Is the use of influencer marketing and brand community effective for enhancing awareness of a new brand?

Undoubtedly, in the modern age of digitalization, Millennials, who are considered digital natives, have become a massive target market for salespersons. Changes in the way Millennials think accompanied by an explosion of social media have led to an increased focus on social media influencer marketing in the company sector. To help establish a new marketing paradigm that accounts for these changes, this research aims to conceptualize and investigate the process of building consumer-brand relationships with Millennial consumers through social media micro-influencers. Findings based on structural equation modeling revealed that four core characteristics of social media micro-influencers (i.e., authenticity, the meaning of the influencer, specific content, and secret sharing) were a significant antecedent of brand engagement and brand love, which, in turn, mediated the pathway from social media micro-influencer characteristics to brand evangelism. Understanding what social media micro-influencers mean to Millennials offers the promise of improving brand evangelism through more precise market analysis and market strategy. In the discussion, the paper introduces a three-stage building method towards brand evangelism through social media micro-influencer, including: (1) the stage of selecting influencers; (2) the stage of constructing intense emotional responses to the brand (brand engagement and brand love); and ultimately (3) the stage of becoming a brand evangelist. Lastly, limitations and future directions were discussed.

The video game and virtual reality became a new way of doing marketing considering their growing popularity and the advances of new technologies in the past few decades. In this paper is presented a research that investigates the impact of product placement in video games on gamers’ decisions on the purchase of goods from advertised. This research is focused on two of the most played games nowadays: FIFA 19 and Final Fantasy XV. A survey with 465 respondents was conducted to understand the antecedents that impact the purchase decision considering the stimulus originated from the product placement. To conduct the survey, a framework was designed based in the extant literature reviewed and finally considering the constructs of product placement, quality of virtual reality, brand recognition, brand familiarity, emotional response and purchase frequency. The results of the study suggest that gamers generally respond positively towards product placement and that product placement can indirectly impact emotional responses that will impact on consumer’s purchase intention. Hence, advertising in the video game enhances brand recognition and the perception of virtual reality. The framework presented in this paper represents the theoretical contribution of this paper, relating different concepts in the theory of product placement to the purchase intention. Therefore, the findings on this paper can help managers to find the best way to reach customers by improving the product placement strategy in the video games.

Previous studies have demonstrated varying associations between fundamental components of brand equity within diverse sectors. The purpose of the current study is to examine the influence of Aaker’s brand equity model’s dimensions (brand awareness, brand loyalty, perceived quality, and brand association) on brand equity in the context of toy brands in Malaysia. The study employs a quantitative-based correlation design within a non-controlled setting, using a cross-sectional approach with individuals as the unit of analysis. The population consists of respondents from the general public aged 18 and above, as they are valid buyers of toys. Data collection was conducted using a non-probability sampling method. The questionnaire was sent to the targeted respondents using online Google Form links. A comprehensive dataset from 384 respondents was gathered for descriptive analysis of the demographic profile. Hypothesis testing was performed using regression analysis. The findings indicate that, except for brand associations, the remaining three factors – perceived quality (Beta = .377, p < .001), brand loyalty (Beta = .338, p < .001), and brand awareness (Beta = .221, p < .01) – exhibit a statistically significant positive correlation with the brand equity of children’s toy brands in Malaysia.

Acknowledgment
The authors thank INTI International University, Malaysia, for providing financial support to publish this paper.