Abstract
The elaboration likelihood model (ELM) and regression analysis were used to investigate the impact of furniture brands’ communication strategies on consumer behavior through short video platforms. The work examined a set of representative short videos, analyzing how key features—such as content theme, duration (16-60 seconds), graphics, subtitles, background music, and title style—affected communication effectiveness. The ELM model uncovered the correlation between these video characteristics and the Communication Effect Index (DCI), with statistical significance confirmed by regression. Findings indicated that live broadcasts, graphical presentations, subtitles/topics, upbeat music, and exclamatory titles significantly enhanced communication efficiency. Limitations, including time-period sampling bias, sample size, and item duplication in the ELM application, were also considered. Based on these findings, the research offers optimization suggestions and future directions for furniture enterprises in leveraging short video marketing.
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Research on the Influence Mechanism of Short Video Communication Effect of Furniture Brand: Based on ELM Model and Regression Analysis
Shulan Yu * and Zehui Wu
The elaboration likelihood model (ELM) and regression analysis were used to investigate the impact of furniture brands’ communication strategies on consumer behavior through short video platforms. The work examined a set of representative short videos, analyzing how key features—such as content theme, duration (16-60 seconds), graphics, subtitles, background music, and title style—affected communication effectiveness. The ELM model uncovered the correlation between these video characteristics and the Communication Effect Index (DCI), with statistical significance confirmed by regression. Findings indicated that live broadcasts, graphical presentations, subtitles/topics, upbeat music, and exclamatory titles significantly enhanced communication efficiency. Limitations, including time-period sampling bias, sample size, and item duplication in the ELM application, were also considered. Based on these findings, the research offers optimization suggestions and future directions for furniture enterprises in leveraging short video marketing.
DOI: 10.15376/biores.19.2.3191-3207
Keywords: Furniture brand; Short video; Communication effect; ELM; Regression analysis
Contact information: Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, 210037, China;
*Corresponding author: yusl@njfu.edu.cn
GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION
In today’s information and visual new media era, short videos have risen rapidly with their short, pithy, intuitive, and vivid features, such that they have become an important carrier of brand communication and marketing (Hazari et al. 2023). Research shows that using mobile communication can greatly improve the availability and accessibility of information, and these new mobile social media platforms play an important role in information dissemination (Wu and Gong 2023). With the popularity of the mobile Internet and the formation of users’ fragmented reading habits, the traditional furniture industry is facing new challenges and needs to upgrade its development model (Xiong et al. 2017). The furniture industry is also actively following this trend, displaying product features and conveying brand concepts through short videos, and building emotional connection and value recognition with consumers. However, the in-depth analysis of the short video communication effect of furniture brands still has been insufficient. This paper aimed to explore the specific influence mechanism and practical effect of short video communication of furniture brands on consumers’ cognition, emotional response, purchase intention, and even brand image building through theoretical discussion and empirical analysis. A further goal was to provide a scientific basis and practical guidance for furniture enterprises to optimize new media marketing strategies.
In recent years, academic circles have paid great attention to the role of short videos in brand communication. Many studies have shown that short videos can attract a large number of users’ attention in a short time because of their innovative content and interactive form, thus effectively enhancing the brand’s popularity and influence (Rizqi Febriandika et al. 2023). At the same time, with the gradual maturity of e-commerce, people’s acceptance of online consumption of furniture has increased significantly, which puts forward higher requirements for online perception experience of furniture (Zhang et al. 2022). Especially in the furniture industry, short videos can show the design aesthetics and usage scenes of furniture products in a three-dimensional and dynamic way, which greatly enriches the expressive force of traditional graphic communication methods.
However, the traditional material-oriented manufacturing thinking of wood furniture industry has restricted the development of furniture industry in the era of “internet plus”. Short video communication of furniture brands is not a simple “content output”, which involves a series of complex factors such as communication strategy selection, audience psychological grasp, social media environment adaptation, and so on. Previous studies have pointed out that content quality, story narration, content duration, and other factors will have a significant impact on the communication effect (Yang et al. 2024).
