Brand Equity Pathways Toward HoYoverse Merchandise Purchase Intention Among Indonesian Fans

This study examines the direct and indirect relationships between brand awareness and purchase intention for HoYoverse merchandise among Indonesian fans. Perceived quality and brand associations are specified as parallel mediators to distinguish quality-related evaluations from brand meanings in the commercialization of digital game intellectual property. A cross-sectional online survey yielded 457 usable responses from consumers who had played a HoYoverse game within the preceding six months and were familiar with its merchandise. We analyzed the data using PLS-SEM in SmartPLS 4, with mediation analysis, Importance-Performance Map Analysis (IPMA), and the Cross-Validated Predictive Ability Test (CVPAT). Brand awareness is positively and directly associated with purchase intention (β = 0.295). The indirect estimate through brand associations (β = 0.290) is numerically larger than that through perceived quality (β = 0.067); their difference was not formally tested. The quality-related paths have comparatively weak support under the reported one-tailed tests. IPMA identifies awareness as the highest-importance candidate for managerial attention. CVPAT indicates lower loss than the indicator-average benchmark and a small aggregate advantage over the linear benchmark, without significant superiority specifically for purchase intention. The findings extend brand-equity analysis to physical merchandise associated with digital entertainment and inform testable coordination of content, product, and commerce activities. The design supports conditional associations, not causal effects, realized sales, or gender-equivalent mechanisms.