Impact of Selected Marketing Communication Tools on Building Brand Equity: The Case of Egypt

Heba Sadek and Passent Tantawi

Globalization, fast technological developments, increased reliance on integrated marketing communication programs and the homogeneous nature of bank services have increased competition and affected the way banks operate in today’s competitive business environment. The aim of this paper is to examine the impact of two major marketing communication tools, which consist of advertising and direct marketing on building overall brand equity in the Egyptian banking sector via five customer-based brand equity (CBBE) dimensions (brand awareness, brand perceived quality, brand associations, brand loyalty, and brand trust). This study used a quantitative approach, which consisted of a large- scale questionnaire survey. Data were collected from 465 bank customers based on a quota sampling technique and analyzed using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). Findings showed that direct marketing and advertising have a significant positive direct effect on building overall brand equity. Although all CBBE dimensions are interrelated, not all of them directly impact overall brand equity. Only brand perceived quality and brand loyalty were found to have a significant positive direct effect on overall brand equity. Based on the paper’s substantive model, building brand equity requires using an effective marketing communication mix to affect perceived quality and loyalty.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.21102/wjm.2017.03.81.10