Citation:

Nuraini Jafar, Johan Fahri, Laela. "The Influence of Social Media Marketing and Brand Familiarity on Purchase Intention: The Mediating Role of Brand Image among Generation Z Consumers of Khong Guan in Ternate City" International Research Journal of Economics and Management Studies, Vol. 5, No. 7, pp. 147-154, 2026. Crossref. http://doi.org/10.56472/25835238/IRJEMS-V5I7P119

Abstract:

This research seeks to investigate the influence of digital marketing activities alongside consumers' recognition of a brand on their intention to buy. Through the mediating role of brand image among Generation Z consumers of Khong Guan in Ternate City, Indonesia. The swift advancement of digital innovation has reshaped the way consumers make purchasing decisions and encouraged heritage brands to strengthen their competitiveness through effective digital marketing strategies. This investigation utilizes the Stimulus–Organism–Response (SOR) Theory to examine the manner in which social media marketing and brand familiarity because environmental cues, shape consumers’' psychological response evaluations, represented by brand image, which subsequently shape purchase intention. Primary data are obtained by administering a standardized survey to 129 Generation Z participants selected through purposive and snowball sampling methods. The information is processed through the application of Partial Least Squares–Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), demonstrating that marketing activities on social networking platforms demonstrate a favorable and statistically meaningful impact on brand image as well as purchase intention. Brand familiarity significantly influences brand image but fails to exert a statistically significant direct influence on consumers’' buying intention. In addition, brand perception has a favorable impact on purchase intention and significantly serves as an intervening variable linking marketing activities through social networking platforms with consumers’' buying intention and connecting brand familiarity with purchase intention. These findings highlight the substantial contribution of brand image to strengthening the effectiveness of social media marketing and brand familiarity in enhancing purchase intention toward heritage FMCG brands among Generation Z consumers.

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Keywords:

Brand Familiarity, Brand Image, Generation Z, Purchase Intention, Social Media Marketing.