1. Introduction
Brand equity, competitive advantage, global recognition, and high net worth are important because they bring global recognition as a competitive advantage and increase financial value. The number of studies investigating the antecedents of brand equity as an abstract indicator is a marketing concept that needs to be reexamined according to each new marketing strategy (Oh et al., 2020; Aaker, 1991). According to [
1], while Apple is the highest technology brand in 2020, Amazon (USD 200.667 billion) is in second place, followed by Microsoft (USD 166.001 billion) with Nike (USD 42.538 billion) in 11th place. Existing research on multichannel marketing suggests that brand equity can be strengthened by providing cross-channel service quality [
2,
3,
4]. Although there are many multichannel studies investigating the effects of channel integration quality on brand equity (e.g., [
5,
6,
7,
8,
9,
10,
11,
12,
13,
14,
15]), since the omnichannel field is very new, there are limitations, literature gaps on this subject and within the provision of INQ in omnichannel marketing. It is extremely important to investigate the changes that may occur in the brand value. Brand equity, as an intangible asset created by marketing activities, is the sum of values that increase or decrease the value of products and services offered by the company to consumers, depending on the brand’s distinguishing characteristics such as name or symbol [
16,
17,
18]. Brand loyalty (BL) is the repeated purchase of products from the same brand continuously and consistently in the future [
19]. Perceived quality (PQ) is the perception formed in the minds of consumers regarding the quality of the brand’s products [
20]. The Brand Association (BA) states that it is the unique characteristics (in the minds of consumers) that distinguish a brand from other brands [
21]. Brand awareness (BAW) is the consumer’s capability to realize, separate, identify and call to mind the product category to which the brand belongs [
16,
22].
The pressure of the sustainable development plan applied to prevent global warming at a global level, protect the environment, purify the air from CO
2 emissions to zero waste on brands, businesses and marketers force them to change their marketing and management strategies in harmony with technology [
23,
24,
25,
26,
27,
28,
29,
30,
31,
32]. This change is expected to enable the production and marketing of products that are produced, distributed, priced, and promoted with less cost, less waste, and more recyclable raw materials and green energy [
23,
24,
25,
26,
27,
28,
29,
30,
33]. In this context, it is important for cyclical change that brands provide maximum service quality with minimum environmental pollution, energy loss, and time-saving in the channels where they deliver their products to their customers [
23,
25,
29,
30,
33]. In this context, the solution is now omnichannel strategies and the quality of inter-channel integration that is expected to be provided in omnichannel channels.
Omnichannel marketing (OM), which provides brands with sustainable growth opportunities across many channels, is increasingly preferred by more brands, including channel harmony beyond multichannel marketing [
34,
35,
36,
37]. During 2021, 0.14% of all multi-channel marketing sales were single-channel marketing, and 83% of them were omnichannel marketing orders [
38]. These comparative figures show that it is significant for marketers, brand owners, managers, retailers and to understand and apply OM well [
2].
Omnichannel marketing, which offers the advantage of offering brands products to their customers through many channels, differs from multichannel marketing in that all channels are evaluated as a whole, allows customers to like a product through the brand’s online channels and receive it from the physical store, or to discover the product in the physical store and buy it online [
39]. However, due to the reasons arising from the lack of coordination between these channels, customers can give up and return the products they purchased. At the same time, these returns cause an increase in carbon emissions from waste products at the local and global level [
39,
40]. As a way to avoid the potential harms of OM, which is increasingly being adopted by consumers, the researchers recommend that brands implement marketing strategies to maximize the level of inter-channel coordination [
41,
42,
43]. There is a lack of research in the literature on whether brands’ INQ dimensions (Channel–Service Configuration (CSC), Content Consistency (CC), Process Consistency (PC), Assurance Quality (AQ)) provision affects the brands’ intangible assets (BE, BL, BAW, BA, PQ) in omnichannel environments [
39,
43]. However, further investigation of these intangible assets, which the brand is trying to acquire, protect and increase with tangible and moral sacrifices in the long term, for omnichannel environments will provide both theoretical and practical contributions. In this context, despite the increasing use of OM, we aim to narrow this gap in the literature with the empirical results of this study in the context of developing countries.
As a result, the studies investigating the impact of INQ on BE and its dimensions for omnichannel are insufficient in the literature, and most of them are conceptual [
43,
44,
45]. Brand equity, as an intangible asset created by marketing activities, is the sum of values that increase or decrease the value of products and services offered by the company to consumers, depending on the brand’s distinguishing characteristics such as name or symbol [
16,
17]. BL is the repeated purchase of products from the same brand continuously and consistently in the future [
19]; PQ is the perception formed in the minds of consumers regarding the quality of the brand’s products [
20]; BA states that it is the unique characteristics (in the minds of consumers) that distinguish a brand from other brands [
17]. BAW is the consumer’s capability to realize, separate, identify and call to mind the product category to which the brand belongs [
16,
22].
