Volume 10, Issue 3 (11-2023)                   Human Information Interaction 2023, 10(3): 96-114 | Back to browse issues page

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Soleimani A, kazemi Z, aghaei M, ghorbani Z. The role of brand trust and brand attitude in the impact of social media marketing on purchase intention. Human Information Interaction 2023; 10 (3)
URL: http://hii.khu.ac.ir/article-1-3118-en.html
Ph.D. Student in Marketing Management, Faculty of Social Sciences and Economics, Al-Zahra University, Tehran, Iran
Abstract:   (2887 Views)
Purpose: Today, internet-based technologies have brought new transformations to human life. Customers are able to compare products offered by sellers around the world to buy their online products. On the one hand, the widespread use of these technologies provides benefits for online companies that are constantly increasing. The importance of this issue is felt when there is a lot of competition between a large number of similar companies with different types of services. Now, companies are using social media technologies to advertise information about their brands. Social media are a good option for accessing and collecting information from other consumers. These media are widely used for social media marketing and provide various methods for marketers to reach and interact with consumers. Social media marketing refers to "the use of social media technologies, channels, and software to create, deliver, exchange, and provide offerings that have value for the stakeholders of an organization." Online marketing activities lead to the development of knowledge among users, empowering users from predictions about their future businesses, monitoring customer behavior through changes in the content produced, attracting new customers, increasing sales, and fast use and saving time. The goal of social media marketing is to help companies increase market share and customer purchase intention.  Today, social media marketing plays a fundamental role in influencing purchase intent due to its ubiquity among consumers. These platforms provide essential information that guides purchase decisions and simplifies decision-making. Purchase intention is an activity in which consumers consider purchasing a product or a service. Purchase intention is the likelihood that a consumer will continue to purchase in the future. Consumer purchase intention can be influenced through the sharing of information or engagement in conversations and comments from other consumers. A strong presence on social media significantly affects purchase intention and builds customer trust. On the other hand, marketers consider brand trust as an important and relevant concept to purchase intention. Brand trust is defined as the willingness of consumers to rely on the power of the brand to fulfill the stated goal and the belief that the brand has the ability to deliver the promised benefits. Studies that have been conducted in the past have stated that brand trust is a precursor to purchase intention. Sung & Kim (2010) and Ellitan, Havina & Lukito (2022) believe that brand trust is considered as a variable that has a significant impact on purchase intention. For many years, brand attitude has been an important topic of research in marketing. Therefore, marketers consider it the most important predictor of consumer behavior towards a product or service. Basically, brand attitude refers to the consistent preference of consumers towards a specific brand and the overall evaluation by the consumer towards the brand. Attitude towards an object (including a brand) includes salient beliefs that are acquired through experience and can fluctuate positively or negatively as a function of past experiences. A favorable attitude towards a  brand increases the likelihood of consumers continuing to use it in the future. Consumer attitude typically has a strong influence on their purchase intent. One of the growing global trends in Iran is the increasing demand for luxury goods. The luxury goods market has attracted the attention of researchers and marketing professionals due to its rising growth rate. In 2017, the global market for luxury fashion goods exceeded $1.2 trillion. It is expected that by 2030, approximately 500 million consumers will be luxury fashion customers. Research also shows that about 80% of the global luxury market is influenced by digital technology, and it is expected that online sales of luxury brands will reach 20% of total transactions by 2025. Many luxury brands now have official pages on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, where they publish news about their products and brands. In Iran, luxury fashion brands are trying to achieve profitability by targeting a specific target group. Despite their significant activity on social media, these brands have not been successful in attracting customers through this channel. In addition to increased competition in the domestic market, the import of foreign brands with official dealerships or the entry of these brands and their original counterparts from unconventional channels are serious threats to the Iranian fashion market. Additionally, unofficial pages selling fashion products on social media or the sale of personal luxury products have made these items more accessible to interested individuals and made the competition more difficult. Despite the activities of luxury fashion brands on social media, these activities are not interactive and feedback is not received from customers about the products and services of these brands. As a result, these brands have not been successful in attracting customers, creating positive attitudes, and gaining their trust to the desired extent. Therefore, it is necessary to examine and identify the factors affecting the purchase intention of consumers of luxury clothing brands, including social media marketing, brand attitude, and brand trust, in order to help improve knowledge and improve planning in this field. Despite the importance and expansion of social media marketing in the country, not many studies have been conducted to identify the impact of social media marketing on purchase intention for luxury products. The researchers of this study, after reviewing the research background, found that the role of brand attitude and brand trust in the relationship between social media marketing and customer purchase intention has not been considered in both foreign and domestic research. Given the research gap in this area, the present study investigates the impact of social media marketing on the purchase intention of consumers of luxury clothing brands, taking into account the mediating role of brand trust and brand attitude, which has not been studied before.
