variety of social media platforms with different scopes and functionalities. Many articles provide different standards to classify social media platforms. Regardless of these frameworks, each form of social media is equipped with certain strengths and functions. Facebook is used for the big, important events people want to share with their friends and can be used to express creativity or it can be useful for education. For businesses it remains unclear what opportunities Snapchat can provide, that other social media platforms are lacking.

Many studies have shown the power of social media for companies; “The social media domain presents businesses with new opportunities of improving their competitive position and creating new forms of customer value that will attract new customers and help building strong relationships with them” (Constantinides, 2014, p. 41). However, marketers are hesitant or unable to develop the right strategies and allocate the needed resources to employ social media as effective as they could. Consequently, firms regularly ignore or mismanage the opportunities and threats presented by creative consumers (Berthon, Pitt, McCarthy, & Kates, 2007; Kietzmann et al., 2011). One obvious reason for this inability is that the brand doesn’t have the right understanding what kind of social media are out there and how to use them.

2.3 Shifting perspective from sales to engagement “Brand marketing is becoming less about pushing messages out to consumers within a static relationship, and more about the brand being part of the dynamic conversation, listening, serving relevant content /experiences to earn the trust of consumers” (Woodstock et al., 2011, p. 51).

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A growing number of companies is realizing that social media gives them the opportunity to easily engage and interact with their consumers. “Social networking sites play an important role in building strong brands. 93% of business use social networking for marketing and branding” (Shen & Bissell, 2013, p. 632).

A study conducted by Shen & Bissel (2013) initiating a content analysis of beauty companies use of Facebook in marketing and branding found that despite the fact that the beauty industry has a long history in online commerce, the emphasis of beauty brands such as Clinique on their Facebook websites was not about promotions or sales as in traditional media but focused more on engagement and community. The attention and expectations of customers has been shifted from rationalizing product attributes and service qualities to emotional engagement.

The results of a study focusing on the impact of social media marketing on brand loyalty shows that brand loyalty of customers increases when the brand makes advantageous campaigns, relevant and popular content and is active on multiple social media platforms (Erdogmus & Muset Cicek, 2012). They state that brand loyalty can be seen as the final level of the ultimate relationship between the customer and the brand. Brands nowadays want to shift from selling to customers to connecting with consumers. Erdogmus & Muset Cicek (2012) advice companies to invest in smaller campaigns that can reach a lot of people without a huge amount of effort.

Baird & Parasnis (2011) from IBM Global Services claim that most customers don’t want to engage with companies through social media to feel more connected. Companies need to offer experiences that add significant value for the customer to connect effectively. The authors call it social customer relationship management (Social CRM); the role of businesses is to facilitate collaborative experiences and dialogues that customers value. It’s important for a company to have a clear view on what customers value, why they would connect with a brand on social media and what would trigger the customer to interact? To answer these questions Baird & Parasnis (2011) surveyed more than 1.000 customers worldwide and 350 executives. They found that customers believe that brand loyalty is a prerequisite for social media engagement and companies need to find creative ways to use the power of a trusted social media community.

Erdogmus & Muset Cicek (2012) state that the topic of brand loyalty has been one of the central themes of research for marketers for a long time.

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“Brand loyalty can be conceptualized as the final dimension of consumer brand resonance symbolizing the customer’s ultimate relationship and level of identification with a brand. As brands gain exclusive, positive, and prominent meaning in the minds of consumers, they become irresistible and irreplaceable, and win the loyalty of the consumers” (Erdogmus & Muset Cicek, 2012, p. 1354).

Brand loyalty, in return, brings sales revenues, market share, profitability to the firms, and help them grow or at least maintain themselves in the marketplace (Erdogmus & Muset Cicek, 2012).

Woodstock et al. (2011) state that the benefits of social media as a tool for a brand to interact with their customers are centred around customer engagement and insights. They identify social media content as informational, entertainment or educational which can build the customer relationship with the brand as a result.

Research has been done on this topic but the research of Dessart, Cleapatra, & Morgan- Thomas (2015) explicitly looks into customer engagement in the context of an online brand community. They provide three main aspects of customer engagement: affective, cognitive and behavioural engagement. They state that customers that participate in brand communities not only get engaged with the brand but also with the individuals in the brand community.

A lot of the academic literature on customer engagement focus on brand communities and what kind of customer engagement different types of brand communities can have. “Brand community is a specialized, non-geographically bound community, based on a structured set of social relations among admirers of a brand” (Muniz & O’Guinn, 2001, p. 412).

Phua, Jin, & Kim (2016) give attention to brand communities for social media platforms as well. They state that customers join brand communities to fulfil their social and identification needs. An online brand community includes groups that are centred around a specific brand or product which allow the people in the community to interact with each other, comment and share content.

Although this study also takes Snapchat into account, their descriptions on brand community does not match with Snapchat. On Snapchat you can’t like, comment or share content of other people or brands. You can “friend” people and then you can see their content.

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The article thus state that even communities where there is a lack of social interaction among members, members establish shared connections and a collective identity through their common interest in particular brands. However, this actually depends on how the company or customers define a community. On Snapchat brands and users can interact with each other through a direct snap, snap story or the chat function but people that are friends with the brand on Snapchat can not interact with each other through the main friendship with a brand. Are people that are interested in the same brand automatically part of a community, also when maybe they are not active on any type of platform or part of an official brand community? We don’t know.

The results of Phua et al. (2016) show that on all four brand community outcomes, namely; brand community identification, engagement, commitment and membership intention, Snapchat gets the lowest points. Because a brand community is described as a tool to develop and maintain a good relationship with the customers, the results show that trying to create a brand community on Snapchat to increase customer engagement might not be as effective as desired.

Laroche, Habibi, Richard, & Sankaranarayanan (2012) state that brand communities operating on social media can enhance brand trust and loyalty by improving customer relationship with the brand, other consumers, the company and the products. Other studies also show that participating in social media based brand communities positively influence brand loyalty. Furthermore, loyalty and trust increase when customers interact with each other.

2.4 Customer brand engagement The term engagement has been used in the academic literature in various fields, including sociology, organizational behaviour, political science and psychology. This have led to a variety of different conceptual frameworks and definitions that explain the term (Hollebeek, 2011a; Brodie, Hollebeek, Juric, & Ilic, 2011). Furthermore, engagement has been studied through different forms of the concept, namely student engagement, employee engagement, stakeholder engagement and customer engagement, which puts engagement in different perspectives to the concept (Brodie et al., 2011; Hollebeek, 2011b).

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The different overviews of engagement conceptualization across the various fields show that there is a favourable expression towards dividing engagement in dimensions. “The most comprehensive definitions acknowledge the existence of cognitive, emotional, and behavioural dimensions comprising the customer engagement concept (Brodie et al., 2011, p. 255).

Although engagement has been popular amongst different academic disciplines for research, customer engagement in the marketing literature as only recently been given attention (Hollebeek et al., 2014; Leeflang, 2011). The conceptual foundations for customer engagement in the marketing field come from the relationship marketing domain (Brodie et al., 2011; Hollebeek, 2011b). Relationship marketing can be explained as all the marketing activities with the purpose of developing and maintaining a good, sustainable relationship with the brands customers (Morgan & Hunt, 1994). Brodie et al. (2011) point out that these activities are necessary for a brand to actually build and maintain that long-term relationship consisting of powerful values for both parties through interactive activities.

Bowden (2009) defines the concept of engagement from a marketing perspective as “an psychological process that models the underlying mechanisms by which customer loyalty forms for new customers of a service brand, as well as the mechanisms by which loyalty may be maintained for repeat purchase customers of a service brand” (Bowden, 2009, p. 65). Bowden (2009) also points out the difference between customer engagement and the common, traditional marketing forms such as commitment, loyalty and involvement. He states that the process of customer engagement helps explain the relationships between these traditional marketing forms and how they drive customer loyalty.

Building on Bowden (2009), different researches show a connection of customer engagement with marketing constructs such as loyalty, brand community, commitment, satisfaction and so on (Brodie et al., 2011). These constructs have different effects on customer engagement but can also lead to customer engagement, for example brand community can be used as a tool for improving customer engagement. Even more, Mollen & Wilson (2010) state that involvement is an important aspect of engagement. Involvement includes the behaviour of the customer in the purchase process of a brands product. Mollen & Wilson (2010) determine three differences between engagement and involvement; involvement includes a consumption, it doesn’t involve an active relationship with the product and involvement is based on relevance and utility, although engagement has some degree of emotional bonding and connection which can created trough satisfying and engaging experiences.

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2.4.1 Definitions of customer engagement Most authors base their definition on the three most commonly used dimensions of engagement, namely behavioural, cognitive and emotional engagement (Brodie et al., 2011; Hollebeek, 2011b).

Van Doorn et al., (2010) state that the behaviour of customer engagement goes beyond purchase and should be defined as “a customer’s behavioural manifestations that has a brand or firm focus, beyond purchase, resulting from motivational drivers” (Van Doorn et al., 2010, p. 254).

Sheehan & Morrison (2009) describe consumer engagement as a relationship whereby people are social and not only want to create relationships with other people but also with brands. Ashley & Tuten (2014) state that marketers that want to increase customer engagement should focus more on creating strategies in an innovative way to improve the relationship between the brand and the consumers. In the social world of today the communication and relationship brands have with their consumers have shifted from a transaction perspective to an interactive perspective. Brands have become part of the day to day life of their customers, who identify themselves with the brands they are using. Likewise, Muntinga et al. (2011) state that consumers that have an interactive relationship with the brand has more impact on the behaviour of the consumer than the traditional forms of marketing.

Brodie et al. (2011) have studied different literature on the concept of customer engagement and developed a definition which provides a framework for the concept, based on the existing literature. “Customer engagement (CE) is a psychological state that occurs by virtue of interactive, co-creative customer experiences with a focal agent/object (e.g., a brand) in focal service relationships. It occurs under a specific set of context-dependent conditions generating differing CE levels; and exists as a dynamic, iterative process within service relationships that co-create value. CE plays a central role in a nomological network governing service relationships in which other relational concepts (e.g., involvement, loyalty) are antecedents and/or consequences in iterative CE processes. It is a multidimensional concept subject to a context- and/or stakeholder-specific expression of relevant cognitive, emotional and/or behavioural dimensions” (Brodie et al., 2011, p. 260). This is the definition that is used to define customer engagement in this study because of its ability to encompass a variety of contexts where customer engagement is expressed. It gives a clear understanding of all the different aspects of customer engagement without going too specific neither too vague.

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The role of different social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter in the day to day life of customers has resulted in unlimited opportunities for the internet users to interact, share, and create content about anything, anywhere, including their opinion and experiences with brands. Muntinga et al. (2011) label these activities “consumer online brand-related activities” (COBRAs). They state that these COBRAs have significant effect on brands and products, in the form of sales, efficient profitability, enhanced creative experiences and cost reduction. “To effectively anticipate and direct these consequences, understanding people’s motivations to engage in brand-related social media use is imperative” (Muntinga et al., 2011, p. 13).

