Brand Equity and Buying Intentions in Food Industry: Mediating Role of Emotional Connection and Moderating Role of Engagement

Abstract

The paper explores the role of brand equity antecedents in consumer purchasing intentions in the e-commerce food industry in Pakistan, looking at how brand emotional connection and consumer engagement moderate the context. The study uses a total of eleven hypotheses to test using a broad theoretical framework on 300 online consumers through structural equation modeling. Results indicate that brand emotional connection (0.339 to 0.469) is greatly influenced by perceived brand quality, brand loyalty and brand engagement (B = 0.522) that in turn affects consumer buying intentions. The mediating variable between all the antecedent pathways to buying intentions is brand emotional connection and the effects are indirectly 0.177-0.245. Consumer engagement is an important moderator of the relationship between emotional connection and buying intention (0.361) and it moderates the mediation effects by an order of magnitude over 90 percent. The model gives an explanation of 53.6 percent of the consumer buying intention variance. Findings reveal that joint strategies involving emotional brand building and optimal strategy of consumer engagement provide the best results in purchase in online food retailing.