Use of Mobile Advergame as Brand Communication Tool

The new and creative marketing strategies came into existence to attract consumers towards the brand by marketing agencies. One of these innovative marketing tools is mobile advergame which is observed as an attractive marketing tactic to enhance product awareness. The present study aims to identify the use of mobile advergame as a brand communication tool in Malaysia. A total of 366 Malaysian gamers were taken into consideration as respondents of this study. A structured online based questionnaire was designed for the study and self-brand congruity measurement was adopted to measure an association between consumer’s self-image and characteristics of brand’s value among gamers. The participants were asked about their experiences related to the advertisements occurred during the game. The findings revealed a positive relationship between self-brand congruity’s brand recall, brand attitude and purchase intention, entertainment brand recall, and brand attitude. As the main purpose of mobile advergame is to enhance the brand awareness; therefore, a consistency between the product and game content should be identified by the advertising company

Antecedents of Brand Recall and Brand Attitude towards Purchase Intention in advergames.

Research on purchase intention had showed remarkable work in contributing to the theory of buyer behaviour. However, the impact of brand recall and brand attitude on purchase intention in advergames has not yet been well explored especially in a developing economic country such as Malaysia. Furthermore, the influences of self-brand congruity, entertainment and brand placement acceptance as antecedents to brand recall and brand attitude are expecting to put more “value added” to the brand recall, brand attitude and purchase intention relationships. This paper aims to investigate the impact of brand recall and brand attitude on purchase intention in advergames among Malaysian gamers. Also, the antecedents towards brand recall and brand attitude were examined to measure their influences on purchase intention. A total of 350 Malaysian gamers have been interviewed through an online survey for this study. The results showed that self-brand congruity, entertainment and brand placement acceptance were found to have significant relationship with brand attitude and purchase intention. Also, both entertainment and brand placement acceptance were found to have significant relationship with brand recall. As expected, brand recall and brand attitude have positive relationship with consumer purchase intention in advergames. Applications of the study are discussed. Keywords: Self-congruity, Entertainment, Brand placement acceptance, Brand recall, Brand attitude, Purchase intention, Advergames

Advertisers use online reviews to design more effective advertisements

The key advertisement element “text” has a unique effect on advertisements and a number of studies have examined how advertisements need to be effective and persuasive. This paper aims to mine the customer reviews for emotional, non-emotional content to design more effective advertisements. The results suggest that the recall effect is higher for print advertisements containing emotional content. Also, we found that advertisements with a mix of emotional and non-emotional content will have a positive attitude towards the print advertisements. Furthermore, It has been found that viewing advertisements with a mix of both emotional and non-emotional text will increase purchase intension among consumers

Application of AHP and DEMATEL Procedure on Brand Experience

Brand experience comprises of numerous dimensions, attributes, and intangible components which are difficult to measure accurately. Hence, this paper proposes a hybrid multi-criteria decision making procedure, combining the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and decision making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) method to serve the decision-makers with a quantitative means of assessing the brand experience. AHP & DEMATEL helps capture both subjective and objective appraisal methods, offering a useful tool for evaluating evaluation accuracy and alternatives, thus eliminating bias in decisionmaking. Furthermore, conducting a thorough assessment to clearly define and understand which of these dimensions and attributes most impacts the brand and business is at least half the battle. It will make the task of building actionable strategies all the more manageable and more successful outcomes. The outputs of AHP and DEMATEL will certainly facilitate the decision-makers to make better-informed decisions concerning the brand experience

Investigation On Salesperson’s Attributes with The Theory of Planned Behaviour and Their Influence on Unit Trust Actual Buying Behaviour

Investment in unit trust funds potentially provides numerous benefits to investors, yet the situation in Malaysia indicates that there is much more to be understood about investment behaviour among investors, particularly in relation to the role played by unit trust agents as the sole salespeople for unit trust funds. Hence, this study extended the Theory of Planned Behaviour with the inclusion of salesperson’s attributes, which is based on the Trait Theory of the Big Five Factors, to understand actual behaviour of unit trust fund investors. This study also investigated the moderating roles of gender and age on the relationships of attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control and salesperson’s attributes with actual behaviour for unit trust funds. By using a PLS-SEM approach, this descriptive and quantitative study used a total of 290 valid datasets from respondents who were selected using purposive sampling method. The findings of the study show that attitude and perceived behavioural control significantly influenced actual behaviour of unit trust fund investors with small effect sizes while salesperson’s attributes significantly influenced actual behaviour with a moderate effect size. Meanwhile, subjective norm was found to be an insignificant predictor of actual behaviour among unit trust fund investors. Additionally, gender and age were not significant moderators in the structural model. Overall, the structural model presents a substantial although small predictive accuracy at 29.4 per cent in explaining the variance in actual behaviour of unit trust fund investors with salesperson’s attributes accounting for 13.0 per cent out of the overall model’s predictive accuracy. As it is, this study shows that attitude and perceived behavioural control do contribute towards explaining actual behaviour of the unit trust fund investors but salesperson’s attributes is a more significant factor in determining the behaviour of the investors regarding investing in unit trust funds. These findings lead to the implication of the need for salespeople to possess the right attributes mainly related to conscientiousness, extraversion and agreeableness to match the perception of unit trust fund investors towards salespeople. Further to that, the limitations of this study, which mainly point to the small contribution of the structural model in explaining actual behaviour of unit trust fund investors, lead to the necessity of expanding the Theory of Planned Behaviour with more variables in future research undertakings. It is, however, concluded that the insights derived from this study could contribute significantly in designing practical approaches based on salesperson’s attributes in generating enhanced purchase of unit trust funds among Malaysians

