(The Effect of Brand Evangelism on Purchasing Addiction, Intention to Purchase and Recommendation: The Case of Fan Products)

Abstract

Purpose – Brand evangelism is a more advanced form of Word of mouth marketing. If word of mouth marketing is a framework for marketing communication, brand evangelism is a spirit. In brand evangelism; the consumer is acting as the defender, ambassador and lawyer of the brand and he/she is a great fan or a great lover of the brand. Studies conducted on the brand evangelism in Turkey is quite limited and is therefore still open to development. Design/methodology/approach – With this study, it is aimed to contribute to the literature on brand evangelism. For this purpose, eFANgelism scale was used in the study and thus the effect of brand evangelism on purchasing addiction, intention to purchase and brand recommendation was tried to be determined. In this respect, a questionnaire was conducted with 614 participants using "convenience sampling method" and tested in SPSS 25. Findings – The findings show that; brand evangelism has an impact on on purchasing addiction, intention to purchase and recommendation. Therefore, what marketing experts need to do is to create a community of evangelist consumers. Discussion – Marketing managers should see Evangelism Marketing as part of their marketing strategy. Evangelist consumers can play a critical role in the business's acquisition of new customers and increase the sales of the brand. Because brand evangelists run the embassy of the brand without any interest, which can be effective in convincing potential customers.