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This study aims to determine the effect of Islamic branding, experiential marketing and word of mouth on college decisions and to find marketing strategies through strengthening Islamic branding based on experiential marketing to increase the number of students at Muhammadiyah-Aisyiyah Higher Education.

This study used a quantitative method, with data collection carried out using a survey method by giving questionnaires to respondents. The respondents' criteria are active students, at least in semester three, who have studied at Muhammadiyah-Aisyiyah Higher Education in Indonesia, using a sampling technique with accidental sampling. Data analysis used Partial Least Square - Structural Equation Modeling to determine the estimated results or model predictions.

The results showed a significant direct effect of experiential marketing, Islamic branding and word of mouth on college decisions. There is an indirect effect between experiential marketing and Islamic branding on college decisions through word of mouth, but the word-of-mouth variable could not mediate the relationship between experiential marketing and Islamic branding on college decisions perfectly.

The limitation of the results of the study is that it uses respondents who are and have participated in learning activities on the Muhammadiyah-Aisyiyah Higher Education, where the Muhammadiyah-Aisyiyah Higher Education has added value compared to other private campuses. The added value on the Muhammadiyah-Aisyiyah Higher Education is the overall learning activity based on Kemuhammadiyahan Islam in Indonesia. Islam Kemuhammadiyahan is the identity of the Islamic branding strategy on the Muhammadiyah-Aisyiyah Higher Education, which is only owned by the Muhammadiyah-Aisyiyah Higher Education.

This study recommends marketing strategies through strengthening Islamic branding based on experiential marketing to increase the number of students at Muhammadiyah-Aisyiyah Higher Education.

The novelty of this research is the addition of experiential marketing and Islamic branding variable measurements on word of mouth and college decisions, especially prospective students to study at Islamic Higher Education in Indonesia.

This study examines the effect of social media marketing on voting intention applying a combination of fuzzy logic methodology and a multidimensional panel data model.

The study adopts a multidimensional panel data method that includes several fixed effects. The dependent variable is a multifaceted construct that measures the participants’ intention to vote. The independent variables are electronic word of mouth (eWOM), customisation (CUS), entertainment (ENT), interaction (INT), trendiness (TRD), candidate’s perceived image (CPI), religious beliefs (RB), gender and age. The grouping variables that signify fixed effects are employment status, level of education, mostly used social media and religion. First, the significance of said fixed effects was tested through an ANOVA process. Then, the main model was estimated, including the significant grouping variables as fixed effects.

Employment status and level of education were significant fixed effects. Also, eWOM, ENT, INT, CPI, RB and gender significantly affected participants’ voting intention.

Being based on a questionnaire that asked participants about how they perceive different aspects of social media, the present study is limited to their perceptions. Therefore, further studies covering the voters’ behaviour in action could be efficient complements to the present study.

The findings could guide the political parties into prioritizing the aspects of social media in forming an effective campaign resulting in being elected.

The findings have the potential to help the public in making better informed decisions when voting. Furthermore, the results of this study indicate applications for social media which are beyond leisure time fillers.

Fuzzy logic and multidimensional panel data estimates are this study’s novelty and originality. Structural equation modelling and crisp linguistic values have been used in previous studies on social media’s effect on voting intent. The former refines the data gathered from a questionnaire, and the latter considers the possibility of including different grouping factors to achieve a more efficient and less biased estimation.

The main purpose of this study is to fill the research gap on how B2B global service firms integrate dynamic capabilities within their omnichannel management to influence positive word of mouth (WOM), customer engagement (CE) and customer equity.

Drawing on the dynamic capability and WOM theories, a model has been developed that defines the subjects of the empirical test. The paper reports on data collected from 312 service-oriented global firms in Australia, through a cross-sectional survey. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

The findings suggest that content management (i.e. information consistency, source trustworthiness and endorsement) and concerns management (i.e. privacy, security and recovery) capabilities are the two significant antecedents of positive WOM within a B2B omnichannel setting in international marketing. The findings also confirm the key mediating role of CE between positive WOM and customer equity.

The findings extend dynamic capability theory in the context of international marketing by linking WOM, CE and customer equity. The findings add further theoretical rigor by establishing the nomological chain between positive WOM and customer equity, in which CE plays a key mediating role.

In 2022, the new normal era began to experience an increase in the number of tourists visiting Bali. Even though spiritual tourism was optimistic in attracting foreign visitors, most tourists come from nearby nations like Australia, indicating that the visits had a brief duration in this new era. To sustain the income of spiritual tourism advocates, it is possible to overcome the brief visit. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the collaboration of digitalized spiritual tourism activities in 2022. Data were collected through literature study, observation and in-depth interviews to determine the spiritual tourism hybrid business. The result showed that the digitalization of spiritual tourism builds an on-off hybrid method in marketing and products, thus developing a theory of the characteristics. This on-off hybrid provides a touch of experience for tourists to visit directly. Therefore, digitalization builds the resilience of spiritual tourism in the new normal era through marketing and service of hybrid products.

