Brand Evangelism through Social Media Platform Identification and Customer Engagement in Fashion Clothing Brands
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54938/ijemdss.2026.05.3.781Keywords:
Brand evangelism, Social identity theory, Social media platform identification, Customer engagement, Brand affinity, Fashion clothing brands, PLS-SEMAbstract
Brand evangelism, which consists of consumers’ voluntary promotion and defense of a brand, has emerged as an important but highly fragmented outcome in fashion marketing studies, where researchers tend to consider brand-level engagement or loyalty as end outcomes without considering their identity origin. Drawing on Social Identity Theory, this study examines the effect of cognitive social media platform identification on brand evangelism among fashion clothing brand followers, with customer engagement as mediator. Data collected from social media followers of fashion clothing brands were analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings show that SMPI significantly enhances customer engagement, while customer engagement strongly predicts brand evangelism. However, SMPI has no significant direct effect on brand evangelism, confirming the indirect-only mediating role of intervening mechanisms. The findings position brand evangelism as a progressive process in which platform identification develops into engagement and brand affinity, ultimately fostering consumer advocacy. The study extends Social Identity Theory to the digital fashion context and offers practical insights for cultivating sustainable brand evangelism.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Tehreem Ali, Muhammad Amin
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