Branded Content: A Bridge Building Gen Z's Consumer-Brand Relationship

The emergence of ad blocking phenomenon is a contemporary threat of today. It has serious damaging consequences for the brands and advertisers. Advertisers are constantly looking for communication formats that are engaging to the consumers, specially to Gen Z consumers as they are a major cohort in the internet. Branded content videos are perceived an apt form of communication to reach this generation. This article observes the effect of branded content videos (BCVs) on Gen Z's attitude towards the brand (AB), further leading to purchase intention (PI) and resilience towards the negative information (RNI) for the advertised product. The moderating role of celebrity endorsement (CE) between the BCV and brand attitude is also observed. Descriptive research design was employed to conduct the study. A structured questionnaire was created and administered on social media platform, Facebook, from where 470 responses were received. Cronbach's alpha, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modelling and hierarchical regression analysis were executed to conduct the data analysis. The results establish that informative BCVs have a more significant effect on brand attitude which further results into purchase intensions and RNI about the marketed product among consumers. It was also observed that CEs do not moderate the relationship between BCVs and brand attitude.