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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This paper aims to look at the effects of different levels of involvement (high and low) on social media (Facebook) users' engagement (likes, shares and comments) with different types and formats of brand content.

The authors analyzed user reactions to 1,156 Facebook posts from eight business-to-consumer brands (goods and services). Based on a post hoc test, four product/services were identified as belonging to the group of high-involvement and the other four as low involvement.

The data suggest that, when involvement is low, users in general engage more with brand posts regardless their format (text, image and post) or type (hedonic and informative), or even the interaction of both. Moreover, low involvement leads users prefer to comment on brand content, whereas higher involvement is associated with to sharing it. Exceptions were observed for images (both hedonic and informative) and for hedonic image and video in both low and high involvement users.

The goal was not to measure users’ attention to each type of post. Moreover, the authors did not have access to information regarding which devices were used to access the online content and whether that aspect might have an impact on users’ reactions. Neither do they claim that engagement necessarily reflects positive reactions, as any content analysis of users’ reactions was beyond the scope of this project.

These findings are expected to help brand managers and social media strategists to better select content based on their marketing goals, as well as to provide a potential explanation for the success of campaigns.

As far as we are aware, no previous study has attempted to observe the mediated effect of consumer involvement on brand posts considering their type and format. We also believe that this is the first observation of how behavior differentiates according to the target audience’s level of involvement. This paper also proposes a convenient framework for categorizing social network sites content. Suggestions for future research are made at the end.

Brand image is considered as a signaling phenomenon because high brand image ensures quality product that can reduce consumer’s uncertainty. A strong brand image induces consumers to pay higher prices, which in turn provides competitive advantage and market success to a company. Online reviews, blogs and texts on brand usage experiences are more effective than oral communication to build a strong brand image. Online reviews on products create distinct places for brands in the consumer’s mind, and thus ultimately affect images of the brands. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of online reviews on functional and hedonic brand images in the context of consumer electronic products in India.

The present study adopts a novel approach to collect data. The data have been collected from select e-commerce sites’ brand pages on Facebook through Google form application. A number of respondents are 1,038. Structural equation modeling technique has been used to examine the effects of online reviews on functional and hedonic brand images.

The data analysis reveals that source and review quality have more significant effect on credibility evaluation of online reviews as compared to the effects of review consistency and receiver. Moreover, credible online reviews have more impact on hedonic brand image rather than functional brand image in the context of consumer electronics product in India.

The present study combines Yale attitude change model and attribution theory to examine the effects of online reviews on brand image.

Despite the numerous works on multifaceted relationships between customers and brands, such relationships remain complex and poorly understood in retailing. This research analyses the direct effects of brand images (hedonic, symbolic and functional) on three specific relationship variables (brand trust, brand attachment and brand social identification). It also investigates their indirect effects on three types of loyalty (cognitive, affective and normative) in retailing.

This paper is based on quantitative research involving 417 respondents. It uses structural equation models to test relevant research hypotheses.

The results show that hedonic brand image affects brand attachment, while functional brand image influences brand trust. Symbolic brand image has similar effects on the three relationship variables (attachment, trust, identification). Moreover, the relationships between brand image dimensions and brand loyalty types are positively mediated by attachment, trust and brand identification. Therefore, the authors highlight a more complex process in customer–brand relationships than previously thought.

This article focusses on the cosmetic retail sector. It would be interesting to empirically test/extend the model in other industries/sectors. Future studies could also include brand attitude in their research model.

To strengthen affective loyalty, retail managers should focus on both hedonic image and brand attachment (e.g. emphasise the brand personality traits that refer to both affect and hedonism). To develop normative loyalty, they should improve symbolic brand image and facilitate customer brand identification.

This research provides a new three-dimensional model of customer relationships with brands to account for the dynamic nature of customer loyalty in retailing. It shows how three dimensions of brand image (hedonic, functional and symbolic) affect three types of loyalty (affective, cognitive and normative) through the mediation of three specific relationship variables (brand attachment, brand trust and brand identification).

