Purpose
This study aims to answer an important question of how brand-related communications, including advertising and sales promotion contents, which are disseminated on social media platforms, can enhance positive brand image and evoke favourable behavioural intention from consumers.
Design/methodology/approach
This study surveys 615 consumers of automotive brands across Malaysia. The data were analysed with AMOS, which was used to specify both the measurement and structural models. The mediating effect of both hedonic and functional brand images was tested using the bootstrapping approach in AMOS and Sobel test.
Findings
The findings reported in this research demonstrate that there are positive and significant relationships between social media advertising content, social media sales promotion content, hedonic brand image, functional brand image and behavioural intention. Both hedonic and functional brand images have significant mediating effects on social media advertising content, social media sales promotion content and behavioural intention. However, the relationship between social media advertising content and behavioural intention is insignificant.
Practical implications
This paper proffers insights to brand managers and marketers on how to leverage on social media contents by unearthing the roles of traditional marketing communications such as social media advertising and promotional information in enhancing brand preference and improving consumers’ purchase intention.
Originality/value
This research advances the discussions in the realm of social media communications and branding by examining the mediating effects of both hedonic and functional brand images of automotive brands. In addition, this study focuses on two essential marketing communications, advertising and sales promotions, which are commonly disseminated by brand managers on social media platforms.
Achieving brand equity are top priorities for many organizations because brand is one of the most prized assets of any organization. As such, the academia continues to exert considerable efforts on understanding the factors that influence the development of brand equity. For instance, previous studies have demonstrated that social media communication has significant impact on Consumer-Based Brand Equity (CBBE), however, researchers have not really focused on the relationships of several types of marketing communications anchored by different social media platforms for brand equity. As such, the objective of this study is to examine the relationships between the social media marketing communications, specifically, user-generated type (Social Media Word-of-Mouth) and firm created types (Social Media Advertising, Social Media Promotion and Social Media Interactive Marketing); and the CBBE of automotive brands in Malaysia. Subsequently, 800 samples were selected through cluster samplings from five cities in five geographical regions across Malaysia. Survey questionnaires were administered to users of four types of automotive brands, namely; PROTON, PERODUA, TOYOTA and HONDA. The data collected was analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlation and multiple regressions in SPSS 22. The findings revealed that, the selected automotive brands have notable presence on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter. Furthermore, it was found that, social media advertising, social media promotions and social media word-of-mouth have positive relationships with the CBBE of automotive brands. However, social media interactive marketing has an insignificant role in the CBBE. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed in this paper.
<p class="Default"><em>Going by the proposition of the Uses and Gratifications Theory (UGT), people are motivated to use media by various psychological factors and for obtaining different forms of gratifications. However, as social media continue to play an essential role in shaping the sociability and bridging social connectivity and interactions among its users, therefore, this study seeks to incorporate social influence and social interactions as the social gratification sought in social media utilization, as well as both bonding and bridging social capital as social gratification obtained from social media utilization. An online survey was conducted among 400 users of Instagram </em><em>in Nigeria. </em><em>The data analyzed with PLS-SEM revealed that social influence and social interaction significantly motivate social media utilization. Also, social media utilization is significantly associated with bonding and bridging social capital. Impliedly, this study shows that social media is a social and networking tool which is stimulated by social factors and for achieving social purposes such as getting help, support and community engagements.</em></p>
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.