Social Triggers of Buying: Interactivity and Anthropomorphism in Shaping Consumer Intentions

This paper provides research on the interactivity, anthropomorphism and sensory marketing as social triggers in influencing consumer purchase intentions within digital marketing platforms. It fills a critical gap in the research of the impact that these stimuli have on attitudes toward the app or brand, value perception, and purchase behavior. The paper also incorporated the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to demonstrate how behavioral intentions in digital ways are affected by psychological responses of the consumers toward the virtual and technological properties. The quantitative research design was applied to analyze on data acquired by the use of partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), which helped to analyze the answers in terms of a structured questionnaire. The information was collected using a sample size of 370 respondents, who participated in the app-based and virtual purchase behavior, and the relationships between anthropomorphism, interactivity, self-congruence, sensory marketing, attitude, value perception, purchase intention were studied. The proposed study offers an original integrated digitalized behavior framework, which extends TPB with sensory and anthropomorphic levels. It adds value to the literature of marketing theory and practice by providing practitioners with insights that can be put into practice to develop emotionally intelligent interactive brand experiences. Keywords: Interactivity, Anthropomorphism, Sensory Marketing, Self-congruence, Value Perception, Purchase Intention, Theory of Planned Behavior, PLS-SEM. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18851316