Branded social media enables brands to have touch-points of interaction with the consumer throughout the day, which improves and deepens the brand-consumer relationship. Furthermore, it provides marketers easier access to consumer feedback and the ability to reach out to the consumers through social media to engage with the online content. Branded social media can increase brand awareness, brand liking and loyalty, inspire the consumer to share content about the brand online and potentially drive traffic to the brand online and offline (Murdough, 2009; Ashley & Tuten, 2014).

Research show that when a customer engages with a brand online, the customer’s brand knowledge increases and with that also the emotional connection with the brand (Ashley & Tuten, 2014). Keller (2009) states that customers are defining the rules of brand engagement and decide how and when they want to engage. Understanding the factors that influence the level of customer engagement on social media will guide brands to the most effective strategies for increasing the attitude of customers towards the brand. It is critical to examine the COBRAs factors to be able to understand the motivation of customers to connect with online brand related activities, what drives the online behaviour of the customer (Muntinga et al., 2011).

The article of Hollebeek et al. (2014) measures customer brands engagement specifically in the social media environment through three different scales; cognitive processing, affection and activation. They state that consumer brand engagement is a cognitive, emotional and behavioural activity of the consumer in interaction with the brand.

The existing literature on engagement and especially customer engagement shows how important the relationship between a brand and their customers can be and how many opportunities are available and beneficial for the brand.

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Through the use of social media it has become easier for companies to deepen the relationship with their customers and what kind of power such a relationship can have.

2.4.2 The ‘Uses and Gratifications Theory’ The ‘uses and gratifications theory’ (UGT) is a theoretical framework that explains the reasons why and how people are actively seeking out different (social) media to fulfil their specific needs. UGT states that the gratification people receive from various media satisfy informational, social, and leisure needs. (Katz, Blumler, & Gurevitch, 1974). This framework is frequently used in the academic literature for gaining understanding of what the motivations of consumers are for willing to engage with different types of brand content. Previous studies using the UGT show that the most important motivators for reaching out to brand related content are entertainment and information content (Raacke & Bonds- Raacke, 2008).

Muntinga et al. (2011) also use the UGT as foundation for their research on motivations for consumers to connect with brand related content. They specifically research the motivations for consuming brand-related content and they state that it is driven by three motivations- information, entertainment and remuneration.

Entertainment includes the enjoyment, relaxation and pastime that people are looking for when going online, also when looking at brand related content. Information is described as an important motivation for people who want to learn more about a brand or product and to stay up to date to their social environment. Going online and reading other people’s opinion, getting inspired and finding the right information before purchasing a product. Remuneration includes brand-related content that is, partly, driven by rewards of any kinds. It means that the content asks the customers to do something in return to earn a discount or a free sample. For example in the Snapchat context: screenshot this story and show it at the Maybelline counter for 50% off on your mascara.

According to different studies entertainment content has a positive affect towards the brand and it motivates the consumers to engage with the content and the brand (Vries, Gensler, & Leeflang, 2012). Muntinga et al. (2011) state that entertainment brand related content is among the most important motivations for consumers to engage online. And Park et al. (2009) also found that entertainment content has the strongest effect on consumers on social media platforms.

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The first hypothesis for this study rises from these findings but focuses on millennials due to the fact that this is the biggest user group of Snapchat:

Hypothesis 1: Millennials experience a higher level of customer engagement when the content shared on Snapchat by beauty brands is entertainment based than when the content is information based or remuneration based.

Furthermore, informative related brand content also results in high positive attitude towards the brand according to Vries et al. (2012) and Lin & Lu (2011). The results of the study of Muntinga et al. (2011) confirmed this. Next to entertainment related content information related content is one of the biggest reasons why people engage online.

Remuneration has been seen as the lowest motivator for customer engagement by Muntinga et al. (2011). This is interesting for Snapchat due to the fact that eMarketer (2014) stated that students that use Snapchat, mostly connect with brands on this social media platform because of promotion deals. The second hypothesis is formulated as:

Hypothesis 2: Millennials experience a higher level of customer engagement when the content shared on Snapchat by beauty brands is information based than when the content is remuneration based.

2.5 Snapchat The digital index for beauty brands of 2015, states that Snapchat is just behind other emerging social media platforms like Pinterest and Periscope, with a 34% adoption rate (Digital IQ Index, 2015). Snapchat is a social media application, only for mobile use, where users can send a photo or to a recipient. Users can edit their content with texts or filters and can alter how many seconds the recipient can see the message before Snapchat deletes it. The app allows raw, low-consequence, real-time expressions (Bayer et al., 2016).

The five features on Snapchat:

1. Direct snap: A self-destructing picture or video with a length of 10 seconds maximum is sent to specific friends personally. 2. Story: A picture or video is displayed in a chronological order in your ‘friends’ list and is available to watch for 24 hours. The content can be watched multiple times within the 24 hours but also has a maximum display of ten seconds. All your friends will be able to see this.

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3. Live story: It combines all incoming snaps from a particular location and broadcasts it worldwide. A brand can pay Snapchat to have a live event and use the live story feature to interact with customers. They can share content on Snapchat trough the live story feature. 4. Discover: Brands pay Snapchat to have a place on the discover page of Snapchat. Brands can share content with not only their friends but with a big target group that don’t have to be friends with the brand to see the content. 5. Memories: Saving your content to memories provides you the ability to create a personalized album with all your favourite snaps, which you can access and share again with your friends (Nightingale, 2016).

Snapchat differs from other popular social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in that it’s more raw, real-time and personal. People need to put more effort into adding people on Snapchat. First they need to find out the name of the person they want to ‘friend’, then they have to go to a specific page where they have to insert the correct name and then they can add the person. On Instagram you can easily find people with no effort and Facebook also has potential new friends for you listed on the side of your screen. Snapchat is more personal in that way. The level customer engagement of a brands followers on Snapchat is therefore already higher than on other social platforms due to the effort that is needed to follow a brand on the platform.

In 2015 Snapchat reached 32.9% of all millennials compared to the 23,8% that Twitter reached. The average age of Snapchat users is 18 as compared to 40 for Facebook (Silberman, 2015). Additionally, Snapchat attracted more than 150 million users every month by the end of 2016. It has overtaken Twitters third place in the ranking of the most widely used social media site among 18-34 year olds (Tornoe, 2015) and was called the single most popular social media among teens in 2014 (Miller, 2014). EMarketer (2017) states that by the end of 2017 Snapchat will reach 70.4 million US users, and 89.2 million by 2021.

2.5.1 The seven functional building blocks to unpack Snapchat Kietzmann et al. (2011) present a framework that helps define a social media platform by using seven functional building blocks. With the framework they explain the implications that each block can have for how firms should engage on the social media platform. The seven blocks are filled out for Snapchat to get a good understanding of the social media platforms in what way it differs from other social media platforms and why it is important to study Snapchat for marketing purposes.

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The explanation of the blocks for Snapchat is generally based on a that provides guidelines on how Snapchat works (Landis, 2016) and the experience of the author with the social media platform. Additional resources are used to support the statements. (See Appendix A for a complete overview of the seven building blocks of Snapchat).

To summarize the building blocks, companies motivation for using Snapchat to connect with customers is the ability to have a one on one interaction. It provides the ability to share content that is honest, true and transparent. The core fans of companies are able to gain special access to content, interact on a one on one base with the brand and are assured that the content is real and not edited or not real time as on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram for example. People on Snapchat communicate through pictures of what is happening at that moment, it is not used for documenting life events or memories like on Facebook. Snapchat has no like button and doesn’t feature your friend lists and no ability to measure how popular you are.

Figure 1 illustrates the honeycomb of Snapchat and four other social media platforms whereby the darker blocks show the greater the specific functionality within the social media platform.

Figure 1.The functionalities of different social media platforms 2.6 Research on Snapchat There are only a few studies in the existing academic literature to the researcher’s knowledge that focus on Snapchat and specifically on the usage behaviour and content shared on the social media platform.

An industry observer asked: “Do we really understand young people's relationship with social media and the desires of this so-called ‘social-media generation’?

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We know lots about their behaviour online, but, as we all know, this is not the same as what they think and feel about it. Are marketers engaging with young people in this social space as best they could?” (Maunder-Allan, 2013, p. 52). And in the case of Snapchat: How can brands use this platform and what will Snapchat add to the current use of social media platforms? Sashittal et al. (2016) conducted a research among college students on their Snapchat usage behaviour. The verbal protocols of these students suggest that Snapchat is an ideal social media platform for developing acquaintance brands: “brands that aim to make themselves part of an inclusive, feel-good experience or highly relatable acquaintances” (Sashittal et al., 2016, p.193). They state that frequent Snapchat usage is producing a distinct set of benefits for college students and creating new opportunities for brands. When the aim of the marketing strategy is about making their brand appear more effortless and relatable the firm will likely benefit from investing in Snapchat. Using Snapchat in the proper way and frequent usage led to increasing feelings of empowerment of the customers. Snapchat can be a powerful tool to transform stranger brands into acquaintances.

Another study on Snapchat examined the type of content users share on Snapchat” (Bayer et al., 2016). This research shows that the main content shared on Snapchat is little, funny, quotidian snips of the users everyday life. The content shared on Snapchat are not associated with the “big moments” in life or highly edited content that is usually shared on other platforms like Facebook and Instagram. The authors state that Snapchat content can be more playful than content on other platforms. Together, the informal, raw nature of the content and the limited text space shapes the interactions on the platform. Users share content on Snapchat they don’t share with weaker ties for fear of misinterpretation.

The study conducted by Phua et al. (2016) examined consumer’s use of several top social media platforms, the motivations to follow brands, gratifications gained from using them, and the influence on brand community-related outcomes.

They studied Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat because they state that those platforms are the largest used social media platforms of the moment. The authors questioned if the platforms derived different gratifications from their use and thus that people use the four platforms for different reasons. Furthermore, the study showed the influences of the different platforms on the consumer’s perceptions of brands they follow.

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Phua et al. (2016) think that there are different outcomes for those four platforms because they state that each platform has their own unique, interactive features and ways for consumers to engage with branded content. On the question why people use different platforms Snapchat scored the highest on three out of six gratifications. 1. Passing time; “Users indicate that they found Snapchat the most useful for entertainment and relaxation purposes, as well as being fun and a form of escapism from their everyday routines”. 2. Sharing problems: “Users found Snapchat to be the most helpful when they need someone online to listen to them in order to forget their problems”. 3. Improving social knowledge: “Individuals who used Snapchat most frequently to follow brands also felt that the site fulfilled their need the most for improving social knowledge, and making them feel more involved with what’s going on with other people” (Phua et al. 2016, p. 421). It is surprising that although the previously results on Snapchat, in 2014 only 1% of marketers actually used Snapchat (Goldin, 2014).

