The influence of communication language on purchase intention in consumer contexts: the mediating effects of presence and arousal

Current Psychology https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-04314-9 The influence of communication language on purchase intention in consumer contexts: the mediating effects of presence and arousal Wenjun Huang1,2 · Yee Choy Leong1 · Noor Azlin Ismail1 Accepted: 20 January 2023 © The Author(s) 2023 Abstract Panoramic visual, tactile, and auditory interactions have been widely used to create scene-based immersive experiences to enhance consumer experience and stimulate emotional responses, thereby increasing purchase intentions. Guided by scene marketing theory and the archetypal theory of mind-flow experience, this article introduces the concepts of presence and emotional arousal to examine how communication language causes emotional fluctuations in potential consumers, leading to purchase intentions. Therefore, from the interaction experience of “external perception - scene language” and “internal sensing - communication language”, the dual chain of mediation of presence perception and emotional arousal is selected to construct a consumer. The results reveal that the pathway of consumers’ purchase intentions is not always the same in the context of consumer language perception. In addition, the results demonstrate that the vividness and richness of the presentation of scene language in a consumer language perception context have positively influenced the relationship between communication language and presence perception. Compared to the direct effect on purchase intention, communication language tends to have an indirect positive effect on consumers’ purchase intention through the single mediation of presence perception and the chain mediation of emotional arousal. The increasing prevalence of interactive linguistic experiences, where emotional arousal has become an essential trigger for consumers’ purchase intentions, is an important representation of the specificity and complexity of consumer language elements. Thus, this research provides crucial theoretical guidance for the design of immersive experiential marketing and linguistic scenarios. Keywords Consumer language · Presence · Arousal · Purchase intention Introduction Along with the waves of globalisation and informatisation, most countries integrated into the world economy have gradually become the “new battleground” for the consumption of goods. On the one hand, this consumer-driven social situation has deepened the degree of commodification and marketisation; on the other hand, it transformed people’s aesthetic, behavioural, psychological and value pursuits. The morphological language of the contemporary commercial landscape, which indicates a new conception of the times, is closely related to consumer society. The vocabulary, * Wenjun Huang 1 School of Business and Economics, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang Selangor, Kuala Lumpur 43400, Malaysia 2 Faculty of Business Administration, Nanchang Institute of Technology, Nanchang, Jiangxi 330029, China grammar, rhetoric and semantic expression of the morphological language are all expressions of aesthetic concepts, values and social needs in the consumer society context. Companies aim to promote consumption, using the stage and products as props to create memorable consumer experiences. The changing economic times have posed new tests for commercial spaces and linguistic communication design. How to respond to the development of the context of the times, enhance the immersion of this ‘experience field’ created by the contemporary linguistic landscape, and create a living contemporary consumer language system design work that promotes economic development is a question worth considering in this economic context. In the current experience economy context, consumers need to create multiple experiential processes and connotations that they are willing to immerse themselves in. The development of information technology and the popularity of e-commerce also reminds designers of the need to expand from the design of commercial landscapes to the construction of values and meanings 13 Vol.:(0123456789) Current Psychology in social life, using language as a medium to evoke a more profound cultural resonance within consumers, seeking a unique experience and value of existence beyond “shopping with a mouse”. Current consumer language research has primarily focused on theoretical studies, focusing on the research context, concepts (Leeman & Modan, 2009; Nikolaou, 2017), methodology (Begum & Sinha, 2021), analytical dimensions (Ben-Rafael et al., 2006), research status (Monje, 2017), research frontiers (Hong, 2020), etc. Yet consumer language as an emerging research object and a multidisciplinary coupled interface (Blommaert, 2014; Xiang et al., 2016), an interdisciplinary research perspective is essential for the study of linguistic landscapes (Nash, 2013; Pesch, 2021). Its theoretical research also shows a trend of interdisciplinary research, with scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds such as linguistic geography, tourism linguistics, language economics, education, landscape studies, design, and aesthetics also sorting out the existing stages of research results according to different disciplinary, theoretical frameworks (Williams & Spiro, 1985; Hennig-Thurau, 2000; Finne & Grönroos, 2017). Moreover, quantitative research perspectives are lacking and singular. The volume is small, focusing mainly on sociolinguistics, semiotics, sociology and geography, with even fewer studies introducing them to the field of experience perception and consumer behaviour (Hennig-Thurau, 2000; Alawni et al., 2015). Based on this, the study attempts to introduce the concept of arousal to reveal the essence of the influence of consumer language on potential buyers’ willingness to purchase in two different experiential scenarios, namely physical consumption and online shopping, from the perspective of presence perception. The study further applies the theoretical model of presence awareness to construct an outcome equation model to empirically test the moderating role of scene language in consumer language and the mediating effect of experience awareness and arousal to clarify the pathway through which consumer language induces potential consumers’ willingness to purchase and to provide theoretical reference and reference for marketing planning of language consumption based on enriching the existing relevant research perspectives. Literature review and research hypothesis Language in consumption In marketing, the language of communication is seen as a tool, and a means to negotiate the extent to which firms and consumers perceive information about goods and services (Gremler et al., 2001). However, information asymmetries often occur because the firm dominates the amount and 13 authenticity of information (Harrison-Walkeret, 2001; Rese et al., 2020). Effective communication language can alleviate individuals’ doubts and anxieties caused by information constraints, thu (...truncated)