There are some cases where companies already have the infrastructure in place. Customers are encouraged to register products online by many fast-moving goods brands. Providing consumers with the ability to return products instead of scrapping them, as Apple already does, could increase the culture of recycling. Meanwhile, consumer power—driven by social media—could influence manufacturers to take circular actions [
25,
29]. Omnichannel service has emerged since consumers turn to brands that offer this service and desire to store across many channels simultaneously. OM studies are therefore based on consumers (consumer behavior, customer loyalty, purchasing behavior, etc.). For the last 12 years, researchers have been carried out in this examining the relations [
43,
46,
47,
48,
49].
Channel synchronization enables products to be delivered across multiple channels of the same quality to consumers [
36,
50,
51]. That is, it is essential to integrate all channels for OM to achieve its purpose [
43,
49,
52]. INQ and factors have been discussed in previous studies as a predictor of Omnichannel strategies, customer, purchase, brand, service quality, perceived value and fluency, brand equity, customer loyalty (
Table 1).
However, there are aspects of this research that differ from the articles given in
Table 1. First, this research is quantitative and tests assumptions with Structural Equation Model (SEM) analysis. Second, this study claims that INQ is a predictor of BE and its components. This claim was previously implicitly claimed in the 2017 qualitative study by Hossain et al., but this is the first time it has been examined with direct and quantitative analysis. As a result, the studies investigating the impact of integration quality (INQ) on brand equity (BE) and its dimensions for omnichannel are insufficient in the literature, and most of them are conceptual [
43,
44,
45].
Although studies on the definition, dimensions, impacts, and strategies of OM affect the retail and service sectors in many ways, there is limited evidence in the literature on the impact of the quality of channel integration, which should be carefully considered in an omnichannel system, on brands and consumers [
43,
57,
62]. Studies on the effects of the high level of inter-channel integration quality of the brands that perform OM that will bring value to the brand are quite insufficient. Although the compatibility of multiple channels of a brand with each other forms the basis of OM, most of the studies on OM do not focus on INQ and do not observe how the components of brand equity are affected by INQ. Statistical reports are revealing that there are some brands that have lost share value and lost sales turnover as a result of failure to integrate [
12,
13,
43]. These financial impacts on INQ’s brand are immediate, but it may take longer to see the change in consumer-based brand equity. Brand equity is more intangible than financial values, in other words, the loyalty of the customers to the brand, the degree of recognition of the brand, the perceived quality of the brand, etc. With the realization of the total change in the components and the sub-components associated with these components, a change in brand value can be seen. However, with a relational model to be established between INQ and brand equity and its components, and testing this model with empirical analysis, the effects that may occur on the value of the brand in the absence of INQ can be presented to marketers and brand managers to take precautions. Moreover, the research of [
45] suggested that future studies investigating the relationship between INQ and brand equity, brand image, knowledge, and loyalty by creating a scale and a data-oriented model are recommended, which is the reason for the emergence of this research. Moreover, this research relies on the research of [
43], which conceptualizes the dimensions and sub-dimensions of INQ and empirically tests the data using dynamic capability theory to incorporate brand equity dimensions [
43,
50,
51]. In this context, in this research, we establish a model between INQ and brand equity and its components, and within the framework of this model, we make four assumptions and reduce this gap in the literature by performing an empirical analysis.
In this research, we develop a model that provides experimental proof for the conceptional dimensions, presents the relationship between INQ and BE and its sub-dimensions (BL, PQ, BA /BAW) for omnichannel, and seeks answers to the following questions:
What is the relationship between INQ and BE for OM?
What is the relationship between INQ and the dimensions BL, PQ, and BA /BAW for OM?
