Social media marketing and brand authenticity: the role of value co-creation

Purpose - This study aims to highlight the mediating role of value co-creation between social media marketing, its dimensions – entertainment, customization, interaction, electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) and trendiness – and brand authenticity. Design/methodology/approach - Data from 288 consumers was collected using both online and paper-based questionnaires. Partial least squares–structural equation modeling was used for hypothesis testing. Findings - When studied compositely, the results of this study indicate that social media marketing impacts value co-creation and brand authenticity, while value co-creation mediates this relationship. However, value co-creation only mediates the impact of customization, interactions and eWOM on brand authenticity. Moreover, entertainment and trendiness directly affect brand authenticity without the mediating role of value co-creation. Originality/value - The significance of value co-creation as the underlying mechanism between social media marketing and brand authenticity has received little scholarly attention. Likewise, the question of whether social media marketing dimensions help build brand authenticity perceptions has not been investigated. Thus, this study contributes to the marketing literature by empirically testing and establishing that interaction, customization and eWOM are essential social media marketing features that significantly affect brand authenticity with the mediating role of value co-creation.