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Effects of Social Media Marketing and Selected Marketing Constructs On Stages of Brand Loyalty
Effects of Social Media Marketing and Selected Marketing Constructs On Stages of Brand Loyalty
Abstract
The main purpose of this study is to examine the antecedents of brand loyalty in the context of fast fash-
ion industry. This study also highlights the role of social media (SM) marketing on value consciousness
(VC), brand love (BL) and brand consciousness (BC). A self-structured questionnaire survey method
was employed to collect data from 240 customers in Malaysia. Statistical analysis is performed based on
the PLS-SEM approach to analyze the data. The results reveal that SM marketing has a significant effect
on BC and BL in the fast fashion industry. The result demonstrates that SM has indirect positive impact
on different stages of brand loyalty through BL and BC.
This study is the first that investigates the impacts of social network marketing activities, VC, BL and
BC on stages of brand loyalty. The findings can help marketers develop effective marketing strategies in
order to build brand loyalty especially in the fast fashion industry.
Keywords
Brand loyalty, social network marketing, brand love, fast fashion
Introduction
For decades, in any business, the primary goal is to build a strong brand relationship with customers,
where they can succeed and gain long-term competitive advantage in the marketplace (Bapat & Thanigan,
2016). Different strategies have been developed to retain the customer and reduce the percentage of
customers switching from one brand to another (Zhang, Van Doorn, & Leeflang, 2014). However, in
emerging markets like Malaysia, consumers keep switching between different brands, and for this
reason, scholars have been focusing on brand loyalty and its association with different business domains
such as purchase behaviour, purchase intention, marketing and branding (So, Parsons, & Yap, 2013).
According to Matthews, Son, and Watchravesringkan (2014), in business, maintaining customers’ loyalty
1
Faculty of Business Management and Professional Studies, Management & Science University, Selangor, Malaysia.
2
Faculty of Economics & Business, University Malaysia Sarawak, Sarawak, Malaysia.
Corresponding author:
Suha Fouad Salem, Faculty of Business Management and Professional Studies, Management & Science University, Selangor, Malaysia.
E-mail: suha_fksalem@msu.edu.my
2 Global Business Review
towards a brand costs less than having to attract new customers. Salem and Salem (2018) stated that the
value of a brand is a composite of its functional issues and its symbolic issues. Scholars reveal that
loyalty is a consequence of an information process of three levels: level one is cognitive loyalty, level
two is the affective loyalty (AL), and the highest level is conative loyalty, which are influenced by
consumers’ perception towards a brand (El-manstrly, 2016; Oliver, 1999).
In recent years, the fast fashion industry has significantly evolved. Many brands have changed their
business model to adopt the fast fashion model, which forced companies to adopt the latest fashion trend
to align with consumers’ demand at a reasonable price (Bhardwaj & Fairhurst, 2010). A study indicated
that consumer behaviour towards fast fashion is not fully understood and explored, and they recommended
implementing empirical research to understand consumer behaviour towards fast fashion. It is very
important to investigate how brand loyalty is developed throughout the different stages for consumers
who have different types of consciousness such as brand consciousness (BC) and value consciousness
(VC) (Zhang et al., 2014). In order to gain deeper insight into brand loyalty and to fill the research gap,
this research attempts to examine the relation between networking media marketing (SM) and brand
loyalty stages through VC, BC and brand love (BL). The study also focuses to highlight the role of SM
and its relationship with VC, BC and BL, which eventually create a stronger customer loyalty towards a
fast fashion brand.
The study would be beneficial for fast fashion governance and management to establish proper
branding and marketing strategies where managers can have better insights into consumers’ behaviour
and its precedencies and can set effective consumer marketing and engagement strategies and tools. The
first section of the manuscript discusses the extant literature. The second section represents the objective
and rationale of the study. Furthermore, the next section discusses the research method. The results of the
study are explained in the fourth section. Finally, the article concludes with the implications, limitations
and future directions.