EMarketer (2014) also studied what kind of content people would like to see from brands on Snapchat. “A significant portion of college students just wants to be entertained on Snapchat. More than one-fifth said they would like to receive funny communications from a brand on Snapchat. However, the opportunity to receive discounts or promotions was the top reason college students would want to receive Snapchat communications from brands, cited by 67%” (eMarketer, 2014, para. 5 & 6).

The few studies on Snapchat are useful and relevant but none of these studies actually test different brand related content types in the form of images or videos and therefore also didn’t measure the level of engagement of people for the specific content showed. The studies do show that content should be funny and quotidian snips of everyday and that apparently this brings joy and results in a positive mood but the two variables content and customer engagement have been tested separately. One of the studies does go into depth on the reasons why people use Snapchat and the customer engagement level but it doesn’t look at the different types of content that are being shared on this social media platform.

According to two studies Snapchat users experience social enjoyment and see this platform as the closest thing to face-to-face conversations with close relationships. An article by Schaefer on Harvard Business Review (2016) states that in this new world, the goal of companies is to create engagement through private, meaningful, conversational moments with their customers. In the future, content will still be important, but the individual will be the focus of the experience.

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“Brand communications will have to be more immediate, expressive, and intimate” (Schaefer, 2016, para. 9). And Snapchat might be the key to the solution for brands who want to create this type of engagement.

2.7 Problem statement Due to the previous studies on Snapchat it can be concluded that companies that want to use Snapchat to connect with customers are able to increase customer engagement where the brand is already loved by the customer. The level of engagement for only following a brand on the social media platform Snapchat is already higher than on Facebook or Twitter. Furthermore, the studies have shown that there are definitely opportunities and reasons why brands could increase customer engagement by using this unique platform.

Primarily research shows that Snapchat is an important, rising social media platform, used by a large group of potential customers, but hardly used by marketers. As mentioned before, there is a growing need for companies to connect, interact and engage with their customer to sustain a long-term relationship with customer and it seems that Snapchat can play an important role to fulfil this customer and branding strategy.

Furthermore, because beauty industry companies have already started to embrace Snapchat, this study will contribute and provide an academic view on Snapchat and branding to create customer engagement in the beauty industry.

In this study the focus will be on content for beauty brands, it will be helpful for brands in this industry, nevertheless this study also provides insights for brands in other industries who are interested in Snapchat. It contributes in the way that it provides further development on the relationship organizations can have with their customers and how this personal relationship should be sustained, by the use of Snapchat. Furthermore, this study enhances the understanding of Snapchat to provides managers with the insights on how to allocate resources specifically for Snapchat.

This study also provides knowledge on the strengths of Snapchat for managers who are concerned with the co-creation on their brand in different types of social media platforms. And the results of this study will help marketers better understand what kind of content will generate different levels of customer engagement on Snapchat.

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The research question that arises: What is the effect of different brand related content types on customer engagement for beauty brands on Snapchat?

Sub questions: What kind of content should beauty brands share on Snapchat? And what kind of customer engagement will be the effect of this content?

2.8 Conceptual model Based on the findings from the literature review, a conceptual model for customer engagement in the Snapchat environment was developed. The framework illustrates customer brand engagement on Snapchat based on different types of content beauty brands can share on the social media platform. The dimensions of customer engagement are based on the conceptual model of Hollebeek et al. (2014). However, the third dimension activation is replaced by the intention to buy dimension from Sweeney & Soutar (2011) because the statements used in the activation dimension focus more on the use of a particular brand in a category which is not the focus of the current study. The intention to buy dimension is more applicable to this particular study. A customer-based perspective has been chosen for this study because based on the existing literature it has occurred that to improve customer engagement a brand should first understand what the customers wants and needs and based on that it can create the right content.

Figure 2. Conceptual model for customer engagement on Snapchat content types

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Chapter 3- Methodology In this chapter the methodology of this study is discussed in detail. In the previous section the conceptual model and the hypotheses were developed and presented. This chapter builds further on this by introducing and explaining the research design and the sample of the study. Furthermore, the manipulated content and the brand related content are described. Followed up by explaining the customer engagement dimensions and the tools applied to realise the research. In the last section of this chapter the statistical procedure is discussed (See Appendix C for the survey and Appendix D for the Snapchat stories).

3.1 Research design and strategy This research conducts an online experiment to answer the research question and to test the hypotheses. The definition of an experiment by Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill (2012) states that conducting an experiment is a research strategy whose purpose is to study the probability of a change in an independent variable causing a change in another, dependent variable. The experiment tests if the null hypothesis can be rejected and the alternative hypothesis can be defended. The independent variable is manipulated and the change in the depend variable is measured between the experimental groups.

Beauty brands are using Snapchat to connect with their customers but what kind of customer engagement does this actually led to? Customer engagement of a fictive beauty brand on Snapchat is being rated by millennials in The Netherlands. By manipulating the content the respondents are shown, the effect of customer engagement dimensions on different types of brand related content on Snapchat is measured.

An experimental design was used because it is the best method to study cause-and-effect relationships. Using an experimental design gives the ability to manipulate the independent variables, the digital marketing content of brands, and measure its effect on the dependent variable, in this case customer engagement.

The experiment is executed with the independent variable digital marketing content represented by three conditions whereby condition 1 includes information based content, condition 2 includes entertainment based content and condition 3 consists of remuneration based content. These three conditions emerged from existing academic literature as motivations for consumers to engage with brand related content.

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Customer engagement is the dependent variable and three dimensions were used to present customer engagement namely cognitive processing, affection and intention to buy. In the experiment the participants were randomly assigned to one of the three conditions.

The internal validity of this study is guaranteed because the manipulation fits the variables being studied. The external validity is not as perfect as it could be due to the fact that the experiment was done online which means that possible external factors effected the participation.

The choice was made to allocate the participants randomly to one of the three conditions, followed up by showcasing them the other two conditions. Although the research is concentrated on the results of the first condition the participants are allocated to, it would not affect the results when the participants would also be exposed to the other two conditions. So eventually the participants saw all three conditions but the first condition they were assigned to and the customer engagement dimensions were used as the core data in this research. The data from the second and third condition could be used in the data analysis and possibly provide extra insights if needed.

The main reasons for prioritizing the data from the first featured story is because of practice and boredom effects. It is possible that participants perform differently in a second condition because of the familiarity with first condition. Also, the participants might respond differently in the second and third condition because of boredom from having completed the questions of the first condition (Field, 2012).

3.2 Participants

The research focuses on millennials who use Snapchat and have some level of affection with beauty brands and make-up. Millennials were chosen because it’s the biggest user group on Snapchat (Tornoe, 2015). Furthermore, the participants had to know Snapchat and use make- up to be the right audience for beauty brands on Snapchat. The focus was on female users of Snapchat but data from male participants were also collected and usable. To this day men’s interest in make-up is increasing (Costa, 2011).

The participants were approached on the University of Amsterdam. The researcher approached the target group with tablets and asked if they were Snapchat users and had some kind of affection with make-up.

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The participants were able to fill out the survey on the tablet or the survey could be e-mailed to them so they could conduct the survey at a more convenient moment in their day. In the introduction of the survey the participants were asked to only proceed with the survey when they were users of Snapchat and had some level of affection with beauty brands and make-up and if not, they were thanked and asked not to fill out the survey.

The survey was launched on the 10th of April, and after a change in the user interface, the final survey was launched on April the 15th and closed on the 7th of May. The survey was pre- tested by the researches herself and close friends. However, three days after the launch and collecting approximately 40 responses the survey was altered by means of how the Snapchat stories were featured. In the first version the videos were uploaded through the use of the survey platform but this let to complications for some participants that were not able to see the Snapchat stories the correct way. The researcher stopped the survey and changed the Snapchat stories. By creating a website and uploading the Snapchat stories on the website, the researcher was able to provide a link in the survey to the website with the right Snapchat story (including information, entertainment or remuneration content) and the participants were asked to click the link for the video and after finishing the video to return back to the survey and continue to the questions. Because the questions were altered in the survey, this caused a default in the data for the first 40 responses collected. However, after all the data needed to test the hypothesis was collected, a successful revision of the survey was conducted and the right data from the first 40 responses was compiled.

3.3 Manipulated content From the literature review three motivations of customers emerge for engaging with brand- related content. These three motivations include information, entertainment and remuneration content. For this study these three types of motivations are used for the conditions of digital marketing content to test customer engagement on Snapchat. The participants were shown the three conditions in the story feature of Snapchat.

The stories were built using the actual content that beauty brands have shared on Snapchat in 30th to mimic the experience of seeing a story on Snapchat. The content used in the survey is based on actual used Snapchat stories of a variety of brands plus the stories created by the researcher. The researcher observed the content beauty brands shared on Snapchat over a period of four months; January until April. Based on the observations and the recordings made from the Snapchat stories of the beauty brands the actual stories for the experiment were made (See Appendix B for screenshots of the three stories).

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Not all three stories were completely based on actual content from beauty brands. The story containing product information was both made with content provided by the researcher and actual stories. The story containing entertainment was completely used from an actual story of make-up brand MAC cosmetics, but all signs of the brand were removed through Photoshop. The story involving remuneration was completely made by the researcher of this study because no beauty brand was sharing content including remuneration on Snapchat during the observation period. The researcher used a study that focused on the content beauty brands post on Facebook as an example to create the right content for the story containing remuneration. The study observed the activities of several beauty brands whereby promotions and discounts were posted and shared.

A fictive brand called Jolie Paris was introduced to the participants as a brand they know and use in their day to day life. An actual brand was not used because of existing associations that could not be controlled for but could have possibly affected the level of customer engagement of the participants. By using a fictive brand and informing the participants to already have some of customer engagement with the brand the existing associations were controlled for as much as possible.

Figure 2 shows a part of condition 1. This story contained information based content. Step 1 shows part of a story Essence Cosmetics used in a recent Snapchat story. Step 2 shows that anything that shows the brand is covered with a black bar. The make-up pallets showed the name and logo of Essence Cosmetics and the Snapchat name was shown in the left corner. By adding a black bar, these details were disguised. Step 3 shows that the fictive brand name Jolie Paris was added to the Snapchat content.

Figure 3. Example of content edited from original Snapchat content of Essence Cosmetics

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3.4 The brand related content Observing the content of beauty brands on Snapchat resulted in a list of the most shared content. These content types were categorized before they were linked to one of the three brand related content types that would be build and used as conditions for the stories in the survey. Four categorizes were chosen based on a content-analysis of make-up brands on Facebook. This study focused on what kind of content beauty brands post on Facebook, the frequency of the posting and the engagement of followers (Shen & Bissell, 2013). The four categories that came out of this study were used to link the different types of content beauty brands have been posting on Snapchat. It is important to notice that no beauty brand shares any type of promotion content on Snapchat. However, brands from other industries are sharing promotion content on Snapchat and beauty brands do post promotions on Facebook thus the decision was made to include remuneration content in this study as well. Although these four categories of content are based on a research focused on Facebook and not on Snapchat, by observing the current activities of beauty brands on Snapchat the researcher concluded that these activities could be categorized under the four categories from the Facebook research.