This chapter sheds light on the ‘country of origin’ concept. The author contends that this concept is composed of micro- and macro-components. He argues that the tourists’ hedonic and monetary gratifications are derived from the travel experiences. Therefore, the country-of-origin image (COI) can have an impact on the destination’s brand extension. In this light, this contribution examines the relationship among COI, overall brand equity and brand extension. The author implies that the hedonic and monetary values can have a moderating effect on the impact of COI and on destination brand extension.

This paper aims to use utilitarian benefits, hedonic benefits and corporate social responsibility to influence the consumer’s sense of brand identity and brand trust in social enterprise products and, thus, favourably affect repurchase intention.

This study dispatched 430 questionnaires in Taiwan. The top six social enterprises in the organic food industry in Taiwan that accounted for 84.0% of total green organic stores and they were selected for field investigation. This study used structural equation modelling.

The main path indicates that corporate social responsibility has a largely positive effect going through brand identity and brand trust, and then affecting the decision to repurchase. Therefore, the image of` corporate social responsibility was the greatest driving force. The secondary path indicated that utilitarian benefits positively affected brand identity and brand trust, which, in turn, positively affected repurchase intention. Therefore, utilitarian benefits were the secondary driving force of repurchasing social enterprise products.

This study indicates that social enterprises need to carry out effective corporate social responsibility to create a sense of strong brand trust in consumers’ minds. Empirical results can benefit social marketers for their product launches and promotions. Social enterprises can realize consumer differentiation preferences. With the effective grasp the information of consumer perception, the social marketers can turn passive into active and catch the marketing opportunities by the brand identity and trust to the content of the marketing programs design.

The novelty of this study is to propose an identity-repurchase intention (IRI) model, based on consumer information processing lens and self-congruency theory, to investigate the social enterprise perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relative impact of brand communication on brand equity through social media as compared to traditional media. In a juxtaposition of different industries it aims at: investigating whether both communication instruments have an impact on consumer‐based brand equity; comparing the effect sizes of these two communication instruments; and separating the effects of firm‐created and user‐generated social media communication.

A total of 393 data sets from three different industries, namely tourism, telecommunications, and pharmaceuticals, were generated using a standardized online‐survey. Structural equation modeling was used in the analysis of the data obtained to investigate the interplay of social media and traditional media in general, as well as in an examination of industry‐specific differences.

The results of the empirical study show that both traditional communications and social media communications have a significant impact on brand equity. While traditional media has a stronger impact on brand awareness, social media communications strongly influence brand image. Firm‐created social media communication is shown to have an important impact on functional brand image, while user‐generated social media communication exerts a major influence on hedonic brand image. Furthermore, the present study highlights significant differences between the industries under investigation.

The research described in this paper is pioneering in that it juxtaposes the impacts of social media and traditional media on brand equity – a topic of increasing interest to firms in the era of Facebook and Twitter but so far largely uninvestigated. Moreover, the differentiation between firm‐created and user‐generated social media communication, which is gaining increasingly in importance, as companies see their brand marketing power devolve to the consumer through social media platforms, offers valuable insights to marketing practitioners and academics.

The purpose of current study aims to provide a different perspective on customer-based brand equity (CBBE) and integrate this with previous brand equity theory to contribute to the brand equity literature.

Proposed hypotheses were verified using structural equation modelling (SEM) with multiple datasets. Study 1 collected data from 574 foreign tourists and 624 domestic tourists of culinary tourism. Study 2 used 1,020 customers from anti-epidemic restaurants, and Study 3 investigated 464 hotel customers’ perceptions of customer-based brand equity.

Building on the mediation-moderation model, the present study posits that perceived quality relates to brand loyalty through brand image and brand awareness of using 2,682 participants. Specifically, we argue that this indirect relationship exhibits a difference moderated pattern in which motivation and hedonic function are most likely to benefit from revisit destinations for tourists when they are moderate. We further explored the new anti-epidemic concepts of COVID-19 and identified restaurant operation as an important moderator that influences customer image of restaurant revisit.

