The Role of FoMO Marketing and Visual Appeal in Driving Impulse Buying Behavior: The Mediating Effect of Emotional Response in Digital Entrepreneurship

Abstract

Digital communications give e-commerce platforms to encourage customers to buy on impulse. The purpose of this study is to evaluate FoMO marketing and visual appeal as components of impulse buying and use emotional response as an intercession factor. The study relied on a quantitative survey of 100 students in Bandung, Indonesia, using an online questionnaire, and the data was analyzed using Smart PLS with the PLS algorithm and the bootstrapping technique to verify the hypothesis. The study reveals that both FOMO marketing and visual appeal enhance the emotional response of consumers, which in turn increases unplanned buying behavior. The results show that although uncertainty-based marketing strategies have more direct pathways to impulse buying, visual appeal has less effect, and so emotional connection is crucial for unplanned buying behavior. The originality of this study is the integrated model of emotional response that identifies the implicit connection of external stimuli in digital marketing to “buying on impulse,” as an outcome. The results of the study suggest that digital marketers use both emotional stimulus and visual appeals to optimize sales in a competitive market, while focusing on the balance of both factors.