The impact of negative social media communication, boycott campaign and brand trust on Generation Y intention to purchase fast food products

• Main Authors: Nik Abdullah, Nik Ab. Halim, Singam, Pravina Sen Kotai
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: INSInet Publications 2014
• Subjects: HC Economic History and Conditions
• Online Access: http://repo.uum.edu.my/12134/1/39-46.pdf; http://repo.uum.edu.my/12134/; http://ajbasweb.com/old/index.html
• Institution: Universiti Utara Malaysia

Fast food is one of the largest industries in the world as it contributes towards the nation’s income and also creates jobs for the citizens.Social media such as Facebook and Twitter are fast becoming the source of information especially among generation Y in Malaysia.Positive postings and reviews of a fast food brand may help build firm’s reputation and increase sales but negative issues, rumours and lies may bring the opposite effect as it might reduce consumer purchase intention. Another issue that may affect fast food companies is the call for boycott on their product.How this two issues influence generation Y purchase intention with regards to fast food is the focus of this study.Question arises on whether these two challenges might be mitigated by the brand trust that exists between the consumer and the brand name, and therefore this study is conducted to answer this question. Objective: To study the impact of negative social media communication and boycott campaign on fast food product purchase intention.The second objective is to investigate whether brand trust moderate the relationship between these two variables with purchase intention.Results: The result provided support on the impact of negative social media communication on fast food purchase intention, while boycott campaign did not have a significant relationship. Brand trust does moderate the relationship as evidence from the finding of this study. Conclusion: Negative social media communication have more damaging impact on generation Y purchase intention if compared to boycott campaign, but existence of brand trust moderate the impact and may result in continuous purchase of the fast food product.