Elucidating the role of consumer decision making style on consumers’ purchase intention: The mediating role of emotional advertising using PLS-SEM

The whole purpose of the present research was to advance the comprehension of the mediating effect of emotional advertising on consumer decision-making style and purchase intention. A conceptual framework showing linkages among variables, based on past literature was made which is tested with Partial Least Squares (PLS) procedure on data acquired through a survey based on the structured questionnaire that yielded 525 respondents across India. For stimulation purposes, we selected the ten most watched advertisements on YouTube in India in a month. It was found that customer style inventory (CSI) influences purchase decisions. It was also found that customers’ responses towards emotional advertising and the attitude that develop through that are mediating consumer decision-making style and purchase intention. More research is required to find the degree of influence on each consumer's decision-making style through emotional advertising. It is also necessary to conduct research separately across different industries. The findings propose that the relationship between consumer style inventory (CSI) is seen to influence purchasing intention. Further, their response toward emotional advertising and the consequent attitude that develops mediate their consumer decision-making style and purchase intention (PI) can be influenced and mold the attitude of consumers by using emotions in advertising. Moreover, the effect of response towards emotional advertising is the same in both utilitarian and hedonic products which implies, that if a customer is going to respond positively towards emotional advertisement, he will have a positive attitude towards the brand and will show purchase intention. This research study is the first written endeavor to use PLS to test the linkages and mediation effect between CSI and PI.