Sharing a brand's stance does move Thai students toward buying — but it carries part of the route, not the whole of it

Younger consumers increasingly expect brands to take positions on social issues. How much does agreement between a brand's stance and a consumer's own affect the intention to buy, and what does it work through?

A self-rated questionnaire on seven-point scales completed by 434 Thai university students aged 18 to 24 (53% women, 47% men), using the property brand Sansiri as the case. It measured attitude similarity, brand value, brand awareness, image, reliability, sentiment engagement, sense of community and purchase intention, after a pilot with 50 respondents, and was analysed with descriptive statistics, internal consistency and a structural equation model testing mediation.

• The single highest-scoring item in the whole instrument was “I am more likely to buy from brands whose stance matches mine”, at 5.74 out of 7 (SD 1.40); respondents also said they were less likely to buy from brands taking the opposite position.
• Attitude similarity mediated only partially. The indirect path was β = .18 (p < .001) against a total path of β = .95 (p < .001) — meaning brand value still reaches purchase intention mostly by the direct route.
• Awareness and image scored highest among the components — the brand comes to mind easily 5.42, is recognisable among rivals 5.31, feels good in image 5.62 and more attractive than others 5.20.
• Sense of belonging to a brand community scored lowest of all components, though still relatively high — respondents agreed with the brand without feeling they were members of its advocacy group.
• Reliability rested on delivering what the advertising promised — fulfils its advertised promise 5.36, reputation can be trusted 5.50.

For a brand weighing whether to take a public position, the data says two things at once. Shared stance genuinely carries weight with this cohort — it is the highest-scoring item in the study. But it works as a supplement, not the main channel: a mediated effect of .18 against a total of .95 means awareness, image and actually delivering what was advertised remain the base that has to be there first. And the lowest score going to sense of community says that agreeing with a brand's position is not the same as wanting to belong to its community — different goals, needing different design.