Subsequently, after matching the Snapchat activities of beauty brands with the four brand related content categories, the categories were linked with the three brand-related content types found in the literature. Table 1 shows the four categories of content, listed underneath the current Snapchat content of beauty brands and to which condition these activities belong.

The observing, categorizing and linking of Snapchat activities of beauty brands to the three types of conditions was necessary to link theory and practise and to get an overview of how the three conditions in the survey should look like to represent beauty brands on Snapchat.

Table 1. Overview of link between beauty brands Snapchat activities and digital marketing content conditions 1. Event content 2. Product content 3. Promotion content 4. Entertainment content Red carpet Swatches Coupons Q&A Shoots Announcements Discounts Look into the office Behind the scenes Sneak peeks Giveaways Make-up tutorials Party Tips Promotional codes Chats Fashion week New product launches  Entertainment  Information  Remuneration  Entertainment

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The event and entertainment brand related content can be matched to the entertainment condition. Event stands for content showing red carpet events, photoshoots, behind the scene footage, parties and fashion week events. Entertainment includes Q&A’s, make-up tutorials, chats and what’s going on at the office of the brand. Both types of content are used for enjoyment and for people who are interested to see what kind of things happen at a beauty brand.

The product category of beauty brands Snapchat content can be match to the information condition. The product category includes swatches of products, new product launches, sneak peeks, tips and announcements. This type of content gives information about the products of the brands, for example showing new releases or show how the consistency and pigmentation is of a certain product.

The promotion content of beauty brands on Snapchat can be linked to the remuneration condition. It is important to mention that while observing the beauty brands current activities on Snapchat, no brand actually shares content with promotions, although brands for other industries do use Snapchat for promotion content.

3.5 Measurements The survey started with an introduction, explaining the research and introducing the fictive brand. As mentioned previously, the introduction explicitly asked the participants to only participate when they are users of Snapchat and have some kind of affection with make-up. After the introduction three demographic questions were asked; gender, age and highest level of education.

Thereafter the stories were featured in a random order. The participant were asked to click the link to a website were the story was published and after watching the story the participant had to go back to the survey to continue to the questions. Ten statements about customer engagement were presented and the participant had to rate their level of customer engagement on a seven-point Likert type scale. Three of the ten statements were based on cognitive processing, four on affection and three on intention to buy. All three dimensions were drawn from previously used scales that have been validated in the academic literature. Table 2 shows the dimensions, items and Cronbach alphas.

The measurements of Hollebeek et al. (2014) were used for this study as dimensions of customer engagement because of its important roll and effect in the academic world on this

33 subject. It also takes social media as the environment of the customer engagement which fits this study perfectly. The measurements for this study are based on an article that included a third measure for consumer brand engagement namely activation but this scale doesn’t fit this specific research that well as discussed in the literature review. Instead of the activation scale of Hollebeek et al. (2014) the scale of intention to buy from Sweeney & Soutar (2001) is used. This scale fitted the research and the hypotheses better.

Table 2. Construct customer engagement dimensions, sources and scale reliabilities Dimension/ Measure Items (altered to this specific thesis) Reliability Cognitive processing 1. Looking at the stories of (fictive beauty brand) on 0,825 (Hollebeek, et al., Snapchat gets me to think about (fictive beauty brand). 2014) 2. I think about (fictive beauty brand) a lot when I’m looking at the stories on Snapchat. 3. Seeing the stories of (fictive beauty brand) on Snapchat stimulates my interest to learn more about (fictive beauty brand). Affection Hollebeek, 1. I feel very positive when I look at the stories of (fictive 0,907 et al., 2014) beauty brand) on Snapchat. 2. Looking at the stories of (fictive beauty brand) on Snapchat makes me happy. 3. I feel good when I look at the stories of (fictive beauty brand) on Snapchat. 4. I’m proud when I look at the stories of (fictive beauty brand) on Snapchat. Intention to buy 1. After seeing this kind of stories on Snapchat I would be 0,96 (Sweeney, & Soutar, willing to buy items from this beauty brand at the store. 2001) 2. After seeing this kind of stories I would recommend this beauty brand to friends or relatives. 3. After seeing this kind of stories I would not expect any problems with items from this beauty brand.

3.6 The tools applied Qualtrics was used to build and conduct the survey and to collect the data. Qualtrics is a web- based survey tool were various types of surveys can be conducted and it provides the ability to evaluate the data collection.

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Qualtrics was used because the tool has an clear user interface and the results are easy to access. It provides multiple tools to build a professional survey and has the ability to export the data directly to SPSS, PDF, Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

APowersoft was used to collect the content and to build the stories. APowersoft is a software program that allows the ability to record an iPhone screen with an . The author used her own Snapchat account and followed several beauty brands to collect their Snapchat stories. The collected stories were linked to the three brand related content conditions and new stories were built. The video converter program from APowersoft was used to build and edit the stories for this survey.

The website featuring the stories was built with a service called Wix Editor. This is a free online service that gives the ability to make a website. This way the author was able to feature the stories to the participants. A website was used to showcase the videos because the only other option was YouTube which is a social media platform as well. Due to the fact that this study researches social media platform Snapchat and its effect on customer engagement, using YouTube as the source for the videos would have potentially affect the results.

SPSS was used to analyse the data and test the hypotheses.

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Chapter 4 Results A total of 168 responses was collected. Incomplete questionnaires were excluded from the sample which made the end total of the sample 157. Firstly, frequencies were checked for each item and a reliability test was conducted to test the Cronbach’s Alpha for all three dimensions of customer engagement. The sample was tested on normality and the results showed that the sample was not normally distributed. This is probably due to the small sample size. Because the sample is non normally distributed different measurements were needed to test the hypotheses, namely non parametric tests. Furthermore, a correlation matrix was compiled to test the relation between digital marketing content on Snapchat and customer engagement. A Kruskall-Wallis test was executed to test the hypotheses (See Apendix D for the full SPSS output).

4.1 Sample characteristics and Between Group Homogeneity Analysis A total of 168 participants conducted the survey. From the 168 participants, 9 participants were removed from the data analysis because they either didn’t fit the target group due to age or they didn’t complete the entire survey. In the final analysis 93,6% of the participants was female and 6,4% male. The age ratio of all participants was between 18-34 years. The majority of the participants was highly educated; 47,1% had a bachelor degree.

The descriptive statistics of the participants among the three conditions are very similar with more than 90% being female, more than 75% in age group 18-25 and more than 40% having a bachelor degree. However, the participants of the entertainment condition were slightly different from the other two conditions. The entertainment condition had no male participants and was the biggest group of the three conditions with participants between the age of 18 and 24. When continuing the analysis, this has been taken into consideration when comparing the scores of the three conditions. The online survey tool Qualtrics allocated the participants randomly per condition.

All in all, it can be concluded that the participants spread over the conditions have very similar descriptive characteristics and they represent the biggest user group on Snapchat; millennials. An overview of the sample characteristics is displayed in table 3.

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Table 3. Sample characteristics Research sample Condition 1 Condition 2 Condition 3 Total Information Entertainment Remuneration Sample size N 50 44 63 157 Gender Female 90% 100% 92% 93,6% Male 10% - 8% 6,4% Age 18-24 82% 97,7% 77,8% 84,7% 25-34 18% 2,3% 22,2% 15,3% Education High school 28% 25% 15,9% 22,3% degree Some college 12% 27,3% 19% 19,1% credit Bachelor’s 46% 40,9% 52,4% 47,1% degree Master’s 14% 6,8% 12,7% 11,5% degree

4.2 Reliability analysis A reliability analysis was conducted in order to test if the dimensions used in this study are sufficiently consistent in measuring customer engagement. Assessing the internal reliability, the Cronbach Alpha’s of the dimensions of customer engagement were measured. The reliability of all scales were acceptable, applying the standard for the Cronbach’s Alpha scores of 0,7. (Saunders, Lewis, and Thornhill, 2012).

The dependent variable customer engagement was studied through 3 dimensions;

1. Cognitive processing

The dimension was measured applying 3 items. The Cronbach Alpha for cognitive processing is α= .796 which makes the scale reliable. The corrected item-total correlations indicates that all three items have a good correlation with the total score of the dimension bigger than .30 (Field, 2012). None of the three items had an higher alpha-if-item-deleted than the general alpha.

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2. Affection

The dimension was measured applying 4 items. The Cronbach Alpha for affection is α= .855 which makes the dimension highly reliable. The corrected item-total correlations indicates that all four items have a good correlation with the total score of the dimension. The item “I’m proud when I look at the stories of (fictive beauty brand) on Snapchat”, had an alpha-if- item-deleted higher than the general alpha [α= .873]. However, the difference is small (.018) thus the item was not deleted in further statistical analysis.

3. Intention to buy

The dimension was measured applying 3 items. The Cronbach Alpha for intention to buy is α= .755 which makes the dimension reliable. The corrected item-total correlations indicates that all three items have a good correlation with the total score of the dimension. The item “After seeing this kind of stories I would not expect any problems with items from this beauty brand” has an alpha-if-item-deleted higher than the general alpha [α= .815]. However, also for this item the difference is small (.060) and because this measurement was taken from a well trusted source in the academic literature, the item was not deleted for further statistical analysis.

All three conditions in the experiment had the same dimensions and items for measuring customer engagement.

4.3 Normality test The sample has been tested for normality, outliers and the significance of skewness and kurtosis has been computed. When testing the significance of hypotheses firstly normality of the distribution has to be calculated because having a non-normal distribution requires different statistical tests than normal distributed samples. Executing a frequencies command and the Kolmogorov-Smirnow test, normality of distribution for the three conditions was examined. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test compares scores in a sample to a normally distributed set of scores with the same mean and the same standard deviation. If the results from the test indicate a p-value bigger than 0,05 the sample is non-significant and the distribution of the sample is not significantly different from a normal distribution. If the p- value is smaller than 0,05, the test is significant and the distribution of the sample is significantly different from a normal distribution. This indicates that different tests need to be conducted to test the hypothesis (Field, 2012).

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Because this study has an experimental setting with three conditions and thus three independent groups the normality within groups had to be considered. In SPSS the normality tests were conducted for the three groups separately using the split file command.

The mean score of customer engagement was computed for the test. Customer engagement included the mean scores of each dimension that measured customer engagement.

As displayed in the table 4 the test scores shows p-values for all three conditions of 0,2, which indicates that the sample is normally distributed.

Table 4. Normality test for customer engagement Kolmogorov-Smirnov Statistic DF Sig. test CE condition 1 ,069 50 ,200 Information CE condition 2 ,077 44 ,200 Entertainment CE condition 3 ,099 63 ,200 Remuneration Note. CE= Customer engagement. a. Lilliefors Significance Correlation.