In this context, in this study, we aim to discuss the effects of INQ on BE, BL, BAS, PQ and the results from this effect. For this, we develop a scale consisting of three parts, which is suitable for the purpose of our study, from the literature. The first part of this scale consists of the items that we aim to obtain for the demographic information of the participants. The second part consists of the scale items of INQ, and the third part consists of the scale items of BE and its components. Sources of [
43] for the INQ scale (21 items) and [
22] for brand equity (10 items) were used. We did not develop scales but simply adapted the scales from these two widely cited studies to our research. However, we tested the accuracy and reliability of these scales in the methodological part of the research. We used a 5-point Likert scale to measure the items. We had help from the statistics company, which has the second largest consumer portfolio in the country, to apply this survey to Nike sportswear consumers residing in Turkey. The company applied our online survey to 1549 customers, which we selected randomly from 198,000 Nike brand customers within its body. To our survey, 847 consumers responded. Of these, survey data were excluded from participants under 18 years of age, those who had no experience with all Nike brand channels, and those who provided inconsistent responses to the three attention control questions (ACQs). As a result, survey data from 626 participants were valid for the final analysis. We did not detect any response bias in the data of 626 participants. Thus, the number of participants in our study exceeded the lower limit of the literature that it is appropriate to carry out with five times as many samples as the number of scale items for SEM. Thus, we first tested the reliability and validity of the scale of our research with the data obtained. We applied Cronbach’s alpha analysis, which is widely used as a basis for the measurement of scale reliability. Cronbach’s alpha values of all factors were above the desired value of (0.70) in the literature. Second, we performed (confirmatory factor analysis) CFA to see the validity of our scale and its compatibility with our research. All factor loadings of INQ ranged from 0.66 to 0.97, and for multiple correlation squares (R
2), values ranged from 0.44 to 0.94, and t > 2.58 was significant at the
p < 0.001 significance level. All factor loadings of BE were significant between 0.79–0.88, and multiple correlation squares (R
2) values were between 0.62–0.77, and t > 2.58,
p < 0.001 significance level. These values showed a strong relationship with the corresponding structures, in compliance with the literature [
63,
64,
65]. In addition, AVE and CR values were important for us in terms of the reliability of the constructs. AVE values of 0.80 and CR values of 0.50 were obtained for all structures for the above-predicted values (
Appendix A,
Table A1) [
64,
66]. Thus, the CFA results and Cronbach’s Alpha results show that the scales are consistent with research and are accurate and reliable. Then, the Pearson correlation analysis results showed that we examined the significance of the relationships between the first-order sub-dimensions of INQ (independent variable) and the first-order sub-dimensions of BE (dependent variable). Thus, the results showed that the correlation coefficients between the relation of INQ and its sub-dimensions and BE and its dimensions were statistically significant (
p < 0.01) [
67]. In addition, we obtained the discriminant validity of the scale structures with the results of discriminant analysis. The discriminant validity of our scale, which provided the necessary literature values for [
68], was verified. The SEM results of our research confirmed the assumptions established between INQ and BE and their components in the context of OM. SEM results revealed that INQ had the highest effect (0.93) on BAS and PQ and the least effect (0.86) on BL, and INQ affected BE with 0.90.
The results of this research, which examine the predictors of brand equity and its components, offer implications for OM, INQ, BE subject areas that have not been empirically analyzed despite increasing knowledge and still having limitations in theoretical information. Our research is unique, as it is the first study to empirically examine the relationship between INQ and BE and its components in the context of OM. In addition, it is unique because it is the first study to examine the relationship between omnichannel strategies and brand equity in detail in the context of Turkey, a developing country with very limited studies on the Circular Revolution. Moreover, our research expands the limitations of the studies of [
43,
45].
In addition, with the results of this study, we present numerical data that provide cross-channel integration in omnichannel marketing that can be effective for marketers and brand managers who are looking for ways to increase the main brand value from the past. In other words, cross-channel integration can be used as a predictor of brand equity and its components. Brand managers who want to increase their brand equity can see the necessity of including INQ increasing strategies in their omnichannel strategies with the SEM results of this research. Thus, with this study, we not only shed light on future research in the field of OM, INQ, and BE, but also provide important advice to brand managers who carry out OM.
6. Discussion and Implications
Based on the dimensions of integration quality proposed by Hossain et al., in 2020, we presented a model of the brand effect of INQ and tested it empirically using SEM. While INQ consists of four sub-dimensions, namely channel-service configuration, content consistency, process consistency, and assurance quality, brand equity consists of four sub-dimensions: BL, PQ, BAW, and Brand Association. We confirmed with CFA that the size of the scales decreased to one, which is consistent with the literature.
The results of the structural models have confirmed that INQ is an important predictor and promoter of brand equity and its sub-dimensions (BL, PQ, BAW, and BA combined in one dimension). In other words, our research proves that brand equity and its dimensions (BL, PQ, BAW and BA-(BAS)) for Nike, a luxury sportswear brand that uses omnichannel, are a result of integration quality, which is a performance indicator of the harmony of all services provided at all customer touchpoints of the brand. For this reason, this research has revealed that brands that use omnichannel marketing care about integration quality and have higher brand equity than other brands competing in the same market that do not care about omnichannel marketing integration quality.