Review of Literature
consumers to compare prices and product features among different brands (Martinho, Pires, Portela,
& Fonseca, 2015). Thus, we can argue that better marketing strategies through the social media platform,
which would enable users to find easily products of reasonable price and a lot of feedback regarding a
brand, would improve VC (Jayasuriya, Azam, Khatibi, Atan, & Dharmaratne, 2018; Mukherjee
& Banerjee, 2017). Hence, the study proposes the following hypothesis: social network marketing
positively has an impact on the construct of value conscious.
Consumer preferences for selecting a particular brand’s product differ from one consumer to another
(Madzharov, Block, & Morrin, 2015; Salem & Chaichi, 2018). There are consumers who choose a
product because they recognized the brand due to its extremely promoted brand style (Heckler, Keller,
Houston, & Avery, 2014). Moreover, consumers create a significant association between their personality,
in terms of characteristics and preferences, and the trademark of the brand they are using (Nyadzayo
& Khajehzadeh, 2016). Khan, Jadoon, and Tareen (2016) argued that the traditional advertising media
such as TV, radio and magazines have positive effects on brand awareness and brand loyalty. Although
the importance of SM marketing on consumer decision-making towards brands has been researched, the
influence of social network on conscious consumers towards a brand is still not clear (Hudson, Huang,
Roth, & Madden, 2016). Nowadays, consumers are dependent on social media channels to follow up and
interact with the fashion and branding domain. In fact, marketing strategies that could motivate consumers
to share brand photos and videos might be a good strategy to gain followers’ purchase intention towards
the brand and engage them in group discussions, which could enhance the reputation of a brand
(Mukherjee & Banerjee, 2017). Therefore, we proposed that social network marketing has an impact on
the construct of brand conscious.
The impact of social network on consumers’ BL behaviour in previous studies is so limited (Aro,
Suomi, & Saraniemi, 2018). The root of the construct definition of BL can be referred to two theories:
the triangular theory of love (Rubin, 1970) and interpersonal theory of love (Sarkar, Ponnam, & Murthy,
2012). According to Langner, Bruns, Fischer, and Rossiter (2016), BL reflects the extent to which
consumers have a strong emotional relationship with a certain brand. Proksch, Orth, and Cornwell (2015)
argued that to build a strong relationship between consumers and brand, it is essential to do so by
building positive feelings and attitudes for the brand on different social media platforms. The emoji
symbols like smiley faces or red heart are the consumers’ way to show their feelings and love towards
the brand (Lee & Hong, 2016). Therefore, we hypothesize that social media marketing positively affects
the construct of brand love.
Value Consciousness
Lee and Hong (2016) stated that symbolic status and prestige are not the only drivers for consumers to
acquire a brand’s product. In some situations, consumers prefer to pay low price to some quality. Those
consumers are classified as value-conscious consumers (Shirai, 2015).
Based on the earlier studies, value-conscious consumers like to compare a product’s benefits with its
cost before making the decision to buy (Delgado-Ballester, Hernandez-Espallardo, & Rodriguez-
Orejuela, 2014).
Ahn and Back (2018) argued that cognitive loyalty is shaped by positive attitudes, beliefs and
perception towards the product brand. Diallo, Coutelle-Brillet, Riviere, and Zielke (2015) found that the
value-conscious consumers have less interest to be loyal to a brand unless the benefits are higher than the
cost. Thus, it is assumed that value consciousness has a negative relationship with a cognitive brand
loyalty.
4 Global Business Review
The concept of value conscious has been used in advertising and customer behavioural studies as a
predictor of AL. The higher the level of consumers’ VC, the lower the level of loyalty towards a specific
brand since it is easier to switch to another brand once they can get the same product at a lower price
(Ferreira & Coelho, 2015). Delgado-Ballester et al. (2014) argued that different marketing communication
strategies have less impact on high value-conscious consumers to motivate them to repurchase a product
brand because they have a strong relationship with the brand. Accordingly, it is hypothesized that value
consciousness construct has an optimistic impact on AL.