However, the variable customer engagement was formulated as the mean of the scores on three individual dimensions. This makes the customer engagement score doubtful and less strong because it is not a score on its own but a sum of scores. For this reason, the choice was made to go more in depth and test the three dimensions, cognitive processing, affection, and intention to buy, separately from each other for normality of distribution. Continuing with the analysis of the data, each test examines all dimensions individually for every condition to get the best results.

The mean scores of cognitive processing, affection and intention to buy were computed and used to test the three measurements of customer engagement on normality.

As displayed in table 5 the test scores were significantly non-normal distributed for the variables affection [p=,039] and intention to buy [p=,011] in condition 1, intention to buy [p= ,005] in condition 2 and cognitive processing [p= ,027], affection [p=,001] and intention to buy [p=,050] in condition 3. From the 9 measurements, 6 are non-normal distributed.

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Table 5. Normality test for measurements of customer engagement Kolmogorov- Smirnov Statistic DF Sig. Test Condition 1 CP ,110 50 ,186 A ,128 50 ,039 ITB ,144 50 ,011 Condition 2 CP ,117 44 ,156 A ,087 44 ,200 ITB ,163 44 ,005 Condition 3 CP ,119 63 ,027 A ,154 63 ,001 ITB ,111 63 ,050 Note. CP= Cognitive processing. A= Affection. ITB= Intention to buy. a. Lilliefors Significance Correlation.

All three conditions have a small, negative kurtosis indicating that the distribution is flat. Furthermore, most variables show a negative skewness value, which indicates a clustering of scores at the high end of the distribution. No outliers were identified.

4.4 Descriptive statistics and correlation matrix An analysis of the descriptive statistics and a correlation matrix has been conducted in order to gain first insights on the data collection. These insights provide the basic information about the answers of the participants and the differences between the three experimental groups. The mean scores and the standard deviations for each item of all three dimensions of customer engagement as well as the overall mean and standard deviation of the measurement were assessed. Also, the overall customer engagement mean and standard deviation were computed. Every item was calculated for each condition separately to compare the results of the different conditions (See Appendix E table 4 for an overview of the results).

The descriptive table provides some initial insights. The customer engagement level was measured on a 7 point Likert scale, whereby the lowest mean score in the table is 2,44 for condition 1 on item 4 of affection. The highest mean score measured was 4,78 for condition 3 with the first item of cognitive processing.

The range of scores is between disagree(2)/ somewhat disagree(3) and neither agree nor disagree(4)/somewhat agree(5). These results indicate that there is no very positive nor negative significant effect of different digital content on Snapchat on customer engagement.

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The mean scores of customer engagement overall also shows scores between 3 and 4. Furthermore, the total mean scores for the different conditions are between 3 and 4, showing there is no to little effect of the type of digital content on customer engagement [MScondition1= 3,38, MScondition2= 3,73, MScondition3= 3,88]. However, the descriptive table does show that the means for the cognitive processing overall and intention to buy overall are the highest (although still low) in condition 3 [MScognitiveprocessing= 4,22, MSintentiontobuy= 3,97], which contains the remuneration story. The highest mean score in condition 1, looking at the overall measurements is for cognitive processing [MS= 3,48], in condition 2 affection [MS= 3,83] and in condition 3 for cognitive processing [MS= 4,22] as well. Customer engagement overall in condition 3 scores the ‘highest’ mean [MS= 3,878] which still indicates a weak effect of digital content on customer engagement as well.

Overall, the first test results on the data conducted in the survey indicate that there is no to little effect on customer engagement when beauty brands share stories on Snapchat. The differences between the three conditions are also not very strong, condition 3, containing remuneration, scores the ‘highest’ on most points compared to condition 1, involving information, and condition 2 containing entertainment.

The correlations between the control variables and the customer engagement dimensions have been assessed through an Inter-item Correlation Matrix. Beforehand, the scale means of the dimensions were computed by scaling the means of the items measuring the specific dimension as shown in the descriptive table as cognitive processing overall, affection overall and intention to buy overall. The descriptive statistics gave insights on each item of the dimension but the correlation matrix shows the correlation between the dimensions overall and not for every item individually.

Due to the fact that the sample was not normally distributed a non-parametric test had to be conducted to gain insights in the correlations between the variables in this study.

The Spearman’s Inter-Item correlation based on ranked data was assessed as the appropriate test for this study. Firstly, the means of the three dimensions were ranked in order from smallest to biggest mean, ignoring the group to which the scores belong, and then put back in the right group before the Spearman correlation was computed.

As table 6 shows, the correlations between the dimensions are very strong and positive. This was forecasted because all dimensions measure customer engagement. The strongest correlation is between cognitive processing and affection [rs= ,675] which makes sense

41 because they are based on the same research paper about customer engagement. Dimension intention to buy measurement came from another source, as described in the previous two chapters of this study. The correlations between control variables are not strongly positive or negative. The strongest correlation in the table is between age and gender and this correlation is negative [rs= -,469]. Knowing that only 6,4% of the sample was male, this correlation is not very important for this study. The correlation between cognitive processing and age is almost a strong relation [rs= ,408]. It states that the older the participant the higher the cognitive processing of the participant is.

Table 6. Correlation matrix Spearman’s r Gender Age Cognitive Affection Intention to buy processing Gender 1

157 Age -,469 1 ,000 157 157

Cognitive processing -,286 ,408 1 ,009 ,846 157 157 Affection ,238 ,031 ,675 1 ,003 ,699 ,000 157 157 157 Intention to buy ,168 ,028 ,618 ,646 1 ,035 ,728 ,000 ,000 157 157 157 157

4.6 Hypothesis testing In this section, the hypotheses that have been formulated are tested. The most important findings are being discussed in this section. The study has an experimental design with three conditions which are divided over three independent groups and because the sample is non normal distributed the Kruskall-Wallis test was assessed in order to test the hypotheses.

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“The Kruskall-Wallis test looks at the differences between groups of scores when those scores have come from different entities, and if the presence of unusual cases needs to be counteracted” (Field, 2012. P. 236). The Kruskall-Wallis test is based on ranked data. The scores are first ordered from lowest to highest, ignoring the group to which the score belongs, and then the lowest scores gets assigned to a rank of 1, the next highest a rank of 2 and so on (Field, 2012). Ranking the data makes the data stronger and provides the ability to spot effects and/ or differences in the sample. This procedure is being used when the data without ranking doesn’t show effects because the scores are too similar. To continue with tests and to be able to test the hypotheses, ranking the data is sometimes preferred as with this study as well.

For all three dimensions the scores per condition have been ordered and ranked. The Kruskall- Wallis test was computed for every dimension and the scores of the three conditions were compared.

Research hypothesis 1 states that participants that were shown the entertainment condition should score the highest on the three dimensions of customer engagement. Hypothesis 1: Millennials experience a higher level of customer engagement when the content shared on Snapchat by beauty brands is entertainment based than when the content is information based or remuneration based.

Furthermore, participants that were shown the information condition should score higher on the three dimensions than the participants who were shown the remuneration condition according to research hypothesis 2. Hypothesis 2: Millennials experience a higher level of customer engagement when the content shared on Snapchat by beauty brands is information based than when the content is remuneration based.

The Kruskall-Wallis test should reject the null hypotheses which is formulated as: There is no difference in level of customer engagement when the content shared on Snapchat by beauty brands is manipulated as information based, entertainment based, or remuneration based.

The Kruskall-Wallis test was executed for all three dimensions, namely cognitive processing (CP), affection (A), and intention to buy (ITB). Firstly, the results for each dimension were studied, after which comparisons were made and a final conclusion could be provided for the customer engagement level of participants in each condition.

4.6.1 Cognitive processing The Kruskall-Wallis test for CP states that the null hypothesis can be rejected and thus that the distribution of CP(ranked) by each condition are not the same across categories of the

43 conditions. The level of customer engagement measured by CP is significantly different across the three conditions, using the independent samples Kruskal-Wallis test [푥2 = 20, P<.05].

However, this test indicates that the groups are different but it doesn’t show which groups differ. By comparing all pairs of the groups, more insights have been provided to conclude if the resarch hypotheses are partially or completely supported.

Pairwise comparisons using the Kruskal-Wallis test reveales that for the entertainment condition and the remuneration condition the level of cognitive processing differs, that the information condition and entertainment condition don’t differ from each other and the information condition and remuneration condition also don’t differ. The adjusted p-value comparing entertainment condition and remuneration condition indicates a difference [p=,023]. Looking at the mean scores of the rank of CP, this also shows that participants in the remuneration condition score higher on CP than in the entertainment condition [MScondition2= 22,5, MScondition3= 32]. Additionally, looking at the mean scores of cognitive processing unranked, the mean score of the remuneration condition is also higher compared to the mean score of the entertainment condition [MScondition 2= 3,59, MScondition 3= 4,2].

It can be concluded that participants in the remuneration condition experienced a higher level of customer engagement, measured by cognitive processing, than participants in the entertainment condition.

Table 7. Kruskall-Wallis test cognitive processing Condition 1 Condition 2 Condition 3 Information Entertainment Remuneration Median 25 22,25 32,50 Q1 13 12 15,75 Q3 38 32,75 48,50

4.6.2 Affection The Kruskall-Wallis test for affection states that the null hypothesis can be rejected and thus that the distribution of A(ranked) by the condition shown are not the same across categories of the conditions.

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The level of customer engagement measured by A is significantly different among the three conditions, using the independent samples Kruskal-Wallis test [푥2 = 28, P<.05].

As with the Kruskall-Wallis test for variable cognitive processing all pairs of the groups needed to be compared in order to gain insights in which groups differ in variable affection.

Pairwise comparisons using the Kruskal-Wallis test revealed that again for the entertinament condition and the remuneration condition the level of affection differs and that the information condition and entertainment condition don’t differ and the information condition and remuneration condition also don’t differ. The adjusted p-value comparing sample 2 and 3 indicates a difference [p=,027]. Looking at the mean scores of the rank of A, this also shows that participants of the remuneration condition score higher on affection than in the entertainment condition [MScondition2= 22,5, MScondition3= 32]. However, looking at the mean scores of affection unranked, the entertainment condition scores a little bit higher than the remuneration condition [MScondition2= 3,83, MScondition3= 3,54]. This is an example of why ranked data can be used but should be taken in consideration knowing the shortcomings of transformed data.

It can be concluded that participants in the entertainment condition experienced a higher level of customer engagement, measured by affection than the participants in the remuneration condition, based on the mean scores of affection unranked.

Table 8. Kruskall-Wallis test affection Condition 1 Condition 2 Condition 3 Information Entertainment Remuneration Median 25,50 22,50 32 Q1 11 11 18,50 Q3 39 32,50 47

4.6.3 Intention to buy The Kruskall-Wallis tests for ITB also states that the null hypothesis can be rejected and thus that the distribution of ITB(ranked) by the condition shown are not the same across categories of the conditions. The level of customer engagement measured by ITB is significantly different among the three conditions, using the independent samples Kruskal-Wallis test [푥2 = 24, P>.05].