Considering the results of the first hypothesis test from the research model results in
Table 10, it was found that integration quality had a positive and significant effect on BL (t = 22.39,
p < 0.01). When the level of integration quality increases by one unit in the channels of Nike, a luxury sportswear brand that engages in omnichannel marketing, the loyalty level of the brand is positively affected by 0.86. This relationship between INQ and BL has not been previously examined in the omnichannel study. However, in a multichannel environment, the relationship between the factor of service quality used instead of INQ and BL has been established in a few studies [
10,
42,
51,
52]. For example, [
149] research conducted in Malaysia found that service quality is effective in creating brand loyalty. However, unlike multichannel, this hypothesis finding makes a unique contribution to the literature, as omnichannel means delivering the same service to customers in all channels at the same time [
10]. With the provision of cross-channel INQ in an omnichannel environment, customer satisfaction, which is an important antecedent of brand loyalty in the literature, can be gained. The common entity that is the factor in the emergence of OM is consumer desire. In this context, the service that will be provided with the same transparency, harmony and strategies in all channels, which will lead to an increase in customer satisfaction and thus brand loyalty [
18,
150].
When examining the result of the second hypothesis test, it was found that the integration quality of Nike brand’s sales channels had a positive and significant effect on BA and BAW, which are combined into a single factor (t = 2.11,
p < 0.01). Thereby, there will be a positive effect of 0.93 on BA and BAW when the integration quality increases by one unit, summarized in a single factor. Brand awareness and brand association components are actually influenced by brand image [
16,
17,
106,
108,
151]. The image of a brand in society can change what consumers think about the brand. Therefore, if a brand has a good image, the consumer’s awareness of the brand is positively affected. In this context, the positive effect of INQ, which means the performance measurement of the harmony to be achieved between channels, on brand association and awareness in this study offers an important opportunity for brands to improve their brand image, brand awareness and brand association for omnichannel environments [
43,
45,
149]. In addition, it has been revealed in previous studies that communication has a great contribution on brand awareness. Based on this finding, inter-channel communication and one-to-one communication at contact points with customers will be beneficial both in increasing the level of INQ and in improving brand awareness and attitude toward the brand [
33,
152,
153]. In this context, this SEM result, which reveals the effect of INQ on brand awareness and brand association in the OM environment, opens the way for a fairly new research area and reduces the literature gap.
As a result of the third hypothesis test, it was found that the integration quality of the Nike brand distribution channels had a positive and significant effect on the quality of the brand perceived by the consumer (t = 21.66,
p < 0.01). A one-unit increase in the level of integration quality attributable to the compliance performance of all brand channels has a positive effect of 0.93 on the quality that the brand evokes in the minds of consumers. The impact of service quality on the perceived quality of the brand was previously discussed for multi-channel environments [
53,
91,
125,
127,
132,
154]. However, to the best of the author’s knowledge, we are not the first research to directly reveal this relationship, as there are already very limited studies for omnichannel. Some antecedents have been provided in the literature for a brand trying to increase its perceived quality in the minds of its customers, which is related to the excellence of a brand in the most general sense. This study obtained INQ as a predictor of the perceived quality of the brand. The finding of our research, which allows us to redefine an influencer of the concept of perceived quality, which is an abstractly felt quality, for the OM environments brought by digitalization, is a first in its field. For OM, there is no system that concretely measures the services offered through the channels. In other words, the approximation of the inter-channel compatibility performance to the maximum will lead to improvements in the perceived quality of the brand. Past research has presented evidence that perceived quality increases brand loyalty [
22,
130,
131,
132]. In addition to the satisfaction of customers with product quality, product, price, and promotions, purchasing the brand’s products from all online and offline channels of the brand with the same quality, price, customer relations, after-sales service, discounts and payment facilities will increase the perceived quality of the brand.
Finally, we were curious to know whether brand equity, which is important as a component of customer equity, is affected by the integration quality of the brand’s channels and the integration quality of a brand in the case of omnichannel marketing application. Considering the results of the first hypothesis test from the research model results in
Table A1, in the fourth hypothesis, we examined the impact of integration quality on brand equity and found that integration quality had a positive and significant impact on brand equity (t = 25.57,
p < 0.01). If the brand achieves an improvement of one unit in integration quality, which is an indicator of the harmonization performance of the operation in the brand’s channels, the equality of this brand will increase by 0.90 units in the positive direction. In other words, we reduce the literature gap with this hypothesis, which was asked to be discussed by [
45]. With this study, which explores the relationship between INQ and brand equity for the first time, we provide theoretical contributions and expand the explored research area in customer equity subject areas with INQ. Brand managers and marketers have historically resorted to many innovations to increase brand equity. Time intervals and innovations brought by digitalization have changed the strategies of 4P (Product, Price, Place, Promotion) while also offering new markets for brands to present their products. What did not change with all this was the effort to increase the value of the brand’s tangible and intangible assets. We pave the way for future BE research with our research, where we present a very usable result for omnichannel environments to investigate the factors that may be effective in increasing BE.
