The Effects of Evangelist Marketing Activities on

Menantea’s Brand Equity (Study on Nihonggo

Mantappu Indonesian Community)
Asna Dila
Public Relations Department,
Faculty of Digital Communication and
Hotel & Tourism
Bina Nusantara University
Jakarta, Indonesia 11480
asna.dila@binus.ac.id
Anindya Widita
Public Relations Department,
Faculty of Digital Communication and
Hotel & Tourism
Bina Nusantara University
Jakarta, Indonesia 11480
anindya.widita@binus.ac.id
Galuh Ayu Savitri
Public Relations Department,
Faculty of Digital Communication and
Hotel & Tourism
Bina Nusantara University
Jakarta, Indonesia 11480
galuh.savitri@binus.ac.id

Gabriella Sagita Putri

Public Relations Department,
Faculty of Digital Communication and
Hotel & Tourism
Bina Nusantara University
Jakarta, Indonesia 11480
gabriella.putri004@binus.ac.id
 Abstract—The dependence on the internet has encouraged
the transformation of e-WoM messages and created a variety
of marketing strategy innovations, one of which is evangelism
marketing. This study aimed to understand the influence of
evangelist marketing activities on Menantea’s brand equity
from the perspective of the Nihonggo Mantappu Indonesian
community as fans of Jerome Polin. Uses and gratification
theory, evangelist marketing, and brand equity concepts were
used to support the analysis of finding. This research used a
quantitative approach through questionnaires distributed to
samples with criteria of generation Z with the category B of
socioeconomic status, and have purchased the brand at least
once. The data processing passed the classical assumption test
and simple linear regression analysis. The results showed that
there was a positive and significant influence between the
variables of evangelist marketing activity and brand equity of
65%, with the other factors contributing to the rest. From the
data, it can be concluded that the opinion leadership indicator
as the source of the message has the highest influence on
Menantea's brand equity. The brand also has actively involved
their followers in creating and distributing content through
Instagram. Moreover, the effectiveness of user-generated
content as well as perceived quality of the brand also
contributed to the influence of evangelist marketing on brand
equity.
Keywords—brand equity, brand evangelism, evangelist
marketing, e-wom
I. INTRODUCTION
Amidst the competition of brands with various marketing
strategies, it has become a need to optimize each option to
win customer’s pick. The pandemic and the need of
technology have pushed many small businesses to switch to
online strategy [1]. This transformation has encouraged the
emergence of diverse online marketing strategies, utilizing
social media, such as electronic word-of-mouth (e-WoM)
and call-to-action concept to gauge interaction through
online platforms. Social media use has also birthed many
opinion leaders, also known as influencers, which have a role
in endorsement or paid promotion content.
E-WoM activities, which happens when an individual
tries to persuade others in decision making process, also
takes advantage of the role of influencers as opinion leaders
who move to spread the positive messages. The intensity,
valence of opinion, and content in WoM has been proved to
have significant influence on purchase decision making [2].
Moreover, the activity has also pushed higher connection of
brand communication with the consumers, hence the more
positive content interaction a brand receives, the higher the
attraction level from the consumers toward the brand.
The success of WoM strategy initiated the growth of
similar strategy that is evangelist marketing. It refers to a
form of persuasive communication by existing, loyal
customers to potential customers to use the brand [3]. A
recent example of the practice was the McDonald’s BTS
meal marketing strategy, which has gained a lot of attention
especially from the K-Pop fans to try and buy the meal
created by the collaboration. Now, many local businesses
have started to adopt a similar strategy to target Indonesian
consumers.
Menantea, as one of the local food and beverage brands
owned by a YouTuber, Jerome Polin in Indonesia also tried
to utilize this new era of e-WoM strategy into his brand's
pre-launch period. As an opinion leader, Jerome Polin used
his “Nihongo Mantappu” fanbase community to recommend
products for evangelist marketing activities. Thanks to the
followers’ enthusiasm, they began to move as a follow-up
evangelist by spreading positive e-WoM and building
curiosity of the brand. The constant rolling of e-WoM and
testimonials has helped Menantea increased their Instagram
followers and interactions and able to reach the number of
followers to 100,000 in just 2 hours.