Matthews et al. (2014) defined the term conative loyalty as a future purchase behaviour towards a
specific brand or goods. Joshi and Rahman (2015) have already confirmed that perceived value is considered
a critical motivator of consumer repurchase behaviour towards a product brand. Therefore, value-conscious
consumers mostly select product brand that satisfies their needs at low cost. Ferreira and Coelho (2015) and
Tingchi Liu, Brock, Cheng Shi, Chu, and Tseng (2013) stated that consumers who are always looking for a
product brand that is reasonably priced would likely to repurchase the same product in future, as long as the
product is still within the cost that the consumers prefer. Thus, the study puts forth the following argument:
value-conscious construct has a destructive impact on the construct of conative loyalty.
Brand Consciousness
Brand-conscious consumers are defined as consumers whose mental process is focused on selecting
well-known brands’ products (Wolter, Brach, Cronin Jr, & Bonn, 2016). In addition, these consumers
have different levels of BC and are classified based on consumption behaviour (Yi-Cheon Yim, Sauer,
Williams, Lee, & Macrury, 2014). Moreover, these customers evaluate product quality through the brand
name, which might have an impact on the purchase decision process (Nikhashemi, Valaei, & Tarofder,
2017). Therefore, brand-conscious customers are more prejudiced by the perceived related knowledge
they have about a brand and its information source (Ferreira & Coelho, 2015). The more varied the
sources available about a brand’s product, the bigger the attraction for consumers to be loyal to the brand.
Thus, it is assumed that BC would positively influence cognitive brand loyalty. Brand consciousness
construct has a positive impact on the construct of cognitive brand loyalty.
Brand-conscious consumers are attached to a certain brand because they believe that acquiring the
brand reflects their status symbols and prestige (Raj & Roy, 2015). Moreover, these consumers are
looking for benefit that is beyond functional benefits which would lead to enhance their status in their
social community (Dessart, Veloutsou, & Morgan-Thomas, 2015). People would consider to purchase a
product brand in the future when a strong emotional relationship has been formed and developed (Albert
& Thomson, 2018). According to Sasmita and Mohd Suki (2015), brand-conscious consumers are more
likely to be attached to a brand easily and rarely switch to other competing brands. In this level, loyalty
is created not because of perceived functional values but because of the emotional and symbolic values
(Wolter et al., 2016). Furthermore, consumers, because of their emotional relationship with a brand,
would most likely form positive and favourable attitude and beliefs towards a brand that could increase
the possibility to buy a product brand in future. Thus, it is assumed that BC would positively influence
affective brand loyalty (AL); BC positively has an impact on conative brand loyalty (CNL).
Brand Love
Wallace, Buil, and de Chernatony (2014) defined BL as a consumer–brand relationship with positive
emotions and attitudes towards the brand. Sasmita and Mohd Suki (2015) argued that the extensive
Salem and Salem 5
consumer–brand relationship helps to create more sustainable brands and improve brand loyalty. Prior
studies have confirmed that brand attachment, which refers to a strong, positive, emotional relationship
with a brand, leads to consumers’ feeling of love for a brand (Wallace et al., 2014). Huang (2017) stated that
companies can maintain an emotional relationship between customers and their brand by understanding
how the consumer gets attached to a brand, which eventually leads to build consumer’s loyalty towards a
specific brand. Although the link between BL and brand loyalty has been confirmed in previous studies, the
link between BL and different stages of loyalty is still not clear. Therefore, the hypothesis is: BL positively
has an impact on cognitive brand loyalty, affective brand loyalty and conative brand loyalty.
Brand Loyalty
Customer brand loyalty has been defined in different studies as customers’ repurchase intents towards a
particular brand instead of other brands and their commitments to purchase the brand (Nyadzayo
& Khajehzadeh, 2016).
According to Oliver (1999), behavioural loyalty refers to repurchase frequency of the products.
