his paper explores the role of integrated marketing communication on customers base brand equity in the five companies of cellular industry of Pakistan. The framework is developed with in the line of research and theory that Advertising, personal selling, price promotion, public relation and direct marketing have extensive force on the ingredients of brand equity which is measured with the help of (brand awareness, brand association, brand loyalty and perceived quality (Aaker: 1991).From the very beginning many companies are striving to develop the marketing strategies in order to gain the brand identity, sale growth and point of difference in the competitive environment. The appearance of integrated marketing communication is becoming very sophisticated tool for formulating the marketing strategies. Companies use it as weapon to remain competitive in the digital atmosphere. In start of 1990 IMC become popular topic the field of marketing (Olof Holm: 2006). Large and multinational companies always inject dollarsto generate the brand name which helps to deviate it from the other competitors. For over the couple of years the area of brand equity has gained considerable research attention. The one best reason is that a powerful brand has a room to create the growth, market shares and the most essential assets of a business (customer's loyalty).

A brand is define as any name, term, sign, jingle, packaging, logo, design and combination of all which differentiate the product or service with the other products or services. (Philip kotler page: 198).Brand awareness, brand association, brand loyalty and perceived quality are the four components of brand equity (Aaker: 1991). In addition to that a dominant brand elaborates a positive impact of product quality and delivers the brand awareness in consistent manners and builds the brand image. For the purpose of competition companies have different ways to transform the business with the help of changing business dimensions and opening the new branches or subunits. For instance, the trend of current research focuses the management and measurement of brand equity which enables the brand managers to formulate the appropriate branding strategies to reinforce the brand. Two school of thoughts exits in the ground of branding. One is set of assets and liabilities which is known as financial base equity and determine to judge the financial position of a company. Other is based on customers and so called customers base brand equity which is measured to know the productivity and strong brand image in the corporate world. According to researchers the advertising and price promotions are enough tools to build the brand equity. The present study answers the more important and explore able question that how customers fascinate toward the products or services and compelled by the force for purchasing and repurchasing. In his connection, which one facet of brand equity is vital to develop the required attitude of customers? Secondly, how the most important tools of has noteworthy effect on the brand equity. This study provide the bridge to fill the gap between literature and practical implication that for which communication tools for marketing and ingredients of brand equity are important for the managers to focus and build the brand equity. This study contributes simultaneously to identify the most important component of integrated marketing communication that builds up the brand equity to facilitate the brand managers. Also develops understanding about the dimensions of brand equity. The obvious reason is that without knowing the right communicational channel the health of brand cannot be maintained in the minds of the customers.

Marketing is the process by which companies generate values for the customers according to their need and build long term relations with customers in order to gain the value from the customers in return (Philip Kotler: principle of marketing 13 th addition.p:5: 2003). To enhance the value of market offering marketers use the combination more than a few methods, all have aim to raise the benefits and minimize the cost. In starting the marketers apply selling techniques and bring the highly standardize products in the markets with the help of mass marketing strategies for mass customers and later on the integrated marketing communication came to existence in 1990 (Kotler, 2003). Promotional tools are the combination of advertising, price promotion, personal selling, public relations and direct marketing (Blythe, 2000). The IMC is basically related create awareness initially and capture the interest of target market. The existence of integrated marketing communication is the fruit of rapid advancement in technology and globalization. (Olof Holm: 2006). A potent linkage exists between the allocation of advertising budget and customer's perception toward the market offering whereas the negative linkage between the advertising and capturing the market share. (George S. Low: 2000). The creation of brand personality includes the corporate communication and the adjustment of brand life cycle. In this way a company can use the advertising strategy to influence the customers in the process of creating effective brand personality with aspect of his sincerity, emotional attachment and popularity (Rajagopal: 2006). Sponsorship advertising is the very good tool to build the brand equity. In today's life which has become highly competitive environment for capturing the interest of customers. It is impossible that firms confine their communication by a single tool of communication. It should investigate that how a company may communicate with other tools like personal selling and public relatios. (Franc¸ois A. Carrillat and Alain d'Astous: 2009).

H1a : Advertising has a significant effect on brand equity.

H1b : Corporate reputation mediates between advertising and brand equity.

In the level of introduction the price promotion is a helping tool to uplift the unit sale but in long term it creates the negative impact on the health of brand. (Chu-Mei-Liu: 2002). Price promotion is hurdle to create the association of brand with aspect of quality. Reduction in price has a more negative impression on the perceived quality among the all parts of brand equity. (Michael Clayton and Jun Heo: 2011). Price premium especially in grocery sector stress on the brand equity regarding the four dimension of brand equity, packaging, attributes a quality. On grocery stores are more quality transparence in the perception of customers and high prices show the uniqueness and brand content. (Johan Anselmsson: 2007).