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All pairs of the groups needed to be compared to gain insights in which groups differ in intention to buy. Pairwise comparisons using the Kruskal-Wallis test reveales that again for the entertainment condition and the remuneration condition the level of affection differs and that the information condition and entertainment condition don’t differ and the information condition and remuneration conition also don’t differ. The adjusted p-value comparing the entertainment condition and the remuneration condition indicates a difference [p= ,025]. Looking at the mean scores of the rank of ITB, this also shows that participants in the remuneration condition score higher on ITB than in the entertainment condition [MScondition2= 22,5, MScondition3= 32]. Additionally, looking at the mean scores of ITB unranked, the remuneration condition scores higher than the entertainment condition confirming the results of the pairwise comparing test [MScondition2= 3,71, MScondition3= 3,97].

It can be concluded that participants in the remuneration condition experienced a higher level of customer engagement, measured by intention to buy than the participants in the entertainment condition.

Table 9. Kruskall-Wallis test intention to buy Condition 1 Condition 2 Condition 3 Information Entertainment Remuneration Median 26 22,50 32 Q1 14 10,50 17,50 Q3 35,50 32 48,50

4.6.4 Conclusion of hypotheses test results To conclude this chapter, the results indicate that the null hypotheses can be rejected; the level of customer engagement is not the same between the conditions.

However, looking at the results of the pairwise comparisons only a difference between the entertainment condition and the remuneration condition is found among the three dimensions of customer engagement. This indicates that customer engagement differs between the entertainment condition and the remuneration condition. The research hypotheses state that digital brand related content including entertainment content should be rated the highest on customer engagement and that content including remuneration should be rated the lowest. This is not supported by the test results because it shows that for cognitive processing and intention to buy, the remuneration condition is actually rated the highest instead of the lowest.

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However, the entertainment condition does scores a little higher on affection than the remuneration condition. These are very important insight for this study and will be further addressed in the discussion.

Research hypothesis 1 is partially supported and partially rejected with the entertainment condition scoring the highest on affection but the remuneration condition scoring the highest on cognitive processing and intention to buy.

Research hypothesis 2 is rejected because the information condition doesn’t score higher than the remuneration condition. Additionally, the information condition scores the lowest on all three customer engagement variables which was not predicted from the existing literature. An overview of the results is provided in table 10, displaying which digital content type scores positively on dimensions of customer engagement.

Furthermore, it has to be kept in mind that the tests are based on ranked scores and not the original scores thus the effects are not as significant as the SPSS output indicates.

Table 10. Results matrix Cognitive processing Affection Intention to buy Information content ₋ ₋ ₋ Entertainment content ₋ x ₋ Remuneration content x ₋ x

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Chapter 5 Discussion This study investigated how different types of digital marketing content on Snapchat effects customer engagement, with a focus on the beauty branch. The research had an experimental design where three conditions, three different types of digital marketing content, were tested on participants for their level of customer engagement. Customer engagement was measured by means of three dimensions.

The corresponding research question has been posed as: “What is the effect of different brand related content types on customer engagement for beauty brands on Snapchat?”

5.1 Findings As stated in the literature review social media platforms are playing an important role in building strong brands and even 93% of business use social networking for marketing and branding purposes (Shen & Bissell, 2013). Branded social media enables brands to have touch-points for interaction with the consumer throughout the day, which improves and deepens the brand-consumer relationship. Branded social media can increase brand awareness, brand liking and loyalty, inspire the consumer to share content about the brand online and potentially drive traffic to the brand online and offline (Murdough, 2009; Ashley & Tuten, 2014). Woodstock et al. (2011) state that the benefits of social media as a tool for a brand to interact with their customers are centred around customer engagement and customer insights.

In the literature chapter of this study the ‘Uses and Gratifications Theory’ (UGT) was discussed and adopted. The UGT is a theoretical framework that explains the reasons why and how people are actively seeking out for different (social) media to fulfil their specific needs. Previous studies using the UGT show that the most important motivators for reaching out to brand related content are entertainment and information content (Raacke & Bonds- Raacke, 2008). Muntinga et al. (2011) also use the UGT as the foundation for their research on motivations of consumers to connect with brand related content. They specifically research the motivations for consuming brand-related content and they state that it’s driven by three motivations: information, entertainment and remuneration.

The following comparisons of the current study with the existing literature are based on the ranked data and not the original data. The data was converted by ranking to make the scores stronger.

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According to different studies, entertainment content has a positive effect towards the brand and it motivates consumers to engage with the content and the brand (Vries et al., 2012; Leeflang, 2012). Park et al. (2009) also found that entertainment content has the strongest effect on consumers on social media platforms.

However, the current study does not fully support these previous findings with statistic evidence where entertainment content only scored the highest on one dimension of customer engagement, namely affection, and entertainment content did not score the highest on cognitive processing and intention to buy. Causes for having a different outcome than expected are that entertainment based content has more correlation with attitude, towards the web and brands and does not have a significant effect on behaviour. Entertainment based content creates a feeling with the customer and it does not inspire behaviour such as purchase intentions for example. Muntinga et al. (2011) state that entertainment based brand related content covers enjoyment, relaxation and pastime motivations. Quan-Haase, & Young (2010) and Leung (2001) support this statement, both describing that people engage with entertainment content in a social media environment for reasons such as having fun and killing time. Luo (2013) states that entertainment is an antecedent of attitude toward the web. He found by using the ‘Uses and Gratifications Theory’ that internet users who experience the internet as entertaining commonly show a positive attitude towards the internet.

The implication of these findings is that when content is shared online with the intention to create a positive attitude towards a brand, the content should include entertainment but when the content has the goal to influence the behaviour of the target audience different type of content should be shared on Snapchat.

Furthermore, informative content also results in an high positive attitude towards the brand according to Vries et al. (2012) and Lin & Lu (2011). Besides entertainment related content, information related content is one of the biggest reasons why people engage online. These findings are not supported by the current findings that indicate that information related content scores the lowest on all three customer engagement dimensions. This can possibly be explained by the fact that content on Snapchat is short and casual while information based content demands focused attention. People who are looking for information about a product are going to search for it online. Additionally, Shindler & Bickart (2005) found that information based content is a driver of reading product reviews. On Snapchat people are not searching for product information, Snapchat contains fun, joyful and easy content with not too much effort. (Bayer et al, 2016).

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These findings imply that content including information should be shared on social media platforms were people are searching for information about products and not on social media platforms that are used for entertainment purposes, such as Snapchat for example.

Lastly, the most striking difference is found according to the existing statements of remuneration being the lowest motivator for customer engagement by Muntinga et al. (2011). The results of the current research shows that digital content including remuneration has a significant stronger positive effect than entertainment based digital content on customer engagement dimensions cognitive processing and intention to buy. These results are in line with EMarketer (2014) stating that students use Snapchat to connect with brands mostly because of promotion deals. The participants of this study are millennials, targeted at the University of Amsterdam. Most Dutch students are living on a tied budget, are price sensitive and 17% of them indicate that they have a financial problem and 21% has a student loan. (Nibud, 2015). Students are less critical about products and are curious to learn and experience new things. This could be a reason why remuneration based content scores high on cognitive processing and intention to buy.

It could be assumed that when students are the target group for a company, promotions and discounts will increase the purchase behaviour and the way the target group thinks about the brand and products.

To conclude the findings of the study, the hypotheses are discussed:

The null hypothesis was rejected, because the results do show a difference in level of customer engagement between the digital content types.

Hypothesis 1 was only partly supported, stating that participants in the entertainment condition would experience the highest level of customer engagement which was only supported for one out of three customer engagement dimensions.

Hypothesis 2 was rejected because it states that participants in the information condition would experience a higher level of customer engagement than participants in the remuneration condition which was not supported by the results. The opposite occurred; the remuneration condition scored the highest on two customer engagement dimensions. It was not expected that content including remuneration would receive the highest ratings on customer engagement although it did, on cognitive processing and intention to buy.

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5.2 Contributions to theory This study tried to provide additional insights into the field of digital marketing content and the relation with customer engagement on social media platforms, specifically on Snapchat. Social media are becoming more and more important these days for companies that want to connect with customers. Research has been conducted for the last years into the field of customer engagement in relation to brand related content on social media platforms. This research wanted to provide insights into what kind of effect the different brand related content have on customer engagement specifically through Snapchat, focused on millennials and beauty brands.

This study does not completely support the existing literature on customer engagement in the social media environment, in relation to the use of Snapchat. The interplay between digital marketing content, including remuneration, and customer engagement provided insights that were not supporting but rather disagreeing with the existing literature. It states that content including promotions and/ or discounts do have a positive effect on customer engagement dimensions cognitive processing and intention to buy.

The UGT framework is used in the academic literature for understanding peoples motivation to engage on social media platforms but the results of those studies are not fully supported by the current findings, for social media platform Snapchat. Further development of social media, and the need to be more specific and unique, requires an expansion of theoretical models to explain the specific effects of different social media. It is not possible to generalise theories for all social media due to the development and creations of new, upcoming social media platforms.

This study shows that entertainment, as one of the brand related content types, increases attitude through affection for brands on Snapchat. It is assumed that entertainment brand related content does not lead to purchase intentions and cognitive processing. Furthermore, brand related content including remuneration has a positive relation with how customers think about the brand and products and has a positive effect on purchase decisions of customers. However, information based content does not have any positive effect on customer engagement through Snapchat.

It can be concluded that the existing literature is limited with the three sorts of motivations for consumers to connect with brand-related content. The question is if these three sorts of motivation are appropriate to generalise, for all social media platforms.

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The findings show the need for more research on different content types in relation to motivations of consumers on social media platforms. The current literature is restricted and does not provide enough information. More body of knowledge is needed on social media platforms in relation to customer engagement and brand related content.

5.3 Practical implications Based on the results of this study, companies should be aware of the fact that if they want to use Snapchat to increase customer engagement there are a few implications:

 Snapchat users are millennials, that is; people with a limited budget. Companies should ask themselves if this is the right target group.  If companies consider the use of Snapchat to increase customer engagement, this research shows that Snapchat only adds to customer engagement on the dimensions of cognitive processing and purchase intention through content including remuneration.  Companies that want to increase customer engagement in the form of affection should create content including entertainment.  If companies seek to cover all dimensions of customer engagement on Snapchat, they should combine remuneration and entertainment content and should not invest in information based content.  Companies should investigate and explore which other social media platform, in combination with Snapchat, creates customer engagement on the three dimensions through the use of information based content. Additionally, they need to understand which social media platform is used by their target group for gathering information.  It is advised to companies to integrate a form of digital marketing strategy where Snapchat is combined with another social media platform, resulting in a valuable, effective proposition.

