Customer engagement has recently emerged in both academic literature and practitioner discussions as a brand loyalty predictor that may be superior to other traditional loyalty antecedents. However, empirical inquiry on customer engagement is relatively scarce. As tourism and hospitality firms have widely adopted customer engagement strategies for managing customer–brand relationships, further understanding of this concept is essential. Using structural equation modeling, this study investigates the linkages of customer engagement with traditional antecedents of brand loyalty. Results based on 496 hotel and airline customers suggest that customer engagement enhances customers’ service brand evaluation, brand trust, and brand loyalty. The results show that service brand loyalty can be strengthened not only through the service consumption experience but also through customer engagement beyond the service encounter. This study contributes to the literature by providing an empirical evaluation of the relationships between customer engagement and key brand loyalty development factors.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to present the first known empirically-tested model of Employee Based Brand Equity (EBBE). In doing so, it seeks to provide insight into how organisations can not only effectively manage the internal brand building-process but also, more importantly, appreciate the subsequent employee effects and organisational benefits. Design/methodology/approach -Data were collected via an online survey of 371 employees who work in service organisations, sourced from a market research database list. Findings -Strong support was found for nine out of the ten hypothesised relationships, thus providing strong validation for the proposed model. Research limitations/implications -The employment of surveys can present data collection problems stemming from such things as lack of willingness to participate on behalf of the respondent, loss of validity when using structured questionnaires, and inherent challenges of wording questions properly. However, in acknowledging these limitations, actions, such as the utilisation of a national database of "opt in" survey participants coupled with the good reliability results and the methodical four-stage survey design process undertaken, it is suggested that every effort was made to negate the limitations. Practical implications -Knowledge is gained from empirically validating a model of EBBE: it further enriches the application of traditional brand management techniques; provides a framework for brand communication training; increases organisational understanding of how to engender positive employee actions; and increases the accountability of such an internal investment by identifying measurable organisational benefits that accrue as a result of such efforts. Originality/value -The paper makes three important contributions: expanding the existing brand equity literature to incorporate a third yet equally relevant perspective, that being the employee; the adoption of a multi-disciplined approach to addressing a marketing issue and, in doing so, extending beyond the connectionist cognitive psychology view of brand equity to incorporate a contextual/organisation cultural element; and reflecting the perceptions of employees, who are currently under-represented in the internal brand management literature.

Although customer engagement (CE) has emerged as a widely used term in many industries, including tourism and hospitality, academic research lacks a clear conceptualization and rigorous measurement of the construct. This study develops and validates a 25-item CE scale that comprises five factors: identification, enthusiasm, attention, absorption, and interaction. The scale, developed from a survey of hotel and airline customers, demonstrated strong psychometric properties across multiple samples and showed CE to exert a positive significant influence on behavioral intention of loyalty for both hotel and airline customers. The scale offers a framework for future empirical research in this increasingly important area, and it provides a useful tool for tourism practitioners to collect insights into customer psychological and behavioral connections with their brands beyond the service consumption experience.

Despite academics and practitioners alike promoting the positive outcomes of employees being aware of the organization's brand in the context of their work environment, there appears to be no evidence thus far to understand the impact of such brand building efforts from an employee perspective. This article promotes that there is, in fact, a third perspective of brand equity, that being Employee Based Brand Equity (EBBE). In particular, a framework of EBBE dimensions is developed herein, thus representing a significant contribution to the marketing literature and holding strong relevance for service organizations around the globe. The benefits derived from such a framework and, thereby, delivering value to the organization are manifested in brand citizenship behaviors, employee satisfaction and intention to stay with the organization, as well as positive employee word of mouth. This article sets the scene for future research within this important, but neglected, research domain.