Methodology: The present study has a quantitative approach and is applied in terms of purpose. In terms of nature and method of data collection, it is descriptive-survey. The statistical population of this study is all consumers of the luxury brands Paten Jama, Charm Mashhad, Salyan, Denis Trico, and Navin Charm in Iran, who follow the social media pages of these brands. The reason for choosing these brands is that they all have active representative pages on the social media platform Instagram. This is because it makes it possible to identify followers of these brands and people who are attached to these brands. Given the unlimited nature of the statistical population and the lack of access to the entire target population, the sample under study was taken using the available sampling method. In this way, the online questionnaire of the present study was shared with the followers of the Instagram pages of these brands. Due to the unknown size of the population, the sample size was estimated at 385 people using the Cochran formula.The questionnaire for the present study was prepared with 27 questions using a five-point Likert scale. A set of standard questionnaires from previous studies were used to measure the variables under study. The questions for the social media marketing variable were extracted from the standard questionnaire of Cheung, Pires & Rosenberger (2020), the questions related to purchase intention were extracted from the questionnaire of Lakshamana (2018), the questions for the brand attitude variable were extracted from the tool questionnaire of Qasemi and Vesta (2014), and the questions for the brand trust variable were extracted from the research questionnaire of Yazdani, Ronagh, Laqayi and Mostafshar (2019). In this study, the validity of the questionnaire was obtained through expert review. The questionnaire was sent to six experts and university professors who had at least five years of experience in the field of research, and after the necessary modifications, the validity of the questionnaire was confirmed. The reliability of the questionnaire was also obtained using the Cronbach's alpha coefficient. The questionnaire was distributed among 31 people, and a Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 92% indicates the appropriate reliability of the questionnaire. In this study, Amos software and path analysis method were used to analyze the relationships between dimensions and indicators.
Findings: Social media, as a powerful and successful marketing tool, helps companies to connect activities and interactions between consumers with the brand in a more enjoyable way than ever before. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of social media marketing on consumer purchases through brand trust and brand attitude. The findings indicated that social media marketing has a positive and significant effect on brand trust and brand attitude. In addition, brand trust and brand attitude have a positive and significant effect on consumers' purchase intention; Also, social media marketing affects purchase intention through brand trust and brand attitude.
Conclusion: Today, marketers are increasingly concerned with understanding how social media is used in the purchase decision process. Social media offers marketers numerous opportunities to connect with consumers and build more meaningful relationships with them. Social media also provides opportunities to create and share marketing content with target audiences. Social media users have an easier time making decisions and enjoying their work compared to those who use other information sources. In the luxury brand sector, social media also appears to play a key role in the success of a brand. Studies have shown that luxury brand marketing on social media has a positive impact on consumers' favorable perception of luxury, luxury desire, and purchase intention. This study investigated the application of the social media phenomenon in marketing. To this end, it conceptualized the use of social media in marketing and evaluated its impact on consumers' purchase intention of luxury brands with the mediating role of trust and brand attitude. The findings suggest that the use of social media improves consumers' attitude and trust during the initial stages of information search and alternative evaluation. In this study, 6 hypotheses were tested. The results of the first hypothesis showed that social media marketing has a positive and significant impact on consumers' trust in the brand. Social media marketing is considered an effective tool in developing customer relationships. In addition, these interactions create trust and reduce uncertainty that may prevent customers from interacting with brands and making online transactions. Therefore, the higher the quality and informativeness of a social media, the greater the consumer trust in a brand. This means that brand trust is influenced by social media marketing. The findings of this study support the results of previous research. For example, a study by Amalina & Tiarawati (2016) found that if social media marketing is managed effectively, brand trust increases. This is because the transfer of good information creates the perception that the brand can meet the needs of the consumer. Chahal & Rani (2017) also stated that social media experience is an important driver of trust in a particular brand. The existence of social media makes it easier for marketers to reach a wider range of consumers. The results of research by researchers such as Ibrahim (2020) and Behnardi & Rogers (2018) also confirm the positive impact of social media marketing on brand trust. The results obtained from the confirmation of hypothesis number 2 of this study show that social media marketing has a positive and significant impact on consumers' attitudes towards the brand. Social media marketing can be an effective tool for interacting with the community, providing information, and receiving feedback, which leads to increased brand attitude (Poluan, Pasuhuk & Mandagi, 2022). The result is consistent with the instrumental research of Qasemi and Vesta (2014). The third hypothesis investigated the direct effect of social media marketing on consumers' purchase intention, the result of which is in contrast to the findings of the studies of Laksamana (2018) and Alfilo Ansari (2019).The result obtained from the confirmation of the fourth hypothesis of the present study shows that consumer trust in the brand has a significant effect on consumer purchase intention. It can be interpreted that the level of trust in a brand is taken into account by consumers in decision-making for product purchase. Based on the theory of planned behavior, the control belief of a decision relates to the activities that have been carried out, so this can be affected by brand trust because, according to Delgado-Ballester et al. (2003), brand trust includes hope, honesty, and concern. Expectations refer to promises that must be fulfilled in connection with consumers. Honesty refers to the consistency between words and actions in dealing with any situation experienced by consumers. Attention refers to a form of empathy that shows attitude towards consumers when faced with product-related problems. The result is in line with the previous studies of researchers such as Chae, Kim, Lee & Park (2020) and Song and Kim (2010). Ibáñez, Hartmann, & Calvo (2006) also showed that brand trust directly affects purchase intention, and this is very relevant when customers decide to change brands due to the high level of perceived risk and ambiguity. In the fifth hypothesis, the direct and significant effect of consumer attitude towards the brand on purchase intention was confirmed, meaning that a positive attitude towards a brand increases the percentage of brand acceptance probability and affects consumer purchase interest, purchase intention, and willingness to pay more. This result is in line with the findings of studies conducted by Qasemi and Vesta (2014), Yu, Liu, Lee, & Soutar (2018), and Li, Li, & Yang (2017). Finally, hypotheses 6 and 7, which tested the effect of social media marketing on purchase intention through brand trust and brand attitude, were confirmed. Therefore, the results of this study show that social media marketing cannot have a positive effect on consumers' purchase intention without the role of the mediating variables of consumer attitude and brand trust. This itself shows the importance of consumer attitude and trust in the brand in the effect of social media marketing on consumers' purchase intention.
 
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