Sharing consumers’ brand storytelling: influence of consumers’ storytelling on brand attitude via emotions and cognitions

Purpose: Brand storytelling has been found to be an effective marketing tool. Unlike a brand story that originates from a firm, consumers’ brand storytelling is created, developed and shared by consumers. This research aims to examine whether consumers’ brand storytelling leads to increased favorable brand evaluations and compares its effects on consumer cognition and emotions, to a brand story generated by a firm. Design/methodology/approach: Three experiments were conducted to test the hypotheses. In Study 1, a 2 (story: consumers’ brand storytelling vs brand story by a firm) × 2 (product: coffee shop vs airline mileage programs) between-subjects design was used. Studies 2 and 3 replicated Study 1 and investigated different measurements of the constructs using different brands. Additionally, a mediation analysis was conducted. Findings: The results show that consumers’ brand storytelling increases favorable brand attitudes. Consumers present deeper cognitive processing and higher experienced positive emotions when they read consumer brand storytelling as compared to a firm-created brand story, leading to a more favorable brand attitude. Originality/value: There is a lack of empirical research investigating how consumers’ brand storytelling is different from brand stories created by firms, and how consumers’ brand storytelling influences brand attitudes. This study extends the literature by clarifying how consumers respond to consumers’ brand storytelling and evaluates brands by exploring the underlying mechanism for the effect of brand storytelling via consumers’ cognitions and emotions.