Effects of Attributes Factors of Brand Webtoon on Purchase Intention: Intention of Word of Mouth as a Mediating Variable

Abstract

Recently, in addition to the existing banner advertisements, brand webtoons and campaigns are now being released. The purpose of this study is to verify the effect of advertising on the constituents of brand webtoons, specially to investigate the influence of entertainment, informativeness, work ability and relevance in terms of composition of brand webtoons on the intention of purchase and word of mouth. Furthermore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of brand webtoons on purchase intention through the mediating variable of word of mouth. The main results of this study are as follows. First, entertainment, workability, and relevance, but not informativeness, have a significant effect on word of mouth. Second, among the factors of brand webtoons, entertainment, informativeness, and workability, but not relevance, have a significant effect on purchase intention. Third, as a result of examining the influences of constituent factors of brand webtoons on purchase intention through word of mouth, it was found that entertainment and workability but not informativeness, had a partial mediating effect, while relevance had a full mediating effect. This study, through the verification of the advertising effect of the brand webtoons, will help webtoon brand developers with webtoon advertisement.