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A huge chunk of budget is spent on the advertising in multinational companies to build the H2a : Price promotion has a significant effect on brand equity.

Personal selling has a valuable impact on the brand loyalty. Companies use the personal selling strategies to build up the customer trust which strengthen the brand loyalty of customers and contribute the brand equity. The impact of PR is moderating on brand, when a company has a unfavorable brand image, it should use the personal strategies to capture the customer trust (An-Tien Hsieh and Chung-Kai Li: 2007).

H3a: Personal selling has a significant effect on brand equity.

H3b: Corporate reputation mediates between price promotion and brand equity .

In marketing communication the direct or online marketing environment provide the sufficient challenge and opportunities which is very important to enhance the brand image and develop the brand strategies in the era of online branding (Jennifer Rowley: 2004). Text messaging is using as a tool of marketing to remind the customers rather than a comprehensive marketing campaign with the improving of marketing strategies as well as service quality. The management should make sure the least possible irritating while developing the message marketing strategies. Interactive ad is mostly used in text marketing campaign in today world.(Phumisak Smutkupt, Donyaprueth Krairit and Do Ba Khang : 2012). Direct marketing create the perception among the customers that company has a variety of products, values for money and allow them to compare the prices and this tool is mostly using by the brand managers to concentrate on brand equity(Rosa E.

Brand is an asset which is developed and managed cautiously. Brand equity is the different set of assets which differentiate the market offering and knowing the effects on customers attitude and behavior (Philip Kotler in principles of Marketing p:203).Brand equity is built and measure by the four path awareness of brand, association of brand, loyalty and perceived quality.. (Aker: 1991). If we talk about brand equity in hotel markets then brand equity consists on brand awareness, brand association, perceived quality and brand loyalty. The very first three components are responsible to give knowledge to the customers about the brand and impinge on the brand loyalty which is the core part of brand equity. For the perspective of creating brand awareness and brand association noteworthy role is advertising and word of mouth. (Jing Bill Xu and Andrew Chan: 2009). The equity of brand may diverge from culture to culture. For instance, in American culture the perceived quality considers for the building and measuring the brand equity whereas tin Korean culture brand loyalty is the main and major evaluation of brand equity. The most obvious reason is that that the brand loyalty creates by the advertising in Korea. In retail industry the electronic media and internet are the best channels to build up the brand equity (Jaehee Jung and Eunyoung Sung: 2006).Brand association and brand loyalty is the essence of brand equity.. The focusing element is loyalty to develop the brand equity. (Xiao Tong and Jana M. Hawley: 2009). If the high behavioral loyalty by the customers the more brand equity will consider. There is no relation between behavioral loyalty and belief, but behavioral loyalty and belief simultaneously add in the loyalty regarding attitude. (Steven A. Taylor and Kevin Celuch: 2004). Satisfaction and loyalty of attitude are the main deriving forces and enable the customers to make the purchasing among the availability of different brands. To enhance the brand loyalty companies must focus on additional services in the most expensive brand where the switching cost of brand is very high (Ahmed H. Tolba and Salah S. Hassan: 2009). Social responsibility for the welfare of the society leverage the perceived quality, reputation of company and loyalty with company and all three components leads to develop the brand equity. (Urszula H5a: Public Relations has a significant effect on brand equity.

H5b: Corporate reputation mediates between public relations brand equity.

A mediator is a variable that signify the new relation between the independent variable and dependent variable. Mediator is an essential part of conceptual model. The full mediation occurred when the relation between the predictor and criterion variable would be zero.

Corporate reputation mediates between facets of marketing communication and brand equity: According to Kenny and Preacher (2012) two steps contemporary approach to mediation analysis used for current research.

The population of the study is the consumers of cellular companies operating in Pakistan Rawalpindi and Islamabad. 135 Five point likert scale questionnaire consisting of twenty seven items were used to collect data through convenient sampling.

The questionnaire used in the surveys of five facets of marketing communications, corporate reputetion and brand equity, as well as respondent demographic information. Some questions were particularly included to judge the respondents' perception regarding marketing communication facets, corporate reputation and brand equity for specific regional brand. Each respondent was investigated to point out his awareness about brands. Respondents, who have brand awareness about particular brand, were asked if they tried that brand. If so, they were asked to report their perception regarding IMC medium advertising, personal selling, price promotion, public relation and direct marketing, corporate reputation and brand equity. The seeming responses were scaled on a five-point lickert differential scale indicating strongly agrees to strongly disagree as the end points. The survey mechanism was pre-tested and then modified as a result of the pretest (Huntet al., 1982). The questionnaire items used to determine marketing communication and brand equity are presented in Appendix-I.