Testimonial factor can influence the process of consumer
purchasing decisions’ evaluation toward a product or a brand
[4]. Among the overload of information and various options
found through the internet, consumers tend to believe direct
testimony or reviews from other consumers. In other cases,
when the review or information came from a public figure,
or an opinion leader, it could attract more attention and direct
them toward checking and purchasing the brand.
In the previous studies, the practice of WoM were mostly
explained through message distribution. This research added
on new perspective on evangelist marketing activity as an
extension of WoM concept. From the consistent stream of
firm-generated and user-generated content to brand the
Menantea’s products by Jerome Polin, as well as the
community of followers as evangelist through social media,
in particular Instagram is a fresh area to explore. This
research aimed to examine the effect of implementing the
evangelist marketing strategy on Menantea’s brand equity. It
hoped to provide new insight of the strategy application and
how it affects brand equity from the consumers’ perspective.
II. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
A. Uses and Gratification Theory
The audience are free to choose any kind of information
they want and need among the abundance of information in
the media. According to the theory, audience did not decide
which medium, instead they tend to look first at their need,
which became the reason of choosing the medium [5]. Thus,
audiences will decide which medium to satisfy their need
and will ignore certain medium if it cannot fulfil their need.
The assumptions of the theory include active audience,
goal-oriented, initiative in choosing media to satisfy needs,
competing media to fulfil audience’s need, audience
awareness of media use, interest, and motives, and media
content value is done by audiences [6].
The needs are what motivate the selection of media on
everyone. Those needs include cognitive, diversion, and
personal identity. Cognitive need relates to how media fulfil
information seeking and help surveillance, diversion is how
media can provide relief from boredom or pressure, and
provide entertainment, while personal identity relates to
building one’s social identity through media use and social
interaction [7].
B. Evangelist Marketing
Brand evangelism, which is an extension of strong,
positive word-of mouth from loyal customers [8] can be
utilized as a strategy of evangelist marketing. The strategy
will then help turn existing customers as advocate to recruit
new ones through positive word-of-mouth [3]. Effectivity of
electronic word of mouth (e-WoM) messages can be
measured through trust in e-WoM sources, attitude towards
e-WoM, and intention to follow e-Wom [9]. These
evangelists hold the role to spread the desired message and
create public conversation to convert new customers through
retelling of positive consumer experience [10]. Generally,
consumers would look for other consumer’s opinion and
recommendation to evaluate a product or brand performance
[11], and when these consumers are followers of an
influencer, or an opinion leader, it could affect their buying
motivation [12], hence the potential of e-WoM content
acting as marketing tool of a brand.
There are several factors that contribute to the creation of
brand evangelism, namely product quality, customer
community building, and the creation of online and offline
brand buzz [3]. It is highlighted that developing two-ways
relationship through firm-created and user-generated content
to improve interaction and brand conversation [13] work to
support the strategy. Other dimensions that play a role in
brand evangelism are brand satisfaction, brand identification,
brand salience, brand trust, and opinion leaderships [14],
[15], [16], [17], [18].
The dimensions of evangelist marketing used in this
research were adapted from Sajoy (2018) [3] and Anggraini
(2018) [15] : (1) e-WoM message, which explains how brand
evangelist creation will always involve a role of e-WoM in
distributing the message and recommendation; (2) opinion
leadership, which relates to the credibility of the message
shared by those familiar with the brand, which can influence
consumer’s trust [19] and also holds an important role in
buying decision making [15]; (3) content, which is the
display of message generated by the brand as well as
evangelists in various forms, is in line in supporting brand
equity [13]. The interaction value in forms of likes,
comments, and shares toward the content would impact the
distribution of e-WoM message in evangelist marketing
strategy.