Researchers have examined consumer behavior and online purchasing patterns in the furniture industry. Thanyamon (2012) found that factors such as furniture quality, functionality, and size influence consumer choices in Thailand. A study (Al-Azzam and Fattah 2014) identified family, price, and quality as key factors in Jordanian consumers’ purchase decisions. Li et al. (2016) emphasized the importance of promoting O2O shopping models and after-sales services for online furniture purchasing. Lin et al. (2019) studied Chinese consumers’ attitudes towards using the O2O model for wooden furniture shopping and found variations in acceptance among consumers from different city tiers. Jiang et al. (2020) and Liu et al. (2024) found that color preferences have a significant impact on furniture choices. They also introduced a new color design practice method, offering important insights for the furniture industry. Na Yu et al. (2021) studied furniture color aesthetics using eye-tracking technology and subjective evaluation, providing a scientific basis for furniture design and promotion. Zhao and Xu (2023) proposed an innovative evaluation method for modular wooden storage cabinet design for children, guiding the display and assessment of children’s furniture designs through short videos (Zhao and Xu 2023). Changlong Yu et al. (2024) found that product factors, particularly prices, significantly influence consumer decisions in online furniture purchases. Shulan Yu et al. (2024) explored the impact of short video advertisements on consumer purchasing intentions.
This paper aimed to analyze the characteristics and patterns of furniture brand short video dissemination and evaluate their effectiveness. It fills research gaps and provides insights for furniture companies’ brand communication strategies in the era of short videos.
EXPERIMENTAL
Data Source
The latest works published in the second half of 2023 (June 1, 2023-December 31, 2023) by the official account of the furniture brand in Vibrato Platform were used as the data source for this work.
Methods
According to the information published on the official WeChat account of the 7th Fourth Council of China Home Furnishing Association in 2023 (CNFA 2023), the authors ascertained the top ten brands in China’s furniture industry. Concurrently, by consulting the popularity rankings on TikTok, it was possible to select active self-operated TikTok accounts of national home furnishing brands. During the screening process, it was noted that some of the top ten brands had not activated TikTok accounts or had infrequent updates, resulting in a limited number of eligible accounts. To ensure the comprehensiveness of the research, TikTok accounts were included for furniture brands that demonstrated significant activity but were not among the top ten. Ultimately, the study focused on five such furniture brand TikTok accounts.
The inclusion criteria were as follows: (1) The TikTok account must be the official flagship store account of a furniture brand; (2) The account must have official “Blue V” certification; (3) There must be continuous video updates in 2023 (with a video publication count exceeding 100 in 2023).
Secondly, Python software was used to capture the basic information and media form characteristics of the latest 100 short video works released in the past six months of 2023 (June 1, 2023-December 31, 2023), such as the number of likes, the number of reposts, the number of comments, the area where the account belongs, and so on, such as pictures, animations, duration, title types, and so on. After eliminating the repeated and invalid information, a total of 500 valid video entries were obtained.
Model
In 1986, Petty and other scholars put forward the two-path model (ELM model), as shown in Fig. 1 (Petty and Caciopp 1986). At first, the model was mainly used in the research of attitude change and persuasion, and later it was widely used in the research of management, and now it is gradually introduced into the research of network information dissemination (Nadkarni and Gupta 2007).
Fig. 1. Example of ELM model diagram
The ELM model holds that people’s ability to process information affects people’s attitude and behavior. Information processing generally has two paths: a central path and a marginal or “edge” path. The factors related to the information itself are mainly handled by the central path, and the factors unrelated to the information itself are mainly handled by the edge path. The central path and the edge path are not independent, but exist on both sides of the unity at the same time. When there are more possibilities for individuals to process information finely, the central path plays the greatest role. On the contrary, when the possibility is less, the edge path plays the greatest role.
Based on the ELM model, this study divided the communication effect of the official TikTok account of furniture brand as a dependent variable into eight dimensions: the central path (two dimensions) and the edge path (six dimensions).
Core Path
Content theme
According to a reputable blog entry (data newrank 2023), there are several data insight studies on TikTok platform furniture industry accounts, which are divided into designer/star IP, shopping skills, scene content, employee daily life, welfare broadcast notice and other six types.
Content quality
Combining TikTok’s recommendation algorithm and manually checking whether the video is logical and complete, referring to “E-commerce Content Creation Standard”, the quality was divided by dimensions such as sound and picture quality and information value (Tiktok e-commerce 2022), as shown in Fig. 2.
Fig. 2. Short video content quality grading dimensions
Edge Path
Production category
Based on the objectives of content creation, audience engagement, technical complexity, and brand communication requirements, it is possible to divide the content creation strategies of short videos of furniture brands into five main types: first, scene pre-recorded video production, in which the video theme, shooting scenes, and scripts are carefully designed and planned before shooting. Secondly, live clip editing uses the highlights of live activities for post-processing and integration. Furthermore, the communication content in the form of animation is constructed based on pictures or virtual images. In addition, by using the method of sitcom, one can show and solve the complex problems and puzzles that consumers may face by writing and deducing story scripts that are closely related to daily life. Finally, a video clip can include other innovative and diverse expressions. These different forms together constitute the rich communication matrix of furniture brands on the short video platform.
