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Effects of social media brand-related content on fashion products buying behaviour – a moderated mediation model

Journal of Product & Brand Management, 2022

Bruno Schivinski, Nicolas Pontes, Barbara Czarnecka, Wen Mao, Jennifer De Vita, Vasileios Stavropoulos

Journal of Product & Brand Management, volume 31, issue 7, pages 1047–1062, 2022 (online March 2022)

  • 622 social media users
  • Fashion brands
  • Moderated mediation
  • PROCESS models 4 and 8
  • USA
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Free full text: the authors’ accepted manuscript, identical in content to the published article. Please cite the published version.

Keywords
  • social media
  • brand-related content
  • brand equity
  • self-congruity
  • purchase intentions
  • product endorsement
  • firm-created content (FCC)
  • user-generated content (UGC)
  • social media brand communication
  • consumer-based brand equity (CBBE)
  • fashion brands
  • fashion marketing
  • buying behaviour
  • self-image
  • self-congruity theory
  • self-expression
  • influencer marketing
  • brand endorsement
  • content marketing
  • firm-created and user-generated content scales (Schivinski and Dabrowski)
  • overall brand equity scale (Yoo and Donthu)
  • self-congruity scale (Sirgy)
  • United States
  • Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk)
  • Instagram
  • Facebook
  • moderated mediation
  • conditional process analysis
  • PROCESS macro (Hayes)
  • bootstrapping
  • between-subjects survey
  • online survey
  • social media strategy
  • fashion brand management
  • influencer selection
  • integrated marketing communications

A fashion brand's own posts build brand equity for every follower, but posts by other users do so only for people who see themselves in the brand. In a survey of 622 US social media users who followed a fashion brand, brand equity carried part of the effect of both kinds of content, and self-congruity amplified only the user-generated route.

Key findings

  1. Brand equity carries part of the effect of social media content on purchase intention. In a survey of 622 US social media users who followed a fashion brand, firm-created content increased consumer-based brand equity (β = 0.59) and user-generated content did too (β = 0.45); brand equity in turn raised purchase intention, giving significant indirect effects of 0.13 for both content types (95% CI [0.06, 0.20] and [0.06, 0.21]) (Schivinski et al., 2022).
  2. Firm-created content also works directly, and more strongly than user-generated content. With brand equity in the model, the direct effect on purchase intention was 0.51 for firm-created content and 0.31 for user-generated content (both p < .001); the total effects were 0.64 and 0.44 (Schivinski et al., 2022).
  3. User-generated content builds brand equity only for consumers who identify with the brand. The effect of user-generated content on brand equity was not significant at low self-congruity (β = 0.09, 95% CI [−0.06, 0.25]), but rose to 0.29 at average and 0.49 at high self-congruity (interaction β = 0.32, p < .001); the index of moderated mediation was 0.07 (95% CI [0.01, 0.14]) (Schivinski et al., 2022).
  4. Firm-created content works regardless of self-congruity. The indirect effect of firm-created content on purchase intention through brand equity was significant at low (0.12), average (0.10) and high (0.08) self-congruity, and the index of moderated mediation was not significant (−0.03, 95% CI [−0.07, 0.01]) (Schivinski et al., 2022).
  5. Self-congruity did not change the direct effect of either content type on purchase intention. The interaction of content type and self-congruity on purchase intention was not significant for firm-created (β = 0.01, p = .85) or user-generated content (β = −0.03, p = .54); self-congruity worked through brand equity (Schivinski et al., 2022).

At a glance

Design
Online survey (Qualtrics) with a between-group design: each participant rated either firm-created or user-generated content about a fashion brand they followed; mediation (PROCESS model 4) and moderated mediation (model 8) with 10,000 bootstrap samples, IBM SPSS 26
Participants
622 US social media users who actively followed a fashion brand on social media, recruited on Amazon Mechanical Turk (311 per content type; mean age 36.45 years, 44.1% women); 948 recruited before data cleaning; 168 brands named, from sports brands to premium fashion
Predictors
Perceptions of firm-created and user-generated social media brand-related content (4 items each; Schivinski & Dabrowski, 2016)
Mediator and moderator
Consumer-based brand equity (4 items; Yoo & Donthu, 2001) and self-congruity (5 items; Sirgy et al., 1997)
Outcome
Purchase intention of fashion products (3 items; Yoo et al., 2000); all scales 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree
Controls
Age, gender, social media platform and brand usage