The findings of this study explain why managers are hesitant to use social media platforms due to the uncertainty of the benefits and the results. The findings contradict existing literature on customer engagement motivations, and it shows that no social media platform is the same and not every theory is applicable for all types of social media platforms. It is important to understand the foundation and unique features of a social media platform before becoming active on it because the results a company might thinks to achieve, could be unrealistic and not feasible.

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The research indicates that companies need to deepen their understanding of why customers are using that specific social media platform and why they are following or willing to follow a brand.

5.4 Limitations During the research, a number of limitations were identified, which should be considered when evaluating the results.

First of all, a proper pre-test was not conducted before the launch of the survey which could have prevented the problem with the display of the videos as discussed in paragraph 3.2 of the methodology chapter of this study. A few friends of the researcher did test the survey beforehand but they might not have been critical enough about the quality of the research knowing the researcher and the work done beforehand. A possible result of this problem could have been on the sample size. The participants were not equally divided among the three conditions, which could lower the chances to find systematic differences between the conditions. Furthermore, the sample size of the experiment was small which led to a small data set that could have been a reason why no effects were found.

Also, the survey mimicked Snapchat stories and was conducted on a mobile phone, laptop or tablet even though Snapchat stories can only be seen on the mobile app of Snapchat. There is no website version of the app. This could have affected the results from the survey because the experiment environment was not the same as how the Snapchat environment is normally.

Furthermore, a fictive brand was used in the Snapchat stories because when a real brand would have been used, existing associations with the brand could have affected the results which could not be controlled for. It can not be expected to what extend participants can simulate that they know and use a brand that is fictional. Because they don’t know the brand and don’t use it, this simulation can be different for every person.

Additionally, the three stories were not equal in duration as stated in the limitations. This could have had effect on the customer engagement. Some participants gave feedback that a particular condition did increase customer engagement but the video was just too long which negatively affected the level of customer engagement.

And lastly, tests are based on ranked data. This recoding of scores makes the data stronger as well as the differences between the scores which are not equal to the differences between the original data.

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5.5 Recommendations for further research Further research is needed to gain deeper insights in Snapchat and what Snapchat could mean for companies that want to connect with their customers. A researcher should collaborate with an organisation like L’Oréal to conduct a research specific to their Snapchat followers. This way more insights can be retrieved on the reasons why people follow a certain brand on Snapchat and what kind of customer engagement the followers have. Questions a beauty brand should ask their Snapchat followers are why they are following the brand on Snapchat, what they expect of brands on Snapchat and what the added value of Snapchat is for their engagement towards the brand.

Additionally, the three stories were not equal in duration as stated in the limitations. This could also be further researched; how the duration of content has effect on customer engagement of followers. Participants of the current study mentioned that the longer the story, the more negative the effect on their customer engagement . The length of a video has effect on peoples engagement and this could be an important factor on Snapchat. A survey could be conducted were one digital content type would be tested on customer engagement with stories of different length to test if the length of a story has effect on customer engagement.

Furthermore, it is necessary to conduct a study like the current one but with a larger sample and/or through the actual Snapchat app. A longitudinal research with a bigger sample should be able to provide more insights into the customer engagement of millennials on brand related content on Snapchat. It is interesting to see if change of attitude in time effects customer engagement on Snapchat.

To conclude this chapter, eventually things like a new social media platform create a need for people and that is what makes social media implications complicated. One does not know upfront how the impact of a new social media platform will be. Look at the use of smartphones, Facebook and Twitter. Who would have thought at the beginning of these innovations that they would become as important in peoples day to day life as they are to this date. Apple didn’t fill a need, they created it. Snapchat is still verily young and rising in popularity. It has the ability to grow and become a stronger social media platform, where new and unique opportunities for companies will emerge.

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Chapter 6 Conclusion Companies are using social media to connect with their customers on a more personal level. One of many reasons for the use of social media platform for companies is to increase customer engagement. There has been a lot of attention in the academic field on what type of content marketers should post on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram but limited research has been conducted on Snapchat.

The purpose of this research therefore was to explore if there was a significant difference in effect of different types of marketing content, supported by the existing literature, on customer engagement through social media platform Snapchat. The focus on the beauty branch was made because beauty brands are currently active on Snapchat with different content types but no research has been done until now on the effect of these activities.

Through the use of a survey with an experimental design digital marketing content was manipulated and the level of customer engagement was measured.

The answer on the research question “What is the effect of different brand related content types on customer engagement for beauty brands on Snapchat?” is that content including remuneration positively effects cognitive processing and the intention to buy of millennials on Snapchat for beauty brands. Content including entertainment positively effects millennials affection towards the brand. Information based content has been shown to not have an effect on customer engagement. These results are not completely in line with existing literature and academic studies on the subject of customer engagement on social media based on the ‘Uses and Gratification Theory’. According to previous studies based on the UGT framework, entertainment based content should have scored the highest on customer engagement, followed up by information based content and content including remuneration should have scored the lowest on customer engagement. In this study customer engagement has been measured on three dimensions; cognitive processing, affection and intention to buy. The results show that entertainment content on Snapchat only scores positively on one construct, namely affection. Reason for this could be that entertainment influences peoples attitude rather than their behaviour. Remuneration content on Snapchat scores positively on two dimensions, namely cognitive processing and intention to buy. It was not expected according to the existing literature that remuneration would score high on customer engagement. Reasons for the current findings are that the target group exists of millennials, mostly students, who are budget restricted and could be sensitive to promotions.

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Information based content had no significant effect on customer engagement in the current study, probably due to the specific characteristics of Snapchat that are not attended to provide product information.

Hence, according to the results of this study the type of content beauty brands should share on Snapchat, includes remuneration when the purpose is to increase purchase intention and cognitive processing of millennials. The content should include entertainment when the company wants to increase the affection of millennials towards their brand. However, a combination of the two types of digital content will cover all dimensions of customer engagement and could provide a valuable and effective marketing proposition. Companies should investigate and explore which other social media platform, in addition to Snapchat, increases customer engagement on all three dimensions through information based content.

The UGT framework is used in the academic literature for understanding peoples motivation to engage on social media platforms but the results of those studies are not fully supported by the current findings for social media platform Snapchat. Further development of social media, and the need to be more specific and unique, requires an expansion of theoretical models to explain the specific effects of different social media. It is not possible to generalise theories for all social media due to the development and creations of new, upcoming social media platforms.

The insights of this study support the need for further expansion of theories in relation to the impact of digital content types and customer engagement. Further research is needed to gain deeper insights in Snapchat and what Snapchat could mean for companies that want to connect with their customers. Researchers interested in this topic should collaborate with a beauty brand like L’Oréal to conduct a research specific to their Snapchat followers. In collaboration with an existing brand researchers can retrieve more insights in reasons why people follow the brand on Snapchat and what kind of customer engagement the followers have.

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Appendices Appendix A: The seven building blocks of Snapchat Block 1; Identity

“The identity functional block represents the extent to which users reveal their identities in a social media setting” (Kietzmann et al., 2011, p. 243). A Snapchat account can be created on the base of a phone number, because it is a mobile only social media platform, and an e-mail account. A user can come up with a name that is not being used already. This can be your real name, or a nickname. You also have to insert your date of birth. (Landis, 2016).

Nobody can see your e-mail, phone number or age, only your username. Also, nobody can see each other’s activities; who are you friends with and with who you are interacting. Users don’t have a public profile, the only way they can find other people and connect with them is by their username or phone number. If you know your friends username you can insert that in Snapchat and add your friend or you can add friends trough the contacts on your phone. You can personalize settings and choose if you want to accept a friend or if everybody can just add you.

In essence, privacy is a big unique asset of Snapchat due to the fact you don’t have a public profile and people can only add you if they know your username or phone number. This is unique for Snapchat, no other social media platform offers this to users. For example, on Facebook and Instagram other people can see your profile including your activities and the people you are friends with.

Furthermore, by first having to acquire the name of the person or brand you want to follow and then have to manually insert that name to search for it and ‘friend’ the account, engagement is already taken place.

Block 2; Conversations

“The conversations block of the framework represents the extent to which users communicate with other users in a social media setting” (Kietzmann et al., 2011, p. 244). As a user you can make a picture or video and send that to your individual friends. They can see your content for a maximum of then seconds and then the content is deleted. Your friend can make a screenshot and your content will be automatically saved on the phone of your friend but you do get a notification that that specific friend took a screenshot. Snapchat also provides a feature whereby every day you have a onetime option to revisit a picture or video of a friend. You can also make a picture or video and add it to your story.

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This way all your friends will be able to click on your content in their story feed which chronologically shows all the stories of all your friends. The content you have shared can be watched as many times as wanted but will be deleted in 24 hours. You are not able to receive content, save it and share it again with your own friends. Furthermore, you can chat with your friends and just as with the pictures and videos, the chats will be deleted whenever you go out of the chat. You cannot chat with multiple people in one chat. You are able to save your snapchat content on your ‘memories’ which enables you to share the same content another time.

The engagement level is high due to the way of conversation. You have to touch your screen and hold it to be able to see the photo or video your received. Also, because the photo will be deleted after a maximum of then seconds, you will be more engaged to look at the received content (Stringer, 2014).

This way of conversation is significantly different from other social media platforms. Conversations that are posted on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter are much harder to delete, because a lot of people have access to the content and are able to save it. People are more involved in conversations on Facebook and there is easy access to give your opinion or to see what other people have commented in comparison to Snapchat where your activities are not traceable. “Snapchat constraints the act of sharing to a single event with no specific affordances for aggregated social feedback (such as “likes” on Facebook or “favourites” on Twitter)” (Bayer et al, 2016, p. 959).

“I’m not on Snapchat to announce my awesomeness (as I do on Facebook or Instagram); to share pithy, witty sentiments or adulation for celebrities (as I do on Twitter); to find kindred spirits united by common interest in assembling, knitting, scrapbooking, baking, or barn building (as I do on Pinterest); or to develop a professional network (as I do on LinkedIn). In my sweet spot, I connect with acquaintances in an inclusive, relatable, pleasant, and sometimes empowering environment” (Sashittal et al, 2016).

Block 3; Sharing

“Sharing represents the extent to which users exchange, distribute, and receive content” (Kietzmann et al., 2011, p. 245). People share day to day, personal and real time content with their close friends. A picture of their lunch or a video singing to the new Beyoncé is commonly shared on Snapchat.

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“Users compare Snapchat to face-to-face interaction and reported attending to Snapchat content more closely than archives content”(Bayer et al, 2016, p. 956).

People see it as a more authentic mirror of the reality in comparison to Instagram where content is heavily edited and the content is often not real time. (Volkskrant, 2017). Content is shared on Snapchat freely because you can hardly get any negative feedback. Knowing that the content will be deleted and could never be used against you makes people feel safe on this platform (Sashittal et al, 2016).

