Game brand coolness: Understanding the perceived brand coolness and its implications for brand love and brand loyalty for Generation Z in Vietnam in the context of game brand

Abstract

Due to the tremendous growth of technology and the tragic outbreaks of the COVID-19 pandemic (particularly in Vietnam), the game industry has been deemed to be thriving rather significantly. Moreover, in an absence of potential customers of the game market, Generation Z emerge as one of the compelling differentiators. This study strives to investigate the coolness of game brands that Generation Z perceive as well as empirically analyzing the relationships among brand coolness, brand love, and brand loyalty in the game context. With the dataset collected from 209 respondents in Ho Chi Minh City, this study applies the Partial Least Squares Structure Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) approach to test the proposed hypotheses. The results illustrated that all hypotheses relating to direct and indirect relationships were supported; specifically, game brand coolness had a significant direct effect on brand love and indirect effect on brand loyalty; brand love had a significant direct impact on brand loyalty. Ultimately, we proposed several theoretical and managerial implications for future research on game brand coolness.