Figure 1. Conceptual model of the moderated mediation relationship

+++++++++Self-congruityConsumer-basedbrand equityFirm-created contentUser-generated contentPurchase intention offashion productsDirect and mediated pathsModeration by self-congruityControls: age, gender, social media platform, brand usage
Firm-created and user-generated social media brand-related content are expected to raise consumer-based brand equity, which in turn increases the intention to purchase fashion products. Self-congruity (dashed arrows) is expected to strengthen both the direct paths to purchase intention and the indirect paths through brand equity.

Figure 2. Self-congruity moderates the relation between social media brand-related content types and consumer-based brand equity

Firm-created content3.603.804.004.204.40LowHighPerception of firm-created contentConsumer-based brand equityHighMidLowUser-generated content3.603.804.004.204.40LowHighPerception of user-generated contentHighMidLowSelf-congruity:HighMidLow
Redrawn from Figure 2 of the article (end points read from the published plot). For firm-created content the lines converge slightly (the effect on brand equity was a little smaller at high self-congruity); for user-generated content brand equity rises with content perceptions only when self-congruity is average or high.

Indirect effect of social media content on purchase intention through brand equity, by level of self-congruity

Firm-created contentLow self-congruity0.12Average self-congruity0.1High self-congruity0.08User-generated contentLow self-congruity0.02Average self-congruity0.07High self-congruity0.11
Conditional indirect effects (ind. β) at one standard deviation below the mean, at the mean and one standard deviation above the mean of self-congruity, from Table 2 of the article (n = 311 per content type). The user-generated effect at low self-congruity was not significant (95% CI [−0.04, 0.10]).

Tables

Table 2. Mediation and moderated mediation analysis effects

Effect FCC β SE t p UGC β SE t p
H1. Mediation (Models 1a and 1b). Outcome: consumer-based brand equity
Age 0.02 0.01 0.63 0.52 −0.03 0.01 −0.81 0.41
Gender (ref: female = 1) −0.07 0.05 −1.64 0.10 −0.03 0.05 −0.021 0.83
Social media platform 0.01 0.02 0.04 0.96 0.09 0.02 1.91 0.05
Brand usage 0.10 0.03 2.32 0.02 0.22 0.03 4.31 0.001
Social media brand-related content type 0.59 0.05 12.61 0.001 0.45 0.05 8.95 0.001
Outcome: purchase intention
Age 0.02 0.01 0.55 0.57 −0.01 0.01 −0.31 0.75
Gender (ref: female = 1) 0.01 0.04 0.09 0.92 −0.05 0.04 −1.41 0.15
Social media platform 0.03 0.01 1.01 0.30 −0.05 0.01 −1.27 0.20
Brand usage 0.18 0.02 4.58 0.001 0.27 0.03 5.89 0.001
Social media brand-related content type 0.51 0.05 10.40 0.001 0.31 0.05 6.34 0.001
Consumer-based brand equity 0.22 0.04 4.68 0.001 0.28 0.04 5.79 0.001
Total effect β SE t p β SE t p
Content type on purchase intention 0.64 0.04 15.68 0.001 0.44 0.04 9.59 0.001
Indirect effect ind. β Boot SE LLCI ULCI ind. β Boot SE LLCI ULCI
Content type → CBBE → purchase intention 0.13 0.03 0.06 0.20 0.13 0.03 0.06 0.21
H2. Conditional process (Models 2a and 2b). Mediator model: consumer-based brand equity β SE t p β SE t p
Age 0.01 0.01 0.43 0.66 −0.01 0.01 −0.32 0.74
Gender (ref: female = 1) −0.08 0.04 −1.76 0.07 −0.01 0.05 −0.24 0.80
Social media platform 0.01 0.02 0.71 0.47 0.03 0.02 1.48 0.13
Brand usage 0.07 0.03 2.28 0.02 0.12 0.03 3.43 0.001
Social media brand-related content type 0.46 0.05 8.26 0.001 0.29 0.06 4.67 0.001
Self-congruity 0.24 0.04 5.89 0.001 0.31 0.05 5.74 0.001
Content type × self-congruity −0.13 0.06 −2.11 0.03 0.32 0.07 4.39 0.001
Conditional direct effect on CBBE at values of self-congruity β Boot SE LLCI ULCI β Boot SE LLCI ULCI
M − 1 SD 0.56 0.07 0.42 0.70 0.09 0.08 −0.06 0.25
M(0) 0.46 0.05 0.35 0.57 0.29 0.06 0.17 0.41
M + 1 SD 0.36 0.07 0.22 0.51 0.49 0.07 0.35 0.63
Dependent variable model: purchase intention β SE t p β SE t p
Age 0.01 0.01 0.57 0.56 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.99
Gender (ref: female = 1) 0.01 0.04 0.11 0.91 −0.08 0.04 −1.80 0.07
Social media platform 0.01 0.01 0.97 0.33 −0.02 0.01 −1.41 0.15
Brand usage 0.13 0.02 4.52 0.001 0.17 0.03 5.37 0.001
Social media brand-related content type 0.54 0.05 9.96 0.001 0.26 0.05 4.73 0.001
Consumer-based brand equity 0.22 0.04 4.47 0.001 0.23 0.04 4.87 0.001
Self-congruity −0.01 0.03 −0.22 0.82 0.12 0.05 2.57 0.01
Content type × self-congruity 0.01 0.05 0.18 0.85 −0.03 0.06 −0.60 0.54
Conditional direct effect on purchase intention at values of self-congruity β Boot SE LLCI ULCI β Boot SE LLCI ULCI
M − 1 SD 0.53 0.06 0.40 0.66 0.28 0.07 0.14 0.42
M(0) 0.54 0.05 0.43 0.64 0.26 0.05 0.15 0.37
M + 1 SD 0.54 0.06 0.41 0.68 0.24 0.06 0.11 0.36
Conditional indirect effect on purchase intention (mediator = CBBE) ind. β Boot SE LLCI ULCI ind. β Boot SE LLCI ULCI
M − 1 SD 0.12 0.03 0.05 0.20 0.02 0.03 −0.04 0.10
M(0) 0.10 0.03 0.04 0.16 0.07 0.03 0.01 0.14
M + 1 SD 0.08 0.02 0.03 0.14 0.11 0.03 0.04 0.20
Index of moderated mediation Coeff. LLCI ULCI Coeff. LLCI ULCI
Index −0.03 −0.07 0.01 0.07 0.01 0.14

