Sophisticated vs. Rugged: Examining Gendered Brand Communication Styles and Social Media Engagement

Abstract

Advertising and marketing managers understand that not all brands need to be on social media, but what is not clearly understood is consumers’ engagement expectations for brands that are on social media. Therefore, this study investigates the impact of brand personality, specifically sophisticated and rugged brands, and gendered communication styles on consumers’ expectations of social media engagement. A scenario-based experiment is performed to test the hypotheses using a mock brand. The main study consisted of a Qualtrics consumer panel, and a MANOVA was utilized to examine three components of social media engagement (consumption, contribution, and creation) on the two brand personality dimensions. Results suggest that not all brands are expected to be as engaging on social media. Specifically, consumers expect higher levels of engagement with sophisticated brands (feminine traits) compared to rugged brands (masculine traits).

Keywords

• brand personality
• sophistication
• ruggedness
• social media
• engagement
• consumer-brand relationship
• gendered communication styles