Duration
According to the overall short playing duration of short videos and the needs of this study, short videos were classified into multiple categories based on 15 seconds, specifically, the duration was classified as 0 ~ 15s, 16 ~ 30s, 31 ~ 60s, 61 ~ 120s, 121 ~ 180s and above 181 s.
Video subtitles
Video subtitles refer to the text that appears at the bottom of the screen. Adding video subtitles will help the audience to understand the short video content more clearly, thus affecting the communication effect. In this study, the added video subtitles were assigned a value of “1”, and those that were not added were assigned a value of “0”. Studies utilizing eye-tracking experiments have demonstrated the potential value of subtitle text in attracting viewers ‘attention and aiding in information comprehension, thereby effectively enhancing communication effectiveness (Lu et al. 2022). Therefore, this study categorized the presentation format into two types: subtitle and non-subtitle.
Whether to bring topic tags
Research has shown the importance of trending topics in the dissemination of short videos (Li et al. 2022), so this study analyzed them as a dimension.
Emotional types of background music
Background music accompanying a video clip mainly expresses the theme with liveliness, gentleness, solemnity, nothingness, and others, and setting off the atmosphere to some extent.
Title types
Research indicates that compelling titles can enhance the virality of short videos (Zhang et al. 2024). Accordingly, this study included them as influencing factors, which can be divided into declarative sentences, exclamatory sentences, interrogative sentences, and exclamatory sentences.
For the content theme, the designer/star is taken as a reference and transformed into five dummy variables. For the production category, the real scene is taken as a reference and transformed into five dummy variables. For background music, “nothing” is taken as a reference and transformed into four dummy variables. For the title type, “exclamatory sentence” is taken as a reference and transformed into four dummy variables. For the content quality, “low” is taken as a reference, and it is transformed into three dummy variables, which are defined as 0, 1, and 2 according to low, medium, and high quality. Regarding whether to bring a topic, “none” is taken as a reference and transformed into a dummy variable. For subtitles, “none” is taken as a reference and converted into a dummy variable. For the video duration, with 0 s to 15 s as the reference, it is transformed into six dummy variables, which are assigned as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 according to the duration from low to high. Table 1 contains the description and assignment of each variable.
Dependent Variable
This study incorporated the TikTok Communication Index (DCI)(Qingbo Index 2020) developed by Qingbo Intelligent Company as the dependent variable, and it comprehensively evaluated the communication influence of TikTok accounts on short video platforms through three dimensions: release index (10%), interaction index (76%), and coverage index (14%). Its calculation formula was:
DCI={0.10×In(X1+1)+0.76×[0.17×In(X2+1)+0.37×In(X3+1)
+0.46×In(X4+1)]+0.14×[0.11×In(X5+1)+0.89×In(X6+1)]}×1000 (1)
where X1 is the number of new works, X2 is the number of likes, X3 is the number of comments, X4 is the number of reposts, X5 is the number of new fans, and X6 is the total number of fans.
Formulation of Hypotheses
Following an in-depth analysis of the characteristics of short videos for furniture brand communication and a review of existing literature, the following research hypotheses were proposed to explore the specific impact of short video features on communication effectiveness:
H1: The type of content theme (e.g., designer/celebrity IP, purchasing tips, scenario-based content, etc.) has a significant effect on the communication effectiveness of furniture brand short videos.
H2: There is a positive correlation between the quality of short video content (high, medium, low) and communication effectiveness, such that higher content quality leads to better communication outcomes.
H3: The duration of short videos has an inverted U-shaped relationship with communication effectiveness, where a moderate length (16 to 60 seconds) yields the optimal results.
H4: The category of production (e.g., live broadcasting, graphic display, etc.) significantly positively affects the communication effectiveness of short videos.
H5: The emotional type of background music in short videos (e.g., lively, gentle, etc.) significantly influences communication effectiveness.
H6: The type of title (e.g., declarative sentences, exclamatory sentences, etc.) significantly impacts the communication effectiveness of short videos.
H7: The presence of subtitles and topic tags in the video significantly affects communication effectiveness.
Quality Control
To ensure data consistency and accuracy, 100 samples were randomly selected for pre-coding. Two evaluators independently classified the content themes