The Role of Facebook Marketing on Customer-based Brand Equity and Purchase Intention in Fashion-wear Retail Industry, Sri Lanka

Abstract

In the contemporary environment, people experience things in a completely different way than the previous generation. The consumables, lifestyles and decision making has been affected and controlled by social media. With this new shift in consumer behavior, reaching the target customer groups via traditional channels may not be effective for business firms. Due to this reason, identifying the potentials of new channels become vital for business firms. This paper study the activities on marketing on such giant social network named Facebook and components of customer-based brand equity and purchase intention on the same platform. Customers of the fashion-wear retail industry were targeted for this study and survey method has been used for data collection. The relevant questionnaire was pilot tested among 40 Facebook fans of the reputed fashion-wear retailers in Sri Lanka. Based on the theories and expert opinions the measures of Facebook marketing, customer-based brand equity and purchase intention were identified. Reliability and validity of these constructs were tested and the remaining items were selected as the measures for these variables.