Ladder of Engagement
Marketing in general is defined as “the process of engaging customers and managing profitable customer relationships” (Kotler et al., 2019 p.5). However, since the world is embracing a new digital era, the concept of marketing must also undergo the adaptation to portrait the importance of digital essence. As a result, The Ladder of Engagement is a digital model that is designed to illustrated how customers can drive business through customer engagement in the current social media culture (Chaffey and Smith, 2017). The aim is to move customers up the ladder to generate sustainable competitive advantage since the customer tend to create higher level of brand loyalty and engagement toward the brand that they are established strong relationship with (Chaffey and Smith, 2013). The initial step of engagement started from the lower part of the ladder where customers are encouraged to engage the brand through product rating, reviews, and discussion, this stage involved a low-level of customer engagement (Smith and Zook, 2019). At the higher-end of ladder, customer is engaged in the higher-level form of user-generated content (UGC) which allows customer to co-create product, process and communication content of the brand (Chaffey and Smith, 2017).
Figure 1.1 The Ladder of Engagement (Chaffey and Smith, 2017)
The brand
Walkers, a British snack food manufacturer founded in 1948 by Henry Walker (Walkers, 2022), can be used as an excellent example of the brand that have successfully implemented the Ladder of Engagement model.
Ratings
At the first customer engaging step, customer is encouraged to spend a few seconds to participate in the product rating (Chaffey and Smith, 2017). For Walkers crisp, the product rating can be seen on various online platforms of the brand’s market intermediaries. Often the results of product rating are indicated in term of 1 to 5 star (Sainsbury’s, 2022).
Figure 1.2 Walkers crisp's product rating (Sainsbury's, 2022).
Reviews
The next engagement step for the customer is to write a product review. According to the research conducted by Hong et al. (2022), customer shows positive attitude toward the brand or product while engaging with customer’s storytelling. This principle can be applied to the product reviews. Furthermore, earned media (reviews and recommendations) are proved to be more effective in influencing customer purchase decision (Chaffey and Smith, 2017). Therefore, this step involved higher level of customer engagement than simply rating since it included the customer’s opinion and attitude toward that particular product or brand.
Figure 1.3 Walkers review (Trustpilot. 2022)
Products
The top-end of the ladder is called product. It is the highest form of engagement where collaborative co-creation between the customer and the brand is established to create a product that they subsequently buy (Chaffey and Smith, 2017). At this stage, customer tend to developed high level of brand royalty and become brand advocate since they are involved in the product design process. However, according to Dr. Jakob Nielson (2007), all online communities are subjected to the 90-9-1 rule. It suggested that only 1% of all customer will reach the top-end of the Ladder of Engagement. Walkers have introduced a campaign called “Do us a flavour”, where customer are asked to invent a crisp flavour. Over 1.2 million people participated in the campaign and the six finalists will be selected and put on sale in the coming year (Campaignlive, 2009).
Figure 1.4 Walkers "Do us a flavours" campaign (Campaignlive, 2009)
