Investigating the Interactions between Four Affecting Factors on Brand Reputation and Their Roles on Word of Mouth Advertising

Over the last two decades, discussions about “brand” and “reputation” have broadly appeared in national as well as international level and have always been presented in global marketing as factors that affect competitive challenges. Reputation can be defined as a perception of outsider people of the prominent features of a company or brand. This study aimed to investigate the influence of several factors such as customer satisfaction, reliability, corporate responsibility and commitment on brand reputation as well as the effects of corporate and brand reputation on word of mouth marketing in the automotive industry (notably, Samand brand). The required data is collected by using a questionnaire and the sample size was 194 people who were selected from Samand owners in the Isfahan city. According to the findings, company’s economic responsibility has the greatest impact on brand reputation. Moreover, corporate reputation has greater impact on WOM than brand reputation. Furthermore, the impact of product track record, the moderate variable, on the relationship between trust in brand reputation and expertise, the moderate impact, on the relationship between corporate economic responsibility and corporate reputation are supported.