Research on the Brand Competitiveness Empowerment Path of Tencent's Silver-haired Service ESG Practices Driven by the Emotional Consumption of the Silver-haired Group in the Digital Era

Abstract

Against the dual background of a moderately aging society and digital consumption transformation, the consumption of the silver-haired group has shifted from function-oriented to emotion-oriented. Security anxiety, dignity pursuit, emotional loneliness, and communication barriers have become core emotional demands. Existing research insufficiently reveals the integrated mechanism among the silver-haired group’s emotional consumption, ESG social dimension practices, and brand competitiveness, making it difficult to explain the value transformation logic of technology enterprises’ silver-haired services. Taking Tencent's silver-haired service as a single case, this paper systematically analyzes the characteristics of the silver-haired group’s emotional consumption, the ESG practice system, and the competitiveness empowerment path by adopting literature research, exploratory case study, and grounded theory methods, based on stakeholder theory, social exchange theory, and signaling theory. The findings show that: (1) The emotional consumption of the silver-haired group centers on security, respect, companionship, and smooth communication, characterized by emotion priority, low trial-and-error tolerance, high intergenerational transmission, and strong trust dependence; (2) Tencent has formed an ESG practice system responding to the emotional needs of the silver-haired group with the senior care exclusive hotline, AI invisible caregiver, silver-aged service base, and product-wide aging-friendly adaptation as the core; (3) Tencent's silver-haired service ESG practices transform into brand competitiveness through three paths: trust empowerment, word-of-mouth empowerment, and reputation empowerment; (4) Silver-haired ESG practices can achieve synergy between social responsibility and market benefits. This paper expands the theoretical boundary of emotional consumption, enriches the research on ESG value transformation mechanism, and provides a reference for technology enterprises to layout aging-friendly services and build brand competitiveness.