Defining, and understanding commitment to, activity streaks

To encourage and facilitate consumer engagement, marketers may incorporate streaks into their social media platforms, apps, loyalty programs, and other marketing tools. To build an understanding of the phenomenon, the current research examines activity streaks. With a theories-in-use approach, we first define an activity streak. We then differentiate activity streaks from other forms of patterned behavior, including winning and lucky streaks, habits, and collections. With survey, experimental, and field data, we investigate factors that impact one’s commitment to an activity streak. We find that streak commitment is a positive function of individual differences, including the activity’s identity relevance to the actor, beliefs about self-improvement resulting from the activity, and the actor’s personal need for structure, and marketer-controlled elements, including structuring the streak as a daily (versus cumulative) task, presenting the streak as a short-term (versus indefinite) goal, and allowing the actor to keep the streak private (versus sharing with others). These findings lead to a deeper understanding of streaks, provide practical implications for marketers, and highlight opportunities for future research.