Authors: Mehran Rezvani, Seyed Hamid Khodadad HOSEINI and Mohammad Mehdi SAMADZADEH

 Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of Word of Mouth (WOM) on Consumer Based Brand Equity (CBBE) creation. WOM characteristics such as, volume, valence, and source quality are studied to find how intensely they each affect brand awareness, perceived quality, and brand association. This investigation has been conducted in Tehran-Iran, on the cell-phone market. The methodology selected for this study was structural equation and all the calculations were done using Lisrel 8.54. The results suggested that volume and valence, two elements of WOM, affect CBBE and no significant relationship between source type and brand equity was seen.

Keywords: Costumer-based brand equity, Word of mouth, Mobile market, Structural equation model