6.1. Theoretical Implications
The findings of this study have some unique theoretical implications.
First, research on omnichannel applications is quite limited. This study brings a conceptual extension to the literature on omnichannel strategies, INQ, OM.
Second, this research has demonstrated that INQ is a provider of brand equity in an omnichannel environment that has thus far been tested with customer-oriented relationships and purchase intention, and as far as the authors know, its relationship with brand assets has not been quantitatively studied. Therefore, it is the first research to examine these structures and relationships in the field of OM.
Third, the H1, H2, H3 assumptions of this study, in which we set up an impact analysis with each of the INQ and BE dimensions (BL, BAS, PQ) were accepted. In this context, the work to discover the predecessors of BE has been extended with the INQ adopted for OM.
Fourth, we narrowed the literature gap in the context of BE by providing a validation for the antecedents of INQ (CSC, CC, PC, AQ), whose validation is not yet fully clarified in the literature.
6.2. Managerial Implications
This study has valuable contributions to marketers and brand managers. First of all, there are brands that are rapidly transitioning to omnichannel environments that have not yet been fully adopted, reaching customers through all channels, but experiencing losses compared to single-channel marketing in this direction. In this sense, we provided marketers with ways to increase INQ with this study. We also presented the necessary reasons for managers to provide INQ in an omnichannel environment in order to increase brand equity, with an empirical application. In addition, the most important benefit of this research is that it shows brand owners and managers and brand marketers a way to set up the omnichannel system.
7. Conclusions
In this research, we empirically investigated the relationships between INQ and BL, PQ, BAW, brand association and BE. The reliability, divergence and convergent validity results of the scale of our research exceeded the literature values. In other words, the scale we used for the empirical application of this research and the model of the research matched. Path coefficients and goodness-of-fit values obtained by SEM analysis recommended in the literature in impact studies were in agreement with the literature. Based on the problems of our research, four different hypotheses, which we constructed theoretically, were accepted. That is, the SEM results confirmed the assumptions we made between INQ and BE and their components in the context of OM. SEM results revealed that INQ had the highest effect (0.93) on BAS and PQ and the least effect (0.86) on BL, and INQ affected BE with 0.90.
The results of this research, which examine the predictors of brand equity and its components, have not been empirically analyzed despite increasing knowledge, and they offer implications for the subject areas OM, INQ, BE, which still have limitations in theoretical knowledge. Our research is unique, as it is the first study to empirically examine the relationship between INQ and BE and its components in the context of OM. It is also unique in that it is the first study to examine in detail the relationship between omni-channel strategies and brand equity in the context of Turkey, a developing country with very limited work on the Circular Revolution. Furthermore, our research results expand the limitations of some studies in the literature.
The results of INQ, which is one of the dynamics of service quality, and brand equity, which is a dimension of customer equity, will help managers, customers, companies, marketers and brand consultants to establish an effective omnichannel system. It will contribute to all available information. It has been revealed that the efforts of the brand to realize the integration of all services offered in the omnichannel environment have an effect on all information, awareness and associations in the mind of the consumer, the provision of INQ in this framework, the provision of the consumer’s loyalty to the brand, the perceived quality of the brand in the mind of the customer, and the positive if it is negative, or already positive. If it is positive, it will have beneficial returns for the brand, such as reinforcement.
One of the broadest contributions of this article is that it offers a solution for omnichannel environments to reduce the cost of textile products returned due to inter-channel incompatibility, as well as the amount of waste generated by brands throwing away returned products. Thus, we expand the field of research for the protection of the environment and reduce carbon emissions, as well as shed light on the research to be conducted in this field.
Our research has several limitations. First, the research data were collected only in Turkey. This limits the research, as the results cannot be generalized to other countries. In the research, the participants’ data were collected in a single time frame in 2022, and the time limit is another limitation of the research. Furthermore, the research was only applied to Nike, a famous sportswear brand that operates in the apparel industry. Although generalization for the apparel sector is easy, the inability to extend the research to other sectors that require more services is the final limitation of the research. Expanding this research to overcome these three limitations is recommended for future studies. The impact of cross-channel integration quality on brand equity and dimensions can be studied for omnichannel in different income countries, periods, and industries. Moreover, the brand value was a dynamic of customer equity. Therefore, whether customer equity is an outcome of INQ could be a new research topic for the future.