Exploring the influence of brand authenticity on consumer purchase intention

Abstract

The study explores the influence of brand authenticity on consumer purchase intention and examines the relationship between these two constructs. Consumers are consistently looking for brand authenticity to be present in brands, which consequently influences their purchasing decisions. The research took a positivist approach, making use of a quantitative design and was deductively led by Azjen’s (1991) Theory of Planned Behaviour and the four dimensions of Brand Authenticity as proposed by Morhart, Malär, Girardin, Grohmann and Guèvremont (2015). The population for the study was made up from consumers in the South African skincare industry, which deems skincare as a top priority. A quantitative online questionnaire, created on Google Forms, was distributed via the chosen social media platforms, Whatsapp and Instagram. 56 Valid responses were collected through non-probability, convenience, and virtual snowball sampling. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the collected data. While the researcher found that brand continuity, brand integrity and brand credibility had an impact on consumer purchase intention, the calculated correlations between the variables indicated that brand authenticity does not have a significant impact on respondents’ purchase intentions for this specific study.