C. Brand Equity
Brand equity refers to the added value given from a
product/service to its customers, and it can be used to get
feedback to customer’s preference, which has direct effect
to loyalty [20]. The creation of brand equity is essential to
move further the consumer decision making steps. Brand
equity has positive impact to consumer’s purchase intention
[21], including when the brand maximizes the role of
promotion and user-generated content by the consumers
[13], as well as social media brand communication [22]. In
addition to that, brand awareness, perceived value, and
brand association can also be affected by credibility of
consumer reviews [4] meaning that source and quality of
review have an influence in helping brand form positive
result in evaluation of consumer buying decision making.
The dimensions of brand equity, referring to Aaker’s
(1996) [22] are as followed: (1) brand awareness, related to
the ability to recognize or recall a brand as a part of a
category, (2) perceived quality, related to customer’s
perception to overall quality or benefit of a product/service
related to their expectation, (3) brand association, which is
how consumer associated a brand with certain concept in
their mind, (4) brand loyalty, as a measure of customer’s
loyalty toward the brand, and (5) other proprietary brand
assets, which is other assets not included in the other four
categories, but could contribute in building brand equity.
III. METHOD
Quantitative approach was used through giving online
questionnaires to the selected sample of respondents. The
independent variable is evangelist marketing (X) and the
dependent variable is brand equity (Y). The data were
collected and processed from 105 respondents chosen by
purposive sampling technique with criteria as followed: (1)
generation Z, (2) B's category of socioeconomic status, and
(3) have purchased Menantea's product at least once.
To ensure the data are suitable simple regression
technique, sampling was carried out through the process of
converting data from ordinal to the interval, tested of
validity, reliability, normality, linearity, heteroscedasticity,
and linear regression analysis. In addition, to test the
research hypothesis, the coefficient of determination test and
T-test was carried out to test and calculate the effect
between variables.
Total questions in the distributed questionnaires were
30 questions. Evangelist marketing as independent variables
has three dimensions in this measure, namely e-WoM
messages, opinion leadership, and content. E-WoM
messages is considered because it will be needed in the
process of recommending new consumer. Opinion
leadership is considered due to effect of consumer towards
the brand. Content is considered because it helps in
increasing the effectiveness of e-WoM messages.
Meanwhile four dimensions of brand equity were used,
namely brand awareness, perceived quality, brand
association, and brand loyalty. Brand awareness was
measured through the level of consumers awareness
regarding of Menantea. Perceived quality was measured
through the level of customer satisfaction of Menantea.
Brand was association measured by the level of familiarity
Menantea in consumers’ mind, and brand loyalty was
measured through the level of customer satisfaction drives
purchase retention.
IV. RESULT AND DISCUSSION
The study aims to find the relationship between
evangelist marketing activity and brand equity of Menantea.
The data were gathered from total 105 respondents, 80.3%
female, 18.8% male, and 0.9% chose not to mention, with
the majority in the age range of 17 to 26 (53.8% respondents
age 17-21 and 38.5% respondents age 21-26). Meanwhile the
socioeconomic status was dominated by students/university
students (74.4%), with 18.8% are employed, 6% are
entrepreneurs, and 0.9% unemployed.
Variable of evangelist marketing (X) had 15 items of
variables question, 76.29% indicated that average score of 4
to 6. The index analysis showed that the indicator points with
the highest percentage of answers were opinion leadership
while the lowest percentage of answers were the e-WoM
message. On the other hand, a total of 15 variable statement
items of brand equity (Y) obtained a total score of 78.64%.
As for the highest percentage points, it was found that the
perceived quality indicator showed the highest point average.
A. Reliability and Validity Test
The test was done through SPSS. The consistency was
assessed with Cronbach’s Alpha’s reliability coefficient. The
validity test table resulted in the calculation of R-count > R-
table with a critical point of 5% in the questionnaire.