FCC = firm-created social media brand-related content (Models 1a and 2a, n = 311); UGC = user-generated social media brand-related content (Models 1b and 2b, n = 311). CBBE = consumer-based brand equity; M = mean of self-congruity (centred); SD = standard deviation; ind. β = indirect beta; LLCI and ULCI = lower and upper limits of the 95% bootstrap confidence interval (10,000 samples). Values as printed in the article (0.001 means p ≤ .001).

Table 1. Descriptive statistics and intercorrelations across variables
Variable α M SD 1 2 3 4 5
1. Firm-created social media brand-related content 0.71 4.07 0.52 –
2. User-generated social media brand-related content 0.73 3.97 0.53 – –
3. Consumer-based brand equity 0.75 4.02 0.58 0.61*** 0.53*** –
4. Self-congruity 0.90 3.90 0.65 0.54*** 0.59*** 0.54*** –
5. Purchase intention of fashion products 0.75 4.22 0.55 0.70*** 0.57*** 0.58*** 0.47*** –
Gender (ref: female = 1) – – – 0.03 −0.02 −0.06* 0.02 −0.06*
Age – – – −0.09* 0.01 −0.02 −0.06* −0.02
Social media platform – – – −0.06 −0.08 0.01 −0.06 −0.05
Brand usage (FCC; UGC) – 3.86; 3.77 0.76; 0.79 0.30*** 0.38*** 0.29***; 0.39*** 0.22***; 0.38*** 0.40***; 0.51***

Column 1: FCC sample, n = 311; column 2: UGC sample, n = 311; columns 3, 4 and 5: overall sample, n = 622. ***p < 0.001, *p < 0.10.

The question

Fashion brands now mix their own posts with content created by users and influencers, and consumers use fashion to express who they are. Earlier research showed that both kinds of social media content shape brand perceptions and purchase intentions, but little was known about how individual differences change these effects. Drawing on self-congruity theory, we asked whether brand equity carries the effect of firm-created and user-generated content on the intention to buy fashion products, and whether this depends on how closely the brand matches the consumer's self-image.