However, this type of loyalty could not measure the actual level of loyalty towards a particular brand as
there are many customers who repurchase products because they needed them but actually dislike these
products like the products in supermarkets; as a result, behavioural loyalty might not give a clear picture
of actual customer loyalty towards the brand (Nyadzayo & Khajehzadeh, 2016). On the other hand, the
attitude of customers towards specific brand is known as attitudinal loyalty. Several studies indicated
that attitudinal loyalty includes commitment and intention to purchase the brand (Srivastava & Kaul,
2016; Yoshida, Heere, & Gordon, 2015). Kang, Tang, and Lee (2015) suggested that brand loyalty
includes three stages, with each stage relying on achieving the previous stage. The first stage is cognitive
loyalty, which occurs when consumers’ perceptions are shaped by past information about the brand that
they have and the level of their expectation that should be met (TaghiPourian & Bakhsh, 2015). The
second stage is known as AL. In this stage, customers have a strong emotional attachment with the brand,
which results in positive attitude and good experience that lead customers to be satisfied with a brand
(Lee, Manthiou, Jeong, Tang, & Chiang, 2015). Keeping customers satisfied leads to conative loyalty.
Literature confirms the sequences of brand loyalty stages that start with cognitive up to conative loyalty,
which are supported by information processing theory (Herrero, San Martín, Garcia de los Salmones,
& Collado, 2017; Tybout, Calder, & Sternthal, 1981). Thus, the study proposes the following argument:
cognitive brand loyalty construct has an optimistic impact on the construct of affective brand loyalty;
affective brand loyalty construct has an optimistic impact on the construct of conative brand loyalty.
Based on the literary discussion thus far, this study proposes a framework as shown in Figure 1.
Therefore, this research attempts to examine the relation between SM marketing and brand loyalty
stages through VC, BC and BL. The study also focuses to highlight the role of SM and its relationship
with VC, BC and BL, which eventually create a stronger customer loyalty towards a fast fashion brand.
Research Method
This research employs a questionnaire as the main data collection instrument. The questions are adapted
from literature review, and Appendix A shows all the proposed questions and its origins from previous
studies.
The questionnaire was initially designed in English language and then translated to Malay, the local
language of Malaysia. Adler (1983) stated that translation has to be done by experts who are proficient in
the two languages; therefore, an official English–Malay translator was assigned to carry out the translation.
Answering the survey in either English or Malay was allowed when collecting the data because both the
languages are used in daily life. The population of the study is consumers who frequently buy fast fashion
goods in Malaysia, which is considered as a huge population because Malaysia population is more than 30
millions (Bhardwaj & Fairhurst, 2010; Blázquez, 2014); therefore, convenience sampling is used to collect
data. To add on, data have been collected from potential consumers shopping at any of the well-known fast
fashion brands such as these following six brands: Zara, H&M, Mango, Top Shop, Forever 21 and Uniqlo
at Pavilion, Suria-KLCC and The Gardens Mall by trained facilitators (Euromonitor, 2018; Su & Chang,
2018). Target participants were identified after they have left the fast fashion brand retailers with evidence
of purchase from these retailers to ensure that they have purchased fast fashion products in the last 5 years.
Furthermore, there is a screening question in the questionnaire to make sure the survey’s respondents are
consumers who make frequent purchase of fashion products, from any of the known six fast fashion brands
in Malaysia, and actively interact or follow the social media of fast fashion brands.
A pilot test was employed with a sample size of 50 students at one of the universities in Malaysia
before collecting the actual data.
Salem and Salem 7
Sample Size
As the study is using SEM analysis techniques, the minimum sample size (Hair, Hult, Ringle, & Sarstedt,
2016) and effective sample size (Cohen, 1992) rules are applied to satisfy the requirement of analysis.
Therefore, the calculation for the minimum required sample size is based on the number of items and
constructs besides the interrelation between the components (Westland, 2010). Prior research has shown
that sample size ranges between 40 and 500 is considered an effective size (Hair, Ringle, & Sarstedt,
2011). In addition, according to Cohen (1992), the effective sample size is 146 samples. Therefore, the
collected sample of 240 respondents is acceptable.
Construct Validity
It is common to start the examination of a measurement model by performing two assessments of outer
loading and cross-loading scores of the different items to examine the internal reliability and discriminant
reliability. These assessments are to make sure that every item has enough loading, above 0.708, in its
associated construct, which is higher than any other loading in the foreign constructs. Table 2 shows that
all the proposed items have adequate loading in its associated construct and have enough distance from
other constructs.