Until now, no tourism and hospitality studies have addressed these unsolved problems in an integrated manner. This study was to investigate the brand equity development process.

A comprehensive operational framework is proposed to explain young consumers’ (i.e. generations Y and Z) engagement with brands on social media sites (SMSs). This paper aims to synthesize two motivational theories: uses and gratifications (U&G) theory and the technology acceptance model (TAM).

A selective literature review was conducted to examine recent publications related to young consumers’ brand-driven engagement behavior on SMSs in which either TAM or U&G theory was applied. A three-stage method was used: an initial search was followed by vertical and horizontal searches and then a targeted search of scholarly publications. At each stage, the university’s library databases and Google Scholar were searched for relevant, mainly peer-reviewed articles, using appropriate filters and keywords. The articles’ references and the studies that cited those articles were added to the initially identified research pool (vertical search), coupled with publications of a similar nature based on keywords (horizontal search). The final stage, the targeted search, involved identifying and adding specific articles (e.g. literature reviews and integrated models).

After a review of a significant number of U&G and TAM studies, similarities and differences of the two theories were identified, and an integrated operational framework was developed. Based on empirical findings of existing U&G and TAM studies, testable propositions were presented.

The proposed hybrid model and the associated propositions provide a research opportunity to empirically examine how young consumers’ motivational (i.e. motivating and demotivating) drivers, normative influence, perceived value and attitudes (toward brand content and engagement) predict intention or actual brand-related behavior on SMSs.

Much of current research indicates that generations Y and Z (“digital natives”) spend considerably more time on SMSs than any of the older generations (“digital immigrants”). Thus, brands that aim to target this cohort need to develop successful engagement strategies (e.g. gamification and influencer marketing) on current and emerging SMSs. The suggested conceptualization provides guidelines for companies to effectively use such communication strategies to motivate young people to engage with their brands on sites such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

A review of TAM research indicates that it lacks rich motivating/demotivating constructs, and thus borrows from other theories to complement this weakness. An examination of U&G frameworks, particularity Ducoffe (1996)-based models, indicates that these frameworks mainly test engagement with social media advertising but seldom other types of brand-driven engagement on SMSs. In addition, many U&G studies focus less than TAM studies do on outcome variables such as behavioral intentions and behavior. Thus, the authors propose a synthesized U&G and TAM framework that mitigates both theories’ weaknesses and builds on their strengths, enriching the growing research on brand-driven engagement behavior via SMSs.

This study aims to examine how message strategy influences consumer behavioral engagement in social media. To this end, the study develops a comprehensive typology of branded content in social media and tests for its effect on consumer behavioral engagement.

A sample of brand posts derived from the official Facebook pages of top corporate brands was double-coded using an elaborate coding instrument. Message strategy was operationalized using three main message strategies (i.e. informational, transformational and interactional) and their paired combinations. Consumer behavioral engagement was operationalized using consumer actions of liking and sharing brand posts. Proposed relationships were tested with MANCOVA and univariate ANOVAs.

Results indicate that the transformational message strategy is the most powerful driver of consumer behavioral engagement, while no significant difference is observed between the informational and the interactional message strategies. Further, complementing the informational and interactional message strategies with the transformational message strategy markedly enhances their effectiveness.

Useful managerial guidance to develop effective message strategies is offered. In particular, the importance of transformational messages, both as a standalone and a complementary message strategy, is underscored. By mastering and deploying transformational messages more frequently in their social media communication, marketers could improve their effectiveness.

Drawing on a theory-driven typology, this study sheds light on how message strategy shapes consumer behavioral engagement in a social media context. Importantly, the study documents pioneering empirical evidence regarding the effect of combined message strategies on consumer behavioral engagement.