Meanwhile the reliability test resulted in 0.938 on the
variable (X) and 0.943 on the variable (Y). Based on the
decision criteria at a significance level of 5%, the results of
all instruments are valid and reliable.
B. Hypothesis Test
The hypotheses in this research were:
H0: Evangelist marketing activities has no positive effect on
Menantea’s brand equity.
H1: Evangelist marketing activities has a positive effect on
Menantea’s brand equity.
Fig. 1. Value of coefficient of determination
To test the established hypothesis, a coefficient of
determination test was conducted to find out the effect of the
variable (X) on the variable (Y) and the T-test to find out
whether the hypothesis was rejected or accepted. In the
coefficient of determination test, it was found that the R-
square value was 0.650 (Fig. 1). Therefore, variable (X)
affected variable (Y) by 65% and had a remaining 35%
which may be influenced by other factors. As for the result
value of the T-count is 13,841 and the value of the T-table is
1,986 (Fig. 2), thus it was concluded that H1 can be accepted
because the significance value of T is 13,841 > 1,986.
Fig. 2. T-test result
C. Linear Regression Analysis
The regression analysis result in Fig. 3 showed that
every 1% addition to the value of the evangelist marketing
variable (X) will give values to the brand equity variable (Y)
of 0.830 with the constant values of the brand equity
variable (Y) was 21,539.
Fig. 3. Regression analysis
Based on the analysis, the H0 hypothesis of there is an
influence between the variables of evangelist marketing (X)
and brand equity (Y) could be proven. The magnitude of the
influence value of the variable (X) is about 65% with a
description of adding 1% to the variable (X) will give a
value to the variable (Y) of 0.830. The remaining 35% may
be obtained from other factors such as product quality,
brand popularity, or customer satisfaction which can
influence consumer purchasing decisions [24].
D. Analysis of Evangelist Marketing Activities and Its
Effect on Brand Equity
Based on the analysis, the H0 hypothesis of there is an
influence between the variables of evangelist marketing (X)
and brand equity (Y) could be proven. The magnitude of the
influence value of the variable (X) is about 65% with a
description of adding 1% to the variable (X) will give a
value to the variable (Y) of 0.830. The remaining 35% may
be obtained from other factors such as product quality,
brand popularity, or customer satisfaction which can
influence consumer purchasing decisions [24].
Opinion leadership was the indicator with the highest
result of evangelist marketing dimension in Menantea brand,
which showed the importance of evangelists in building the
brand. The role of evangelists is expected to spread positive,
desirable message for a brand, thus affecting consumer
behavior to respond positively toward the content or
information shared. Consequently, brands need to properly
consider the image of opinion leaders to achieve effective e-
WoM dissemination results in the minds of consumers.
Consumers do not focus only on the message, but also the
source and reason of the message [25]. In this case,
Menantea was able to identify the right strategy to benefit
from evangelists. The result that supported opinion
leadership point was also shown from the engagement of
customers of Menantea in the social media account. These
customers feel that they obtain relevant and positive
information about the products and that they gain brand
knowledge from the content shared.
In another evangelist marketing dimension, which is
content, Menantea showed how the variety of contents
posted have gained them more followers and interaction. In
general, Menantea answered the uses and gratifications
theory assumptions by utilizing fun, light, and interactive
content message presentation strategy which evoked
positive stimulus for their customers by bringing fresh
content. It also proved to improve the aspects of Menantea's
brand awareness and brand association having actively
involving consumers to decide product name, logo, even the
nickname for the account. Co-creation process contributed
to changing public’s perception toward the brand [26], thus
supported the personal identity motive in uses and
gratification theory by giving the role for consumers in the
brand development.