8 Global Business Review
AL BC BL CgL CnL SM VC
AL1 0.907 0.452 0.756 0.680 0.676 0.427 0.063
AL2 0.894 0.457 0.703 0.630 0.669 0.417 0.051
AL3 0.889 0.475 0.658 0.725 0.696 0.327 −0.001
BC1 0.375 0.780 0.393 0.402 0.362 0.232 −0.057
BC2 0.381 0.745 0.404 0.326 0.296 0.232 0.284
BC3 0.431 0.841 0.429 0.477 0.392 0.378 −0.016
BC4 0.441 0.810 0.486 0.540 0.445 0.233 −0.094
BL1 0.640 0.460 0.804 0.628 0.599 0.404 0.145
BL2 0.652 0.433 0.839 0.608 0.575 0.350 0.149
BL3 0.676 0.467 0.859 0.626 0.608 0.366 0.049
BL4 0.661 0.482 0.866 0.619 0.606 0.394 0.066
BL5 0.681 0.410 0.833 0.581 0.605 0.386 0.024
(continued)
Salem and Salem 9
Cronbach’s Composite
Construct Item Loading AVE VIF Alpha Reliability
Social media marketing SM1 0.812 0.616 1.658 0.793 0.865
activities (SM) SM2 0.817 1.733
SM3 0.777 1.591
SM4 0.729 1.510
Value consciousness (VC) VC1 0.815 0.708 2.067 0.866 0.906
VC2 0.780 1.832
VC3 0.907 2.260
VC4 0.856 2.191
Brand consciousness (BC) BC1 0.779 0.631 1.686 0.806 0.872
BC2 0.745 1.598
BC3 0.840 1.852
BC4 0.810 1.667
Brand love (BL) BL1 0.804 0.701 2.069 0.914 0.933
BL2 0.838 2.529
BL3 0.858 2.876
BL4 0.865 2.898
BL5 0.832 2.550
BL6 0.824 2.362
Cognitive brand loyalty (CgL) CgL1 0.803 0.733 1.713 0.8783 0.9165
CgL2 0.869 2.463
CgL3 0.870 2.644
CgL4 0.879 2.712
Affective brand loyalty (AL) AL1 0.907 0.804 2.591 0.8785 0.925
AL2 0.894 2.433
AL3 0.889 2.274
Conative brand loyalty (CnL) CnL1 0.852 0.701 2.253 0.846 0.846
CnL2 0.874 2.426
CnL3 0.847 2.356
CnL4 0.772 1.939
Source: The authors.
One of the complementary tests is the confirmatory tetrad analysis (CTA). This test has been proposed
by Gudergan et al. (2008) to ensure whether the measurement model in PLS is reflective or formative.
The idea is to generate pairs of covariance between the indicators of the same construct; if all the
construct tetrads are non-significant, then the construct is reflective model. On the other hand, if any of
the tetrads is significant, then the construct is formative model. As shown in Table 6, all the p-values
associated with the tetrads are above the threshold value of 0.05. Therefore, all the constructs are
modelled as reflective relations with its indicators.
Structural Model Findings
This present study runs the PLS−SEM algorithm to analyze the data. As illustrated in Figure 2, the
hypothesized relationships among the variables were proposed.
The score of R2 is representing the predictive power of dependent variable determination because it is
the rate of variance explained in the dependent variable as a result of its predictors. According to Hair
et al. (2016), R2 can have a value between 0 and 1, which shows the percentage of variance explanation
in variables as a result of the antecedents’ variables. R2 is interpreted as strong if above 0.75, moderate
if between 0.50 and 0.75, and weak if between 0.20 and 0.50.
As shown in Figure 2, brand loyalty variances are explained by VC, BC and BL, and in total, the model
can explain 58.5 per cent, 68.8 per cent and 63 per cent of cognitive, affective and conative, respectively.
Predictive relevance, Q2, is another value associated with R2 to predict the relevance of the endogenous
variables. Q2 can be acquired by performing the blindfolding procedure, and the values are small if between
0.02 and 0.15, medium if between 0.15 and 0.35, and large if above 0.35 (Hair et al., 2016). The measures
of Q2 for the three variables of loyalty are large with the values of 0.426, 0.544 and 0.437, respectively.
