When Does Customer Empowerment Make a Difference? An Exploration of Consumer Response to Different types of Empowerment Campaign Announcements

Previous research indicates that customer empowerment, the integration of consumers into the decision-making mechanisms of a company, enhances consumers’ perceptions of the company. Three experiments reveal that this effect exists even when consumers are merely exposed to the empowerment campaign announcement. Moreover, the effect is stronger when companies use customer empowerment to design new products rather than to create slogans for the company, for specific product categories where empowerment campaigns are perceived to be new, and when the final consumption is less personally relevant for consumers. The results provide concrete advices for marketing practitioners on customer empowerment campaign planning.