Another example can be seen from the #BukaToko
message dissemination strategy during the prelaunch, which
went viral due to the face of Jerome Polin who has become
very tied to the brand. The constant stream of brand
message and information before the product launch has
managed to gain interest and curiosity toward the brand. It
worked to build equity from the brand awareness and
association perspective, and since the image of Jerome
works for the brand, thus followers became immediately
familiar with the brand. The level of consistency of the
message affects the consumer trust toward the brand [4] and
Menantea has established consistency through the brand’s
Instagram interactive content.
Customers look forward to new information related to
what they like or follow. In this case, it represents the
diversion or entertainment motive from uses and
gratification theory which deals with how users look for
media and content to give them entertainment or to please
their feeling. Menantea’s Instagram content provided that
through the engaging ‘teasing’ content of their products,
combined with the charming image of Jerome Polin.
The result also showed that the level of satisfaction
toward Menantea’s quality and buying experience is
positive in supporting the brand equity level. The positive
testimonies became its own content category, created to
highlight its product quality, which can determine consumer
decision making step. As stated in Sajoy (2018) [3], product
quality is also a strong indicator of information searching
activity and product recommendation online. The more
Nihonggo Mantappu community published the satisfaction
through testimony online, the more consumers will be
attracted and curious to try and buy the product.
Seeing the high level of customer satisfaction, Menantea
keeps working on the strategy through firm-generated as
well as user-generated content in Instagram. There are 3
content categories observed in Menantea’s Instagram
account, namely interactive, informative, and testimony. In
relation to uses and gratification theory, while informative
content fulfills consumer’s cognitive need, interactive and
testimony content are assumed to meet diversion and
personal identity needs. As a follower, a form of dialog and
interaction with their favorite public figure would invoke
pleasing feeling, even only through mention or share of
comment. There is also an element of being seen in social
media, which may satisfy their personal identify need.
Menantea tries to touch on the fans’ side of evangelist to
increase the recommendation aspect given, which would
lead to perceived quality and brand loyalty aspects. The
positive interaction and experience also contribute to the
willingness to recommend the brand.
To achieve brand loyalty, a brand must be able to cover
all aspects of loyalty to push customers to do repeat buying.
Those aspects include cognitive (happens when customers
have high brand awareness), affective (familiar with the
brand and feel satisfied with their buying experience),
conative (satisfaction which leads to intention to
recommend brand to others), and action (where repeat
buying and recommendation are carried over) [27]. The
result presented high level of customer satisfaction and
showed tendency to make the brand a priority and that they
want to recommend it to others. These customers would
contribute to evangelist marketing practice when they
actively participate in creating content and spreading
positive word-of-mouth of the brand to others through social
media.
V. CONCLUSION
The role of opinion leadership, the level of
effectiveness of user-generated content, and perceived
quality in evangelist marketing activities have a positive
influence on brand equity measurement regardless of other
evangelist-forming factors. The dimension of opinion
leadership showed the highest result among other
dimensions in evangelist marketing due to the brand
owner’s (Jerome Polin) influence in boosting their
followers to join the spread of positive e-WoM and acting as
evangelist themselves. Additionally, the informative,
interactive, and testimonial contents consistently created and
disseminated in Instagram by both the brand and customers
increased brand awareness from building familiarity toward
the brand, perceived quality as seen from brand satisfaction
in buyers’ testimony, brand association through brand
development co-creation, and brand loyalty.
Menantea as an uprising brand could continue
optimizing the evangelist marketing strategy as long as it
can maintain customer’s trust and loyalty, and the image of
Jerome Polin stays favorable. Likewise, improving brand
awareness would help wider reach and support the brand to
become a top-of-mind brand in the industry. Furthermore,
finding another innovation for its strategy would benefit the
firm in long term to balance the area that cannot be covered
by evangelist marketing strategy. Further research about
implementation of evangelist marketing strategy can be
done and explored from the brand’s perspective in similar or
different industry. Additionally, the result of this research
can also be used to add reference in the study of brand
evangelism and evangelist marketing should an interested
brand plan to practice the strategy.
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