The Influence of Brand Communication Tools on Consumer Based Brand Equity (with Special Reference to Young Consumers in Sri Lanka)

Abstract

Understanding and building a relationship between customers and brands has become an essential function of today's business world because of the increasing competition in the modern business environment. As a result of the increasing tendency of today's society toward technology, social media has become the most often used business communication platform. Marketers are accustomed to utilize both user-generated and firm-created social media brand communication tools. Marketers are presently spending 14.9% of their marketing budget on social media and next year marketers expect to spend 17.8% of their total marketing budgets on social media, increasing to 24.5% of budgets in five years. Because of the continuous increase in the cost of social media marketing, there is a need to find the most efficient and profitable communication tool before investments. Hence, this study aims to measure the influence of both brand communication tools on consumer-based brand equity and identify which social media brand communication tool is most appropriate to influence each dimension of consumer-based brand equity. Hypotheses were conducted concerning this study and then tested on university undergraduates. Under the deductive approach, the descriptive research design engaged in hypothesis testing. 375 online questionnaires were distributed among undergraduates and 373 responses were received to the researcher. This research used Cronbach’s alpha test to examine the reliability of variables. Factor analysis is used to measure the validity of the sample to test the goodness of the data. According to the results of this study, both firm created and user-generated content significantly influence consumer-based brand equity. However, user-generated content has a greater influence on consumer-based brand equity than firm-created content. On the other hand, this study provides vital information to marketing and brand managers to identify which brand communication tool is efficacious to improve each dimension of consumer-based brand equity as required and strategies to implement that identified brand communication tool.