The Impact of Consumer-Based Brand Equity on Word-of-Mouth Behavior

Abstract

This study aims to fulfill two theoretical gaps; proposing an integrated model that consists of components and consequence of brand equity. We first categorize brand equity in four principal and different perspectives that have been addressed by academics: firm, consumer, integrated, and internal perspective. Second we theorize consumerbased brand equity as four continuum dimensions (i.e. awareness, perceived quality, social image, emotional attachment) as sources which could generate a positive consumer behavior responses (i.e. Word Of Mouth behavior). A survey method was conducted to assess the predictive ability of CBBE sources. The result shows that brand awareness, perceived quality, social brand image, and brand emotional attachment all together constitute a value added by the brand to the product, and all dimensions contribute positively and significantly to WOM behavior as expected.

Brand awareness, word-of-mouth and willingness-to-pay (WTP) high price

“…It was revealed that awareness positively impacts word-of-mouth referrals of customers. This result is in agreement with previous investigations (Sofiane, 2019;Liao et al, 2012), suggesting that brand awareness positively impacts word-of-mouth referrals. This implies that consumers recommend and encourage others to patronise a brand of which they are well-known.…”

“…More so, consumers' brand awareness generates a sense of familiarity and serves as an indicator of substance and loyalty (Aaker, 1991). Studies have also revealed that brand awareness positively affects brand image (Oppong et al, 2020;Mulyono, 2016), word-of-mouth (Sofiane, 2019;Liao et al, 2012) and WTP a high price (Utami & Jannah, 2019;Anselmsson et al, 2014;Monavvarian et al, 2015).…”

“…Research revealed that favourable WOM provides recipients relief, excitement, confidence, hopeful, and ultimately, enhances their perceptions about a firm and its products (Sweeney, Soutar & Mazzarol, 2008). Likewise, studies also found that positive WOM has a significant impact on customers' WTP a high price (Nieto-García et al, 2017;Xu et al, 2020;Fazin et al, 2021), and in turn, wordof-mouth is positively influenced by brand awareness (Sofiane, 2019;Liao et al, 2012) and brand image (Ismail & Spinelli, 2012;Sharma & Nagpal, 2017).…”

“…Responding to the growing needs of Ghanaians for herbal remedies, the number of firms in the industry has increased tremendously, giving rise to keen rivalry and hence, low-profit margins. Empirical evidence demonstrates that strong brand awareness (Sofiane, 2019;Utami & Jannah, 2019) and image (Sharma & Nagpal, 2017;Yodpram & Intalar, 2020) enhance customers` favourable word-of-mouth referrals and their intentions to pay more for the brands which can increase market share and hence, profitability. Extant literature also indicates that close to 67% of a consumer's decision to buy a product is affected by wordof-mouth referrals, which can impact a firm`s growth (Mothersbaugh & Hawkins, 2016).…”

“…The importance of brand awareness to brand image (e. g., Mulyono, 2016;Oppong, Yeboah & Gyawu, 2020), word-of-mouth (Liao, Wu, Widowati & Chen, 2012;Sofiane, 2019) and WTP a high price (Anselmsson, Bondesson & Johansson, 2014;Utami & Jannah, 2019) has received attention in the brand management literature. Again, the role of brand image in building word-of-mouth (Ismail & Spinelli, 2012;Sharma & Nagpal, 2017) and WTP a high price (Monavvarian, Asgari & Hoseinabadi, 2015;Yodpram & Intalar, 2020), and in turn, the influence of word-of-mouth on WTP a high price (Xu, Niu, Li & Bai, 2020;Farzin, Abbassalikosh, Sadeghi…”