The impact of electronic word of mouth, brand image, brand awareness on purchase intention : a study of telecommunication industry in Malaysia

Abstract

The telecommunication world has been very competitive in recent years in terms of its growth in the 21st century. It is due to the strong demographic evolution of technology as well as the ease of access to information worldwide, and the majority of users have the possibility to use the means of telecommunication that suit them within the well-established telecommunication environment. Strong technological growth and the spread of information have prompted business leaders and owners to reconsider how they could strategically attract and retain customers. Moreover, the world has witnessed revolution in the information technology through the use of internet, hence, this has affected the flow of information entirely and made it different from the olden days, before the emergence of internet. Today with the emergence of internet everywhere, the world saw the improvement in the marketing communication which has been aided through the use of customized facilities such as the e-mail and Short Messages Service (SMS) as well as marketing by way of direct sales—door to door and telemarketing. This study examined the relationship between brand image, brand awareness and electronic word of mouth with the purchase intention among telecom subscribers in Malaysia. Quantitative research approach was employed to examine this relationship as well as the influence of these variables on purchase intention using a structured questionnaire based on 5-point likert scale. The results show that the gender distribution, according to the socio-economic characteristics of the respondents, indicates that the number of women interviewed is higher than that of men. In terms of the age distribution of respondents, most of them are in the 30-40 age category. Ethnically, the distribution of participants indicates that most of them are Malay, followed by Chinese, Indians and others. The majority of respondents have a Bachelor`s or Master`s degree, and the majority are students or government employees. Pearson`s correlation analysis shows that there is a significant and positive relationship between all independent variables (brand image, brand awareness and electronic word of mouth) and the dependent variable (purchase intention). Therefore, the results of the multiple regression analysis show that the 3 independent variables all have a significant influence on the purchase intention.