The mediating role of Brand image and Lovemarks Brands between Social Media Marketing Activities and Brand Equity: An Empirical Study on Fashion wear industry in Egypt

Purpose – Many organizations consider attaining brand equity as a top priority since the brand is one of the most treasured assets of any organization. As such, considerable efforts are continuously exerted by academia to understand the factors that influence brand equity (BE) development. Although social media marketing activities (SMMA) are currently recognized as one of the pivotal aspects in attracting consumers and thus indirectly persuading them to purchase these products along with building brand equity, especially in the fashion wear industry, there is still a deficiency in empirical investigation. Hence, to narrow this gap, this paper aims to investigate the impact of brand image (BI) and lovemarks (LM) as mediating variables on the association between SMMA and BE. Furthermore, fashion innovativeness (FI) is also assessed as a mediator in the correlation between SMMA and LM.
Design/methodology/approach – The design of this research is descriptive and quantitative, where two data kinds were used; Secondary Data – Aiming at a theoretical overview, collection of secondary data was done from various websites, and research papers, which discussed the topics connected to the research question. Primary Data – Primary data were needed to attain the research objectives and were collected through the E-Questionnaire method introduced by Google models for applying the questionnaire through the Internet and filling it out by different people, with obtaining a total of 335 valid responses. Hypotheses were tested using the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS V26) for basic descriptive statistics, and (Smart PLS 3.2.7) for SEM-PLS modelling.
Findings – The results revealed that perceived SMMA have a positive significant impact on BE through the mediating variables as an indirect impact. Surprisingly, SMMA were observed to have no direct effect on brand equity BE. Also, the correlation among perceived SMMA and BE was found to be mediated by BI and LM. Similarly, the link among perceived SMMA and brand LM was noticed to be moderated by FI. Furthermore, findings indicated that the indirect effect of perceived SMMA on BE via LM is moderated by FI.
Originality/value – This research further broadened the current knowledge by displaying the mediating role of BI and LM in the effect of perceived SMMA on BE. Also, this research allows for developing and testing a parsimonious model, which is useful, especially for practitioners by utilizing the strength of PLS–SEM in managing higher-order constructs.