EFFECT OF CONTENT MARKETING ON BRAND LOYALTY MEDIATED BY CONSUMER ONLINE ENGAGEMENT: THE CASE OF HEWLETT PACKARD COMPANY IN ETHIOPIA

Abstract

The main objective of the study is to investigate the effect of content marketing on brand loyalty through the mediation of online customer engagement in the case of Hewlett Packard Company in Addis Ababa. By taking the research objectives and proposed hypotheses into considerations, quantitative approach had applied and explanatory research design used for this study. The study was used convenience non-probabilistic sampling technique. The population of the study were graduates of Addis Ababa university who subscribed on the official Hewlett Packard Facebook page. By using structured questionnaire, the data were collected from 264 subscribers/ followers of Hewlett Packard Facebook page in Addis Ababa City with the response rate of 82%. Data collected through self-administered questionnaire and analyzed using SPSS version 20. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to describe and analyze the relationship among content marketing, online customer engagement and brand loyalty variables.The results of the findings indicated that perceived information quality, enjoyment and interactivity had significant and positive effect on brand loyalty. Among these content marketing dimensions, interactivity had relatively the highest effect on brand loyalty. Besides, online customer engagement mediated the relationship between content marketing and brand loyalty. In conclusion, the more the content marketing practices improved, the more online customer engagement that leads to escalating brand loyalty of HP products in Addis Ababa. Therefore, the company should provide relevant and valuable contents to promote its followers’ online engagement so as to assure their long-term loyalty to the brands of the company.