Flourishing digital content marketing communication : engaging consumers with attractiveness, benevolence, and cogency

Abstract

Digital content marketing (DCM) arises from the need to connect with information-overloaded, advertising-reluctant customers and prospects. DCM is primarily about engagement and becoming meaningful by making a difference in a consumers’ life. This dissertation scrutinizes DCM as an authenticity-based communication activity by focusing on three perspectives: 1) a pull marketing orientation, 2) helpfulness, and 3) transparency. To explore the roles of the first two DCM elements, empirical data are gathered using online surveys among DCM consumers, and the data are analyzed using structural equations modeling. The role of a brand’s transparency is approached through practitioner interviews and utilizing thematic analysis. The roles of these elements are supported by the dissertation findings as follows. High attraction is shown to encourage consumers’ favorable brand-related meaning making through the frequent interaction mechanism. For less attracted consumers, the mechanism is exposure-based affect transfer from the content to the brand. This indicates that highly attracted consumers invest more in brand-related processing, which implies increased brand engagement. Brand engagement is shown to be a necessity for converting brand-related DCM perceptions into relationship value. To aid favorable brand engagement, authenticity, and trust, this dissertation reveals the potential of several helpful and transparent communicative brand actions in DCM and ends up redefining DCM from the communicative perspective. Based on the results, attraction, benevolence, and cogency are suggested to form the basis for DCM engagement and authentic relationship building through DCM. Attractiveness arises from DCM that consistently resonates with the audience’s needs and wants. Benevolence arises from DCM that signals a genuine intent to act for the benefit of the audience. Cogency arises from signals, which foster con-sumer topical understanding and the authentic authority-position of the brand. This dissertation concludes that, when brands act on these principles, different brand-originated digital content creation forms (including native advertising) can potentially represent the true DCM ideology.