Enhancing brand equity through branded content experience on social media: developing and testing a moderated mediation model

This study examined the relationship between branded content experience and brand equity by focusing on the mediating role of brand trust and the moderating role of consumer regret of interacting with branded content on social media. In testing the hypotheses proposed in this study, survey data were drawn from a sample of social media users and examined through structural equation modeling. The results indicate that branded content experience positively influences brand equity directly and indirectly via brand trust. In addition, moderated path analysis indicated that regret weakens the direct effect of branded content experience on brand trust and its indirect effect on brand equity. This study contributes to the social media literature by investigating branded content experience outcomes in the form of brand trust and brand equity. The study has strong theoretical and practical implications.