From Brand Evangelism to Advocacy: Does Conspicuous Consumption Bridge the Gap and Cynicism Break It?

Abstract

Understanding how brand evangelism converts into customer advocacy and the conditions under which this conversion succeeds or fails represents a vital issue when it comes to e-commerce brand management. This paper explores the process by which Brand Evangelism (BE) creates Customer Advocacy (CA) of e-commerce brand users with Conspicuous Consumption (CC) as a mediating behavioural pathway and Consumer Cynicism (CYN) as a moderating boundary condition. Grounded in Social Exchange Theory (Blau, 1964) and Self-Congruity Theory (Sirgy, 1982), the model was empirically validated using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS SEM) with data collected from 503 Pakistani users of e-commerce brands. Results confirm that brand evangelism directly influences customer advocacy, and this relationship is significantly mediated by conspicuous consumption. This indicates that evangelistic consumers first channel their brand passion into visible brand display before converting it into advocacy behaviour. On the other hand, consumer cynicism significantly moderates the relationship between brand evangelism and customer advocacy, substantially weakening this effect when cynicism is high. These results contribute to theoretical knowledge of the behavioural processes of brand evangelism and provide practical implications for e-commerce practitioners aiming to develop genuine brand evangelism.