One of the examinations to assess the impact level of every construct on the outcome variables is the
effective size. The effective size can be calculated based on the predictive power R2 to estimate ƒ2 scores
or based on the predictive relevance Q2 to estimate q2 scores. Cohen (1992) sets the rule of thumb in
12 Global Business Review
interpreting the results, in which 0.02, 0.15 and 0.35 are the margins between small, medium and large
effect. Table 7 shows the scores of ƒ2, in which the construct brand loyalty has the highest effective size
on the three outcome variables, followed by brand conscious then value conscious. Table 8 shows the
scores of q2, in which the construct brand loyalty has the highest effective size on the three outcome
variables, followed by brand conscious then value conscious. Both q2 and ƒ2 have similar scores’ trend
which are mapped with the results of the path coefficient estimates as discussed in the later findings.
The findings of the hypothesized associations are tabulated in Table 9. It shows that H1, H2, H3, H7,
H10, H11, H12, H13 and H14 are supported except for H4, H5, H6, H8 and H9. The rejected hypotheses
represent the relationships of VC with cognitive (Cgl), affective (AL), and conative brand loyalty (CnL)
as well as BC with AL and CnL. Hypotheses H1–H3 are about the association between social network
marketing and VC, BC and BL, which are supported because the t-statistics measure is above the cut-
statistics measure of 1.96. The related t-statistics measures are 2.458, 5.239 and 7.482, and the related
path coefficient measures are 0.200, 0.342 and 0.442, respectively. Hypotheses H4–H6 consider the
association between VC and the three loyalty constructs. The relations are surprisingly rejected because
t-statistics measures of 1.037, 0.128 and 1.448, respectively, are below the threshold of 1.96. Perhaps,
Salem and Salem 13
consumers who are value conscious are difficult to be loyal towards a specific brand especially when
investigated in the fast fashion industry. These consumers find fast fashion industry as always changing
in terms of design, style and price. As a result, they will not be loyal unless there are other factors that
might build loyalty. Hypothesis H7 assumes the association between BC and CgL. With the t-statistic
measure of 3.012 and path coefficients of 0.224, the hypothesis is accepted. However, hypotheses H8
and H9 which propose the relationships between AL and CnL are rejected, as the t-statistics measures are
0.813 and 1.087, respectively. BC provides consumers with knowledge of a certain brand, which lead
them to cognitive loyalty but not to affective or conative loyalty. However, in a fast fashion context,
Malaysian consumers will not be emotionally attached to a brand or even fully trust and commit
themselves to regularly buy from a specific fast fashion brand. In fact, both nature of the industry and
consumers’ characteristics have strong influences on consumers’ loyalty. Hypotheses H10–H12 propose
the association between BL and three constructs of loyalty. The relationships are supported as the
t-statistics measures are 10.057, 6.449 and 4.751, and the path coefficient measures are 0.622, 0.0.490
and 0.349, respectively. Hypothesis H13 deliberates the association between CgL and AL, which is
Table 7. Effective Size f2 Estimations
CgL AL CnL
Status
Status
Status
ƒ2 Value
ƒ2 Value
ƒ2 Value
R2 Included
R2 Included
R2 Included
R2 Excluded
R2 Excluded
R2 Excluded
SM 0.585 0.587 −0.005 No effect 0.688 0.688 0.000 No effect 0.630 0.628 0.005 Slight
VC 0.585 0.584 0.002 Slight 0.688 0.688 0.000 No effect 0.630 0.628 0.005 Slight
BC 0.585 0.550 0.084 Small 0.688 0.687 0.003 Slight 0.630 0.628 0.005 Slight
BL 0.585 0.313 0.655 Large 0.688 0.586 0.327 Medium 0.630 0.586 0.119 Medium
CgL 0.688 0.631 0.183 Medium 0.630 0.629 0.003 Slight
AL 0.630 0.556 0.200 Medium
Source: The authors.