The gap between word-of-mouth marketing habits, direct product service and the tendency to digitize creates adaptation problems that take time. These problems make a practical contribution to building marketing and spiritual tourism products. The theoretical contribution is to build integrated marketing and spiritual tourism digital product concepts. A qualitative research method was adopted because the population of spiritual tourism is very limited. Therefore, it needs to be explored through experienced and knowledgeable informants. Literature study, observation and in-depth interviews were used to collect data. The literature study technique collects data from written sources, namely books, articles and internet sources. Observations were made by analyzing non-participants by recording various marketing activities and services for spiritual tourism products. Additionally, in-depth interviews were conducted with informants about digitalization in the new normal era.

The result showed that the digitalization of spiritual tourism builds an on-off hybrid method in marketing and products, thus developing a theory of the characteristics. This on-off hybrid provides a touch of experience for tourists to visit directly. Therefore, digitalization builds the resilience of spiritual tourism in the new normal era through marketing and service of hybrid products.

The method has successfully built digital and direct visit products. Digital products share knowledge, while direct visit products serve to gain hands-on experience. These products provide income for spiritual tourism actors. However, direct visit products are more emphasized to spread income, such as hotels, restaurants and souvenirs. This development provides a theoretical implication that the characteristics of tourism products can be enjoyed at the service provider’s premises and the area of origin of tourists with digital technology. Therefore, digitalization has changed the theory of the characteristics of tourism products from having to be enjoyed by service providers (Yoeti, 1991).

This study aims to understand the effect of cultural dimension (individualism/ collectivism) on promotional rewards (social or economic) resulting in incentivizing consumers to engage in electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM), further impacting their repurchase intentions.

In Study 1, a 2 (culture: individualism vs collectivism) × 2 (promotional rewards: social vs economic) between-subjects design was used. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses. In Study 2, culture was measured instead of just being manipulated. The authors used regression analysis in this study.

Owing to the characteristics of collectivistic individuals, consumers in collectivistic cultures were more likely to respond to social rewards as an incentive to engage in eWOM. However, consumers in individualistic cultures were more motivated to engage in eWOM when economic rewards were offered.

Despite the global nature of eWOM, little research has explored the effects of cultural traits on consumer response to amplified eWOM strategy. Additionally, though many organizations now offer various promotional incentives to reviewers, little research has explored the effects of promotional offers on a reviewer’s subsequent behavior, and no research has explored the relationship between cultural dimensions and current and future response to promotional eWOM rewards.

This study aims to examine how the theory of planned behaviour and technology acceptance theory can be used to understand the adoption of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). The relationships between attitudes, behavioural intentions towards using NPIs, actual use of NPIs and word-of-mouth (WOM) were examined and compared between early and late adopters.

A survey was conducted to test the hypotheses with partial least squares structural equation modelling (n = 278).

The results indicate that relationships between attitudes, intentions and behavioural intentions were positive and significant in the whole data set – and that there were differences between the early and late adopters. WOM had no substantial relationship with actual usage and early adopters’ behavioural intentions.

This research gives a better sense of how WOM impacts attitudes, behavioural intentions and actual usage among early and late adopters of NPIs and highlights the effectiveness of WOM, especially among late adopters of NPIs. Furthermore, using the TAM allows us to make specific recommendations regarding encouraging the use of NPIs. A new three-stage communications model is introduced that uses early adopters as influencers to reduce the NPI adoption time by late adopters.

This study aims at building a framework for the electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) response under the social media environment. The elaboration likelihood model was adopted to explain how message source credibility and message appeal jointly influence the eWOM response process, while source credibility provides a central route and message appeal plays a peripheral route for information processing.

This study used a scenario design to test the decision behavior in the Facebook environment through message content manipulation. A convenience sampling method was adopted in this study. We collected 203 valid questionnaires and tested this research model with LISREL 8.8. This study used a two-stage structural equation modeling data analysis method with LISREL 8.8, by which the measurement model was assessed through confirmatory factor analysis for the reliability and validity of the research model, and the causal relationship among factors was assessed through exploratory factor analysis .

The results showed that 53% variance of eWOM responses could be explained by message source credibility and emotional message appeal from the elaboration likelihood model perspective. Message source credibility plays a central role in the social media environment. The model was further tested with a demographic profile analysis for both gender and age. It is found that a female user is influenced by both source credibility and emotional appeal, but a male user is only influenced by message source credibility. The mature age group is more responsive to eWOM messages.

