Work

Harmonizing Sight and Sound: The Impact of Auditory Emotional Arousal, Visual Variation, and Their Congruence on Consumer Engagement in Short Video Marketing

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Social media influencers strategically design the auditory and visual features of short videos to enhance consumer engagement. Among these, auditory emotional arousal and visual variation play crucial roles, yet their interactive effects remain underexplored. Drawing on multichannel integration theory, this study applies multimodal machine learning to analyze 12,842 short videos from Douyin, integrating text analysis, sound recognition, and image processing. The results reveal an inverted U-shaped relationship between auditory emotional arousal and consumer engagement, where moderate arousal maximizes interaction while excessively high or low arousal reduces engagement. Visual variation, however, exhibits a positive linear effect, with greater variation driving higher engagement. Notably, audiovisual congruence significantly enhances engagement, as high alignment between arousal and visual variation optimizes consumer information processing. These findings advance short video marketing research by uncovering the multisensory interplay in consumer engagement. They also provide practical guidance for influencers in optimizing voice and visual design strategies to enhance content effectiveness.

Source: Journal of theoretical and applied electronic commerce research

DOI: 10.3390/jtaer20020069

Authors: Qiang Yang, Yudan Wang, Qin Wang, Yushi Jiang, Jingpeng Li

Institutions: Nanjing Audit University, Southwest Jiaotong University

Language: English

Topic: Digital Marketing and Social Media

Subfield: Sociology and Political Science

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $1,207

Funders: National Natural Science Foundation of China, Social Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province