Notes: AL, affective brand loyalty, CnL, conative brand loyalty; CgL, cognitive brand loyalty; BL, brand love; SM, social media marketing activities; VC, value consciousness and BC,
brand consciousness.
Table 8. Effective Size q2 Estimations
CgL AL CnL
Status
Status
Status
q2 Value
q2 Value
q2 Value
Q2 Included
Q2 Included
Q2 Included
Q2 Excluded
Q2 Excluded
Q2 Excluded
SM 0.426 0.427 −0.003 No effect 0.544 0.543 0.001 Slight 0.437 0.437 0.001 Slight
VC 0.426 0.423 0.004 Slight 0.544 0.545 −0.003 No effect 0.437 0.435 0.004 Slight
BC 0.426 0.395 0.052 Small 0.544 0.543 0.001 Slight 0.437 0.424 0.024 Small
BL 0.426 0.229 0.342 Medium 0.544 0.465 0.171 Medium 0.437 0.408 0.052 Small
CgL 0.544 0.499 0.098 Small 0.437 0.425 0.022 Small
AL 0.437 0.381 0.100 Small
Source: The authors.
Notes: AL, affective brand loyalty, CnL, conative brand loyalty; CgL, cognitive brand loyalty; BL, brand love; SM, social media marketing activities; VC, value consciousness and BC,
brand consciousness.
16 Global Business Review
supported as the t-statistics measure is 5.010, and the coefficient path is 0.371. Finally, hypothesis H14,
which considers the association between AL and CnL, is supported as the t-values measure is 5.797, and
the path coefficient measure is 0.459.
The population have different categories based on the demographic characteristics. For example,
based on the gender characteristic, the dataset has two groups: male and female. The tested relations can
be different between groups. Table 10 shows the path coefficient scores of the two groups, the differences
and the significance level (p-value and t-value). From the 14 relations within the model, 12 relations
have no significant difference between male and female, and 2 relations have a significant difference.
Social media impact on value conscious is higher for females than males; the path coefficient scores of
female and male groups are 0.384 and 0.61, respectively. In addition, the value-conscious impact on
conative brand loyalty is higher for females than for males; the path coefficient score of female and male
group is 0.038 and −0.016, respectively. The two results show that females brand loyalty can be resultant
from the influence of social media use.
Discussion
The main objective of the current study is to identify the factors which play a major role in consumers’
loyalty behaviour. Therefore, this research attempts to extend the previous studies on loyalty behaviour
through examining the role of social network marketing (SM) on VC, BC and BL and how these variables
affect the phases of loyalty, cognitive, affective and conative within the fast fashion industry in Malaysia.
The present study supports the idea that SM has an important role in marketing which can help marketers
to understand BL, BC and VC in influencing consumers’ behaviour. The result of this study could help
marketers understand the effective communication strategy that can be adopted through social media to
shape positive attitudes.
Salem and Salem 17
Path Coefficients-
Path Coefficients
Path Coefficients
Original (female)
Original (male)
p-Value
STDEV
t-Value
(male)
diff
AL " CnL 0.577 0.118 0.393 0.100 0.183 1.140 0.256
BC " AL 0.110 0.062 −0.044 0.086 0.154 1.497 0.136
BC " CgL 0.122 0.081 0.318 0.112 0.195 1.456 0.147
BC" CnL 0.025 0.076 0.067 0.068 0.043 0.404 0.686
BL" AL 0.585 0.082 0.381 0.109 0.204 1.535 0.126
BL " CgL 0.722 0.068 0.495 0.099 0.227 1.957 0.052
BL " CnL 0.214 0.117 0.422 0.093 0.208 1.326 0.186
CgL " AL 0.257 0.077 0.489 0.108 0.231 1.806 0.072
SM " BC 0.346 0.085 0.341 0.100 0.005 0.042 0.967
SM " BL 0.461 0.075 0.423 0.086 0.038 0.334 0.739
SM " VC 0.384 0.078 0.061 0.119 0.323 2.365 0.019
VC " AL −0.008 0.045 0.020 0.062 0.028 0.372 0.710
VC " CgL −0.003 0.058 −0.093 0.052 0.090 1.116 0.266
VC " CnL 0.038 0.059 −0.160 0.049 0.198 2.475 0.014
Source: The authors.
