How brand live streaming affects brand attachment in social commerce: from the perspective of IT affordances

ABSTRACT

While promoting the prosperity of China’s social commerce in recent years, celebrity live streaming has been criticized for not being conducive to establishing a strong emotional relationship between brands and consumers. Our study focuses on the non-celebrity live streaming held by brands, called brand live streaming. Our research regards brand live streaming as a new form of brand community. According to IT affordances, We construct a structural model to examine whether and how brand live streaming affects Chinese consumers’ brand attachment. We empirically test the model through the questionnaire distributed to brand live streaming viewers. Our results show that metavoicing affordance, guidance shopping affordance, and trading affordance positively affect consumers’ brand attachment, while visibility affordance does not affect consumers’ brand attachment. In addition, this paper also reveals that symbolic value and sense of community mediate the relationship between IT affordances and brand attachment in brand live streaming. Our study validates the importance of brand live streaming as a viable social commerce form and provides marketers with ways to build brand attachment.

Acknowledgments

The paper is supported by China Youth Foundation for Humanities and Social Science Research of the Ministry of Education under Grant No. 19YJC860040.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Summary Statement of Contribution

Through empirical research, this paper proves that brand live streaming is a viable social commerce form to maintain the long-term relationship between sellers and buyers. From the perspective of IT affordances, this paper also provides marketers with some valid ways to build brand attachment. In addition, this study provides four fundamental insights on live streaming in social commerce, thus contributing to the literature.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tian Wang

Tian Wang is an associate professor of communication at Beijing Jiaotong University. Her research focuses on media economics and Internet platform governance. She received her PhD in media economics from Renmin University of China.

Yanglu Wang

Yanglu Wang holds a master’s degree in journalism and communication from Beijing Jiaotong University. Her research focuses on the relationship between social media platforms and their users.

Yening Wen

Yening Wen holds a master’s degree from Beijing Normal University. Her research focuses on the area of risk communication. She completed her Bachelor’s degree in Communication from Beijing Jiaotong University.

Chenyue Wang

Chenyue Wang holds a master’s degree from South China University of Technology. Her research focuses on brand communication. She completed her Bachelor’s degree in Communication from Beijing Jiaotong University.