You absolutely (don’t) need this!examining differences on customer engagement components for (anti)haul youtubers’ videos

Purpose: This study aims to focus on the content published by social media influencers – i.e. YouTubers – on their YouTube channels. The main purpose of this research is to analyse whether anti-consumption-framed content (anti-hauls) generates more views, more dislikes (and less dislikes) and more comments, as customer engagement components, than pro-consumption-framed content (hauls). Design/methodology/approach: Based on 160 videos published on YouTube by 80 influencers on their respective channels, this study mainly analyses whether there are differences between anti-consumption and pro-consumption content in the various elements that constitute customer engagement (i.e. number of views, likes, dislikes and comments). Findings: Results indicate that there are differences between anti-consumption and pro-consumption content in terms of total number of views, likes, dislikes and comments. All these customer engagement components are higher for anti-consumption-framed videos, which offers interesting implications for both theory and practice. Originality/value: This study extends previous literature by accounting content published by social media influencers on their social media accounts, instead of analysing the most traditionally studied content that is published by brands on their own social media; and classifying this content as anti/pro-consumption rather than using the traditional dichotomy between transactional/emotional content. Brands should pay special attention to the content generated by social media influencers because it is a powerful form of electronic word-of-mouth that currently plays a significant role in customers’ (non)purchase decisions.