Notes: AL, affective brand loyalty, CnL, conative brand loyalty; CgL, cognitive brand loyalty; BL, brand love; SM, social media
marketing activities; VC, value consciousness and BC, brand consciousness.
According to Berezan, Yoo, and Christodoulidou (2016), traditional advertising tools such as TV,
stereo and magazines were generally adopted as marketing communications on brand name loyalty,
brand connection as well as brand recognition. However, today’s consumers tend to be more conscious
of using social network to easily find details about brands of interests as compared with the traditional
tools of marketing communications. Nowadays, following fashion trends and brands is so much easier
due to the availability of details of merchandise on social media platforms. Hence, social network
marketing is a good strategy for brand awareness and trustworthy source for brand-conscious consumers.
It has informative and interactive features. The contribution of this study’s findings would be the
extension of advertising communication tools to social networking and understanding its impact on BC
users.
The outcomes also prove that perceived social Internet marketing activities have an impact on BL.
Brands that allow customers to express themselves on social networking sites, as an example, tend to be
loved (Wallace et al., 2014). People who are much more engaged with almost all social networking
activities, for instance by liking, posting and talking about the articles of a particular brand name, are
more likely to be emotionally attached to a manufacturer, which leads to feeling of love towards the
manufacturer. Thus, marketers need to develop methods to interact and connect with clients through
various activities on social media because it could improve the love of shoppers for a brand name.
However, the hypothesized relationships between VC and brand loyalty stages are not supported,
which is inconsistent with the findings of Ismail (2017) who found that value-conscious consumers tend
to be brand loyal consumers. Nevertheless, in the previous study, brand name loyalty was viewed as an
18 Global Business Review
individual construct, and the analysis was on social media users without focusing on any specific industry.
In comparison, this study focuses on the fast fashion industry, and the findings reveal that people who are
value conscious would not be loyal and are often purchasing from just any fast fashion brand. This
particular category of customers found more value whenever they change from brand to brand as long as
they could find cheaper price and spend less time and effort to purchase a fast fashion product.
In comparison, the hypothesized connection between cognitive loyalty and BC is supported even
though the connections between BC and conative and affective brand loyalty are not. Based on Wallace
et al.’s (2014) results, people who are brand conscious and like to own recognized brands tend to be more
dedicated to a brand. People who want to buy a product, particularly high involvement products, might
begin with looking for information externally or internally, which may improve their knowledge with
regard to the brand, and then select or loyally buy the item. Nevertheless, as a result of the dynamics of
the merchandise, fast fashion might lead consumers to choose or even continue purchasing the item due
to the information available on a merchandise’s brand; however excessive BC wouldn’t affect their
happiness (AL) or even their dedication to purchase a specific item brand (conative loyalty). On the other
hand, this study has revealed that if customers discover information that is valuable with regard to some
other brands, and if these information meets the customers’ expectations over the competitor’s product,
powerful customer satisfaction might develop (affective brand loyalty), which leads to the customer
selecting or perhaps continuing to purchase the item (conative brand loyalty).
mentally attached to a brand, which will create BL, tend to be more dedicated towards a brand. Thus,
marketers need to keep a strong relationship with the people by focusing on delivering hedonic
experiences and portraying the good, caring and loving aspect of the company’s value through image
advertising or maybe advertising plan.
The conative loyalty phase could only be recognized by marketers when they obtain good responses
from customers towards their brand name. The customer who reaches this stage shows solid commitment
and trust towards the company (Oliver, 1999). Those type of customers should be acknowledged by
marketers and rewarded for their loyalty.
Acknowledgement
The authors are grateful to the anonymous referees of the journal for their extremely useful suggestions to improve
the quality of the paper. Usual disclaimers apply.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
BC2: Brand names tell me something about the quality of the 1986)
Brand
products.
(BC)
Loyalty
Brand
brand XYZ.
Conative
(CnL)
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