EXAMINING THE MEDIATING ROLE OF ADVERTISING ON BRAND PERSONALITY AND CONSUMER PURCHASE DECISION

Brand personality is an attractive and pleasant concept in today's marketing. Acker (1991) has described it as one of the core dimensions of brand identity and the closest variable to the consumer's decision-making process for purchasing. This study investigated the mediating phenomenon of advertising on brand personality and the purchase decision of club athletes of Iran from Majid Sport brand. The method of present research is descriptive-correlation, using structural equation modeling. The statistical population of the research was the athletes of Iran's clubs in 2023, and 217 consumers of Majid brand products were selected by random sampling. The data collection tool consisted of four questionnaires, including: A) Questionnaire on the demographic characteristics of the subjects. B) Advertising mediation questionnaire with one question and five components about how athletes get to know the Majid brand, (the components include of television, radio, internet, telephone, oral survey), C) Acker's standard questionnaire with 30 items and five components (honesty, passion and excitement, competence, perfection, strength and stability) on a five-point Likert scale, D) Standard purchase decision questionnaire of Sproles and Kendall (1986) which has 14 items and 3 components (attitude towards the brand willingness to buy, familiarity with the brand) based on the Likert measurement scale. The results of the factor analysis of the customer's purchase decision questionnaire showed that the customer's purchase decision from three dimensions (attitude towards the brand, willingness to buy, and familiarity with the brand) is effective on the customer's purchase decision. The results of the factor analysis of the brand personality questionnaire showed that the factors affecting the brand personality from five dimensions (honesty, passion and excitement, competence, perfection, strength and stability) are effective on the brand personality. The extent of the effect of brand personality on the purchase decision without advertisements showed: with 95% certainty, brand personality is effective on the purchase decision. Examining the simultaneous influence of brand personality on customers' purchase decisions showed that: with 95% certainty brand personality and advertisements are effective on purchase decisions. The indicators of the model of the effect of brand personality on the purchase decision with the mediation role of advertising showed that advertising has no effect on the brand personality and the mediation role of advertising is effective on the purchase decision. In addition, the brand personality is effective in the purchase decision through the advertising mediation.