Due to the limited time content can be shared and the fact that the content will be deleted differentiates the content shared on Snapchat from other social media platforms. People share more intimate, funny, honest and emotional content than on Facebook or Twitter (Boyd, 2014).

On Snapchat, people choose who they want follow and want to see content from. In his guide to Snapchat Landis (2016) gives a clear example of the difference between Twitter and Facebook and Snapchat: “Think about this for a second: When you post a tweet to your 10,000 follower twitter profile, maybe a couple thousand of them are online at any given time – if you’re lucky. Of those, how many aren’t in messages, having conversations with others, or searching trending hashtags, so that their attention is actually completely removed from the stream where your message will be displayed? A few hundred? It gets worse: How many people who see your tweet actually read your tweet, rather than just scrolling past it? This kind of attention chop down means that, regardless of what analytics tell you about your ‘impressions’, your actual engagement and those who take in your message are very few compared to what you might expect from at-a-glance broad reach numbers. On Facebook, your posts aren’t even served up to everyone who follows you anymore because Facebook recognizes just how much content is scrolling past everyone’s feed” (Landis, 2016, introduction).

Block 4; Presence

“The framework building block presence represents the extent to which users can know it other users are accessible” (Kietzmann et al., 2011, p. 245). Snapchat doesn’t show if your friends are currently on the app or not. Snapchat does have a location based filter, which users can add over their picture or video.

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For example, you are on holiday in Frankfurt, then Snapchat provides you a filter you can add to your content, showing a Frankfurt sign. Due to the fact Snapchat is real time, you can share your location with your friends.

On the chat feature of Snapchat you can see if the person you are chatting to is immediately reading your chat or not.

Block 5; Relationships

“The relationships block represents the extent to which users can be related to other users” (Kietzmann et al., 2011, p. 246). The only way two users have a form of association that leads them to converse is the phone number. Snapchat has the ability to use the contact list of your phone and this provides users the ability to add friends based on their phone number.

Followers are not able to see other followers of a person or brand, there are no likes, comments, and the messages are personal. Via other social media platforms you can find people through these kind of activities, but Snapchat doesn’t offer this feature.

Block 6; Reputation

“Reputation is the extent to which users can identify the standing of others, including themselves, in a social media setting” (Kietzmann et al., 2011, p. 247). Snapchat is private and therefore there are not features for public likes, comments or favourites. Kan (2016) states that a lot of social and psychological friction comes from other services that aren’t happening on Snapchat due to this difference in privacy. On Snapchat, the content doesn’t have to be the best of the best, and it doesn’t have to fit in your feed because your content will disappear anyways and there are no public view counts or other measuring types like follower and like counts. (Ingram, 2016).

Block 7; Groups

“The groups functional block represents the extent wo which users can form communities and sub communities” (Kietzmann et al., 2011, p. 247). Due to the fact that Snapchat is so private, there is not really place for groups. The only way this can be seen is as a one-way group. For example, a user shares content on the story feature of Snapchat. Then you send your content to a group, namely all your friends on Snapchat. For a company this is the same. It can share content trough the story feature to everybody that is friends with the company on Snapchat. But there is no ability to interaction with a group, only one to one.

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A brand can create a brand community but only the brand can reach the whole community and the ‘friends’ can share content with the brand but not with other people in the community. Nobody knows who else and how much are in the community.

Basically, only the brand can generate content in the brand community but the customers can generate content in response on that content to the brand.

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Appendix B: Examples of Snapchat stories created Example 1; part of condition 1

Step 1. Screen recording of a Snapchat story of Essence Cosmetics.

Step 2. Removing the name and logo of Essence Cosmetics on the product and removing the Snapchat name.

Step 3. Adding the fictive brand name, Jolie Paris, to the Snapchat story.

Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Example 2; part of condition 2

Step 1: Screen recording of the Snapchat story of MAC Cosmetics.

Step 2: Removing the Snapchat name and adding the fictive brand name, Jolie Paris.

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Step 1 Step 2

Example 3; part of condition 1

Step 1: Screen recording a Snapchat story from MAC Cosmetics.

Step 2: Recreating the story of MAC on researcher’s private Snapchat account.

Step 3: Removing the Snapchat name and adding Jolie Paris.

Step 1 Step 2 Step 3

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Appendix C: Experimental survey Introduction

Hi,

First of all a big thank you for helping me with my master thesis. This survey will help me understand the relationship between Snapchat and Customer Engagement.

This survey is only relevant for people who value beauty and/or use make-up in their day to day life and have Snapchat. If this doesn't apply for you then please don't fill out the survey because the data will not be valuable for this particular study.

You will be provided with three different Snapchat stories of a beauty brand called Jolie Paris. After every story you will be asked to rate your level of customer engagement level towards the brand through ten different statements. The survey takes approximately 5 minutes to complete.

The beauty brand Jolie Paris is a fictive brand. When you're filling out the questions about Jolie Paris, please see it as a brand you know and you already have some level of customer engagement towards. See it as one of the beauty brands you are using in your day to day life at this moment.

Please answer the questions honestly and read the statements carefully. Your response will be collected anonymously and treated confidentially. Thank you in advance for the time you dedicate to help me with my research. For any questions or feedback, feel free to contact me by e-mail. My e-mail address is [email protected]

Pien Click the next button to start the survey!

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Demographic questions What is your gender? o Male o Female What is your age? o Under 12 years old o 12-17 o 18-24 o 25-34 o 35-44 o 45-54 o 55-64 o 65 or older What is the highest degree or level of school you have completed? o Less than high school o High school graduate o Some college credit, no degree o Bachelor’s degree o Master’s degree o Professional degree o Doctorate degree Link to the Snapchat story Please click the link below and watch the Snapchat story of Jolie Paris. After watching the Snapchat story, please return to the survey. https://josienuittenbogaar.wixsite.com/mijnsite/snapchat-story-1 Screenshot 1: Website Snapchat story 1 (condition 1)

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Screenshot 2: Website Snapchat story 2 (condition 2)

Screenshot 3: Website Snapchat story 3 (condition 3)

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Customer engagement scale measuring cognitive processing Please rate your level of customer engagement towards Jolie Paris after seeing the Snapchat story based on the following statements:

Strongly Disagree Somewhat Neither Somewhat Agree Strong disagree disagree agree nor agree ly disagree agree Looking at o o o o o o o the stories of Jolie Paris on Snapchat gets me to think about Jolie Paris. I think o o o o o o o about Jolie Paris a lot when I’m looking at the stories on Snapchat. Seeing the o o o o o o o stories of Jolie Paris on Snapchat stimulates my interest to learn more about Jolie Paris. I feel very o o o o o o o positive when I look at the stories of Jolie Paris on Snapchat. Looking at o o o o o o o the stories of Jolie Paris on Snapchat makes me happy. I feel good o o o o o o o when I look at the stories of Jolie Paris

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on Snapchat. I’m proud o o o o o o o when I look at the stories of Jolie Paris on Snapchat. After o o o o o o o seeing this kind of story on Snapchat I would be willing to buy items from Jolie Paris at the store. After o o o o o o o seeing this kind of story I would recommend Jolie Paris to friends or relatives. After o o o o o o o seeing this kind of story I would not expect any problems with items from Jolie Paris.

Outro of survey We thank you for your time spent taking this survey. Your response has been recorded.

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Appendix D: Snapchat stories Jolie Paris Screenshots condition 1. Parts of the information story in order of appearance:

Screenshots condition 2. Parts of the entertainment story in order of appearance:

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Screenshots condition 3. Parts of the remuneration story in order of appearance:

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Appendix E: SPSS Data Output List of Output Tables

Table 1: Descriptive statistics of dependent variables for condition 1

Table 2: Descriptive statistics of dependent variables for condition 2

Table 3: Descriptive statistics of dependent variables for condition 3

Table 4: Overview of descriptive statistics of dependent variables all conditions

Table 5: Reliability of cognitive processing (Scale)

Table 6: Reliability of affection (Scale)

Table 7: Reliability of intention to buy (Scale)

Table 8: Normality of customer engagement

Table 9: Normality of cognitive processing, affection and intention to buy

Table 10: Descriptives of condition 1 for cognitive processing, affection and intention to buy

Table 11: Descriptives of condition 2 for cognitive processing, affection and intention to buy

Table 12: Descriptives of condition 3 for cognitive processing, affection and intention to buy

Table 13:Correlation matrix

Table 14: Mean scores of CP ranked

Table 15: Mean scores of A ranked

Table 16: Mean scores of ITB ranked

Table 17: Mean scores of the three variables unranked

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Table 1: Descriptive statistics of dependent variables for condition 1

Table 2: Descriptive statistics of dependent variables for condition 2

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Table 3: Descriptive statistics of dependent variables for condition 3

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Table 4: Overview of descriptive statistics dependent variables for all conditions

Experimental Condition 1; Condition 2; Condition 3; survey design Story 1 Information Story 2 Entertainment Story 3 Remuneration Mean Std. dev N Mean Std. dev N Mean Std. dev N

Cognitive 3,84 1,754 4,07 1,404 4,78 1,453 processing; item 1 Cognitive 3,1 1,515 3,27 1,590 3,62 1,549 processing; Item 2 Cognitive 3,5 1,854 3,45 1,486 4,27 1,578 processing; Item 3 Cognitive 3,48 1,5 50 3,599 1,244 44 4,22 1,22 63 processing overall (scale) Affection; 3,78 1,461 4,23 1,198 4,08 1,406 Item 1 Affection; 3,68 1,347 4,02 1,267 3,57 1,279 Item 2 Affection; 3,68 1,285 4 1,118 3,7 1,315 Item 3 Affection; 2,44 1,11 3,09 1,217 2,84 1,019 Item 4 Affection overall 3,395 1,117 50 3,83 0,934 44 3,548 1,082 63 (scale) Intention to buy; 3,38 1,627 3,68 0,899 4,32 1,424 Item 1 Intention to buy; 2,88 1,394 3,14 1,459 3,83 1,465 Item 2 Intention to buy; 3,54 1,46 4,34 1,374 3,78 1,570 Item 3 Intention to buy 3,267 1,23 50 3,72 1,107 44 3,974 1,275 63 overall (scale) Customer 3,382 1,154 50 3,73 0,899 44 3,878 1,029 63 engagement

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Table 5: Reliability of cognitive processing (Scale)

Table 6: Reliability of affection (Scale)

Table 7: Reliability of intention to buy (Scale)

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Table 8: Normality of customer engagement

Table 9: Normality of cognitive processing, affection and intention to buy

Table 10: Descriptives of condition 1 for cognitive processing, affection and intention to buy

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Table 11: Descriptives of condition 2 for cognitive processing, affection and intention to buy

Table 12: Descriptives of condition 3 for cognitive processing, affection and intention to buy

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Table 13:Correlation matrix

Table 14: Mean scores of CP ranked

Table 15: Mean scores of A ranked

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Table 16: Mean scores of ITB ranked

Table 17: Mean scores of the three variables unranked

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