Step 1: BE = Co+ C1AD+C2PS+C3PP+C4PR+C5DM+e1

(1)

Step 2: CR = ao+a1AD+a2PS+a3PP+a4PR+a5DM+e2 (2)

Step 3 & 4: BE = ?o+ ?1AD+?2PS+?3PP+?4PR+?5DM+bCR+e3

V.

We check the reliability of all variables which are explaining under the following. Cronbach's alpha was calculated to measure the reliability after putting the data in SPSS. We collect the data from respondents with the help of lickert scale. The higher value of cronbach,s alpha depicts the higher reliability. The value of cronbach,s alpha is less than .60 shows poor reliability, Correlation is used to determine the relationship between a set of two variables. The most important factor is that it tells about that how much relationship is existing between two variables. In this study we used correlation method to judge the relationship of variables. The value of correlation lies between -1 to +1. Positive value shows that the relationship exists. The more the positive value shows that the more stronger relation exist between two variables. The coefficient values of adverting, price promotion, personal selling, public relations, corporate reputauion, brand equity is equal 1 which shows that all variables correlate with each others. In the following table the df cell the valu 5 tells us that our independent variables are five. The value of P is 36.386 is on the stage of 0.00 indicates the dependent variable (Brand equity) is significantly influence by the five independent variables (advertising, price promotion, public relations, direct marketing, personal selling, and corporate reputation). As per Baron and Kenny's (2012) modern mediation analysis require putting values of c' and a and b coefficients in model , and solving it for total effect c, and then decaying the total effect in to its direct (c') and indirect effects (ab), using the following formulas.

Direct effect (%) = (c' / c) x 100

(3)

Indirect effect (%) = (ab / c) x 100 We checked the mediation role of corporate reputation between advertising, public relations direct marketing and brand equity directly and indirectly. The direct effect of AD, PP, PS, PR and DM is 26.82%, 16.85%, 31.86%, 69.61 % and 29.96% on brand equity respectively. The indirect effect of same variable is 73.17%, 83.14%, 68.13%, 30.38% and 70.03% respectively.

For the calculation of H 0 :ab = 0, Sobel test uses the following test statistic.

Test:Z ab = ab/s ab (4) Which follows Z-distribution, that is, ab/s ab will within the range of 1.96± interval for an ab = 0; and if, it will outside of the stated interval. Where s ab has to be computed, using formula:

Where s a and s b are the standard errors of a and b, respectively.

The limitation of this study is that the role of integrated marketing communication on brand equity sample size consist 135 questionnaires. The more important thing is that this study conduct is business to consumer markets and its results may wary when it will conduct in business to business markets and with high sample size.

VII.

This research has elaborated on the concept of brand equity and provided a theoretical framework is totally based on the vast literature review. |This proposed framework shows the four ingredients of brand equity brand loyalty, perceived quality, brand awareness and brand association. Corporate reputation is added to the traditional branding model in an attempt to highlight the experiential brand image attributes that are measured by customers' perceptions of the fulfillment of their socio-psychological needs during their telecom network purchase. The dimensions of brand equity are proposed to be advertising, direct marketing, and public relations, all of which telecom managers have utilized to build such equity. Advertising, direct marketing and public relations which formulate customers' direct experiences, mainly shoulder the responsibility of creating brand awareness and brand associations that reflect search image attributes. Advertising is a proxy of customers' direct experiences, and direct marketing mainly bear on the establishment of corporate reputation toward brand loyalty and overall brand equity.

Enlighten of this research that in the IMC adverting has the main contribution which is very sophisticated tool to capture the interest of customers and build the brand equity. Public relations and direct marketing are also drivers to channelize the brand image. Price promotion contributes to negative brand image it boosts sale but destruct the image of company in long term. The result of personal selling is insignificance, the most obvious reason is that in cellular industry the main users of these brands are common consumers and companies use the sale people in corporate sector, bulk transactions and heavy users. So the common customers have no opportunity to meet face to face with sale people of cellular industry. Corporate reputation does not mediate between the integrated marketing communication and brand equity in cellular industry of Pakistan. It is clear indicator that there is gap between two cultural, intellectual and empirical spheres. This is area of considerable attention of professional, academician and marketing practitioner to fill the gap in order to develop the strategy at the corporate level. This gap can be packed by international research and reconsidering educational programs regarding management, and marketing communications.

This research can be generalized to apply more than one segment, region, and other industries and stages of market development to get additional insight in the brand equity.