Exploring determinants shaping recycling behavior using an extended theory of planned behavior model: An empirical study of households in Sabah, Malaysia

Household waste and the exploitation of the environment are among the alarming and unsustainable consumption patterns that are harmful to the ecosystem. Hence, this study aims to determine the factors influencing recycling behavior by extending the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to an analysis of how recycling practices are fostered among citizens and how sustainable development goals (SDG) are upheld. The extended TPB model includes moral norms, convenience, and the cost of recycling. A total of 170 responses were received via the purposive sampling technique. The research model was analyzed using the partial least square structural equation modeling technique (PLS-SEM). Results show that subjective norms, moral norms, convenience, and the cost to recycle positively influenced recycling behavior. Environmental awareness was found to heavily influence attitudes, but attitudes were not found to translate into behavior. This research provides significant insight and a better understanding of recycling behavior and adds new momentum to the growing literature. The implications of these findings are further discussed

Comparative Study Of Gender’s Attitude Toward The Intention To Imitate Korean Celebrity Endorsement

The purpose of this study is to addresses the issue of how gender affecting attitude towards the intention to imitate Korean celebrity endorsement in advertisement among young Malaysians. Particularly, the researchers would like to scrutinize whether young Malaysians male and female are different attitudinally when it comes to intention to imitate Korean celebrity endorsement. A survey of 602 young consumers aged between 18 to 29 years old were participated in this study. A Multi-Group Analysis (PLS-MGA) was carried out to examine differences between two groups (male and female) in particular their intention to imitate Korean celebrity in Malaysia. The results demonstrate the comparative study of gender between male and female attitude toward the intention to imitate korean celebrity endorsement, there are no different if we want to see which characteristics, even though, whether celebrity characteristics the results is the same from male and female. However, the current researchers found that there was a different effect in terms of the level of acceptance of male and female when they affected by celebrity. The result shows that although there are relationship between attractiveness, credibility, trustworthiness, expertise, and attitude towards intention to imitate Korean celebrity endorsement, but they did not indicate major differences between male and female. In addition, there were no significant difference between male group and female group

The impact of character presence and entertainment value on brand recall and brand attitude in advergame

The increase of online advertising, in particular advergame, has become popular method in strengthening consumer brand recognition by inserting attractive characters and entertainment value. Studies on using spokes-characters in advertising effectiveness had showed convincing result in marketing communication. However, few studies have examined the link between character presence and consumers‟ brand recall and attitude in advergame. Moreover, how the entertainment value of an advergame influences brand recall and brand attitude and the mediating role of brand recall in influencing character presence and entertainment on brand attitude are still lacking in the advergaming literature. Objective: This paper examines the influence of character presence and entertainment on brand recall and brand attitude in advergame. Results: Using structural equation modeling, the results showed that character presence had no influence but entertainment value had a positive influence on brand recall and brand attitude. This study confirmed the role of brand recall as a mediator of the effect of between entertainment and brand attitude in advergame. Conclusion: This study fills the gap of the relationship between character presence and entertainment on brand recall and attitude in advergame

Young Malaysian Consumers’ Attitude and Intention to Imitate Korean Celebrity Endorsements

This study addressed the issue of young Malaysian consumers’ intention to imitate Korean celebrities’ endorsement in advertisements. The researchers specifically focused on the impact of Korean celebrity characteristics and the consumer’s individual characteristics on the latter’s attitude towards imitating celebrity endorsements and the consumer’s intention to imitate. 602 young Malaysian consumers in the Klang Valley participated in this study. The results pointed to celebrity characteristics namely attractiveness and trustworthiness as directly and indirectly significant, whilst credibility and expertise were directly and indirectly not significant predictors on consumer attitude toward imitating celebrity endorsements. In addition, individual characteristics namely self-satisfaction and expression of power were directly and indirectly significant predictors on consumer attitude towards imitating celebrity endorsements. There was also a significant effect on attitude towards imitating celebrity endorsements on intention to imitate. Suggestions for future research are discussed at the end of this paper

Comparative Study of Gender's Attitude toward the Intention to Imitate Korean Celebrity Endorsement

The purpose of this study is to addresses the issue of how gender affecting attitude towards the intention to imitate Korean celebrity endorsement in advertisement among young Malaysians. Particularly, the researchers would like to scrutinize whether young Malaysians male and female are different attitudinally when it comes to intention to imitate Korean celebrity endorsement. A survey of 602 young consumers aged between 18 to 29 years old were participated in this study. A Multi-Group Analysis (PLS-MGA) was carried out to examine differences between two groups (male and female) in particular their intention to imitate Korean celebrity in Malaysia. The results demonstrate the comparative study of gender between male and female attitude toward the intention to imitate korean celebrity endorsement, there are no different if we want to see which characteristics, even though, whether celebrity characteristics the results is the same from male and female. However, the current researchers found that there was a different effect in terms of the level of acceptance of male and female when they affected by celebrity. The result shows that although there are relationship between attractiveness, credibility, trustworthiness, expertise, and attitude towards intention to imitate Korean celebrity endorsement, but they did not indicate major differences between male and female. In addition, there were no significant difference between male group and female group