The sample might not represent all social networking sites (SNS) users. The participants represent a small segment of the Facebook population around the globe. Secondly, this research design could be improved by using more recreational messages to test the effects of message appeal and message source credibility. Thirdly, the mobile phone is a type of physical product rather than an experiential product. Future studies could try to identify the same eWOM determinants with different SNS functions, for example, the inbox message function. Similarly, Facebook users are allowed to use both text and pictures to disseminate promotional messages.

This study provides an insight for SNS administrators regarding the determinants of driving more customer responses toward a message. Message source credibility and message appeal are identified as the antecedents for eWOM responses in SNS. Companies could make use of this finding to improve their marketing communication strategy in SNS. The finding can inform administrators of the importance of focusing on both customers’ psychological state and message attributes during the dissemination of promotional messages to improve the efficiency of the promotional effort. Companies aimed at receiving different types of eWOM responses in SNS may need to consider other factors for creating their promotional messages.

Previous studies have mainly identified factors influencing eWOM responses from the people-centered variables such as personal traits and social relationships. This study proposes that the eWOM response is a dual information processing process that can be explained by the ELM. When a user processes information in SNS, he follows both the central route and the peripheral route (i.e. source credibility and message appeal) which can influence the eWOM response. It is the first time that the source credibility is investigated as the central route in ELM model.

The purpose of this study is to investigate characteristics of apparel-related critical incidents that motivate both Generation Z and Y consumers to share electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) via specific online channels.

The current research used an exploratory mixed-methods approach.

Qualitative findings of critical incidents revealed that the main situations that led to the spread of eWOM involved new purchases (49%), product quality (21%), pricing and promotions (19%), complaints (9%) and brand content (48%). Participants were motivated to spread information about the critical incidents by a desire to connect with friends and family (83%), help others (37%), influence others (48%) and express brand loyalty (32%). Quantitative results indicated significant relationships between critical incidents, motivations and eWOM channel choice.

This study has theoretical implications for apparel researchers attempting to gain insight into critical incidents that motivate consumers to engage in eWOM on specific channels in a positive or negative manner.

These findings are important for marketers as it appears that brand content does an efficient job at driving engagement on SM; marketers need to increase efforts to engage with consumers via feedback on websites, as this is an opportunity to counteract negative experiences and retain consumers’ loyalty.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the current research is the first to extend theories of communication and motivation to connect critical incidents with situational intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for spreading eWOM via online channels for Millennial and Generation Z consumers.

This study aims to explore the relationships between gender, gender identity and Word of Mouth (WOM). There are three objectives of this study. The first was to observe the impact of gender identity on WOM. The second was to examine the mediation role of self-brand connection (SBC) bridging the relationship between gender identity and WOM. The final one was to test the moderating role of gender.

The conceptual model was tested by analyzing data collected via Mturk from Americans participants who use Airbnb. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to evaluate the psychometric property. To test hypotheses, the structural equation model was assessed. Further, Hayes’ PROCESS was adopted to examine the mediation role of SBC. The moderation role of gender was examined by the chi-square difference test.

The research outcomes elucidated that feminine gender identity exerted a noteworthy influence on WOM communication, whereas masculine gender identity appeared to bear no significant impact on WOM. It was determined that SBC operates as a potent mediator bridging the relationship between gender identity and WOM. Gender did not demonstrate a significant moderating effect on any part of the WOM communication pathway in the context of this study.

The conclusions drawn from this research underscore that practitioners in the field of brand management should not overlook the crucial role of consumers' gender identity. It is imperative to cultivate robust, positive relationships with consumers as a strategic measure to engender favorable WOM communication.

This investigation distinguishes itself as one of the relatively scarce studies interrogating the relationship between gender identity, gender and WOM, specifically through the mediating lens of SBC. Consequently, the discoveries made herein have the potential to furnish unprecedented insights into comprehending consumer behavior in the hospitality industry with respect to WOM communication, particularly as it pertains to the dimension of gender identity.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how consumer brand engagement (CBE) promotes brand love and eWOM within the influence of brand interactivity and consumer involvement, especially in the context of the smartphone industry and Chinese social media marketing. This study also examines the important role of brand love and gender in this relationship.

Data from 403 participants who are followers of the smartphone brand’s social media page was collected via an online survey. PLS-SEM was also used for examining the research model.

The findings of this research reveal that the (perceived) brand interactivity, and consumer involvement, are key factors influence CBE. As expected, brand love and consumers’ eWOM intention are significant outcomes of CBE. In particular, the relationship between CBE and consumers’ eWOM intention is mediated by brand love. However, gender did not moderate the proposed relationships.

By integrating social exchange theory and attribution theory, this study deepens the understanding of CBE and brand love by examining the relationship between brand interactivity, consumer involvement, CBE, brand love and eWOM in the context of smartphone and Chinese social media marketing.