Mobile marketing and consumer perceptions of brand equity

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of SMS (Short Message Service) advertising on consumer perceptions of Au Bon Pain's brand equity in Thailand. Design/methodology/approach - The experimental study was based on a 4 alpha 2 between- subjects design, with four levels of message types (personalization, interactivity, general, and no message control) and two levels of permission (with and without permission). Structural equation modeling was utilized to test the hypotheses. Findings - SMS marketing is found to have a significant positive impact on brand awareness and perceived quality. Personalized, interactive, and general messages are effective for building brand awareness, and general and personalized messages positively influence perceived quality. With the right choice of message, explicit permission enhances the effects of SMS marketing on brand association. Research limitations/implications - The experiment was conducted over a period of one month, with three SMS ads sent to each subject. Future research could extend the trial period and increase the number and variation of ads to confirm validity of the results. Practical implications - As text message ads have a strong impact on brand awareness, marketers should focus on using text messages as reminders or updates rather than for complete marketing campaigns. They should also focus on offering permission- based customers personalized information. Originality/value - This is among the first mobile marketing experiments in a real- life setting. Real text- based promotions from an existing brand (Au Bon Pain) were tested on consumers. This approach creates a natural ad- processing situation for participants, thus increasing the internal validity of the experiment.