PENGARUH SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING ACTIVITIES DAN BRAND EXPERIENCE TERHADAP BRAND LOYALTY: PERAN BRAND TRUST SEBAGAI VARIABEL MEDIASI (Studi pada Pelanggan Produk Kosmetik Pixy di Wilayah Jawa Tengah)

Abstract

ABSTRACT The cosmetic industry in Indonesia continues to grow in 2019 and 2020 even though in the midst of COVID-19 pandemic. On top of that, cosmetic products became one of the most best-selling products purchased online. However, Top Brand ranking achieved by several Pixy cosmetic products in the last 5 (five) years have decreased in the Top Brand Awards’s ranking. This study aims to determine and analyze the effect of social media marketing activities and brand experience on brand loyalty by inserting brand trust as a mediating variable for the customer of Pixy cosmetic products in Central Java. The sampling technique used in this study is nonprobability sampling and purposive sampling used as the sampling method. The number of samples used in this study were 180 respondents who had the criteria of being domiciled in Central Java and had purchased Pixy cosmetic products at least once through online. Data was obtained by distributing the quesionnaires online via google form. There are five hypotheses in this study which were analyzed and tested using the Structural Equation Model (SEM) and Analysis of Moment Structure (AMOS 24.0) as the analytical tool. The results of the five proposed hypotheses indicate that those five hypotheses were successfully accepted. Those five accepted hypotheses were social media marketing activities has a positive and significant effect on brand trust, brand experience has a positive and significant effect on brand trust, brand trust has a positive and significant effect on brand loyalty, social media marketing activities has a positive and significant effect on brand loyalty, and brand experience has a positive and significant effect on brand loyalty.