An Empirical Investigation of the Moderating Role of Transformational Advertising Message Strategies in the Relationships Between Brand Identification, Parasocial Interaction, Brand Trust and Brand Love

Abstract:

The paper examines the moderating role of transformational advertising on brand identification and parasocial interaction impact on brand love mediated by brand trust. Brands like Nike, Adidas, and Under Armor create transformational advertising as a means to resonate with consumer values such as performance inspiration.

The study context is the running community because the members identify strongly with the brand of their shoes, which is a critical component of the activity. Data was collected from 213 Millennials and analysis was conducted using structural equation modeling to test the hypotheses. Model fit analysis revealed that the direct and indirect model showed good fit, while the moderation model showed reasonable fit. This shows that transformational advertising moderated the direct relationship between brand identification and brand love.

Also, the results demonstrated that transformational advertising partially moderated the relationship between parasocial interaction and brand love. Similarly, the finding of this study indicated that transformational advertising partially moderates the indirect relationship between brand identification and parasocial interaction on brand love through brand trust.

The contribution of this study is the presentation of the conditional indirect effect of transformational advertising, which shows how emotional messages drive passionate relationships that are beneficial for the brand.