Implications

Practical implications

Fashion brands can keep relying on their own posts, ideally across several channels: firm-created content raised brand equity and purchase intention whatever the consumer's self-congruity, so brands can convey their value without tailoring every message to individual differences. User-generated content needs a match: it built brand equity only for consumers who saw themselves in the brand, so brands that partner with users and influencers should look for creators whose followers identify with the brand, disclose endorsements and align endorsed content with their own posts.

Theoretical implications

The study brings self-congruity theory into research on social media brand communication. It shows that consumer-based brand equity mediates the effect of both firm-created and user-generated content on purchase intention, and that self-congruity moderates the indirect effect only for user-generated content. Consumers' fit with the brand therefore decides how much other users' content counts, while the brand's own content works through brand equity regardless of that fit.

Limitations and future research

  • One industry (fashion) and one country (the USA), with brand equity measured as an overall construct without its sub-dimensions; future studies should test other industries, sectors and cultures.
  • A survey of perceptions rather than an experiment; future work could manipulate the two content types in a controlled setting and add mediators such as consumers' online brand-related activities (COBRAs).
  • Cross-sectional data; structural equation modelling with larger samples, generational cohorts and longitudinal designs could extend the findings.

Questions this paper answers

Does user-generated content increase purchase intentions for fashion brands?

Yes. Its direct effect on purchase intention was 0.31, and its indirect effect through brand equity depended on self-congruity: 0.11 at high, 0.07 at average and not significant at low self-congruity (Schivinski et al., 2022).

Is firm-created or user-generated content more effective on social media for fashion brands?

In this study firm-created content had the larger total effect on purchase intention (0.64 vs 0.44) and worked for all consumers, while user-generated content depended on self-congruity (Schivinski et al., 2022).

What is self-congruity and why does it matter for social media marketing?

Self-congruity is the match between a consumer's self-image and the brand's image. It amplified the effect of user-generated content on brand equity, from 0.09 (not significant) at low to 0.49 at high self-congruity (Schivinski et al., 2022).

Should fashion brands work with influencers?

The study suggests choosing creators whose followers identify with the brand, because other users' content raised brand equity only when consumers felt the brand matched their self-image (Schivinski et al., 2022).

Key concepts

Firm-created content (FCC)
Brand-related content that a brand designs and posts on its own official social media pages, as part of its integrated marketing communications.
User-generated content (UGC)
Brand-related content created and posted by consumers, influencers or other users, independent of the firm's control.
Consumer-based brand equity (CBBE)
The added value consumers attach to a brand compared with an equivalent alternative, measured here as overall brand preference (Yoo & Donthu, 2001).
Self-congruity
The congruity between a consumer's actual self-image and the image of a product or brand (Sirgy, 1982).
Moderated mediation
When an indirect (mediated) effect changes with the level of a third variable; here, whether the effect of content on purchase intention through brand equity depends on self-congruity.
Index of moderated mediation
A single test of whether an indirect effect differs across levels of the moderator; a bootstrap confidence interval that excludes zero indicates moderated mediation (Hayes, 2018).

Open science and materials

Study materials

Brand recall
Participants named a fashion brand they actively followed on any social media platform, and were randomly shown questions on only one content type (firm-created or user-generated) for that brand.
Control checks
Brand familiarity (three items: familiar with, experienced with and knowledgeable about the brand; Kent & Allen, 1994; α = 0.72) and confidence in recalling the brand's posts, e.g. “I am confident that I can remember social media posts created by [Fashion Brand]” (FCC) or “… posted by other users on [Social Media Platform]” (UGC).
Scales
Firm-created and user-generated content (Schivinski & Dabrowski, 2016), consumer-based brand equity (Yoo & Donthu, 2001), self-congruity (Sirgy et al., 1997) and purchase intention (Yoo et al., 2000), all on 5-point agreement scales; the full method is in the accepted manuscript.

How to cite

Schivinski, B., Pontes, N., Czarnecka, B., Mao, W., De Vita, J., & Stavropoulos, V. (2022). Effects of social media brand-related content on fashion products buying behaviour – a moderated mediation model. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 31(7), 1047–1062. https://doi.org/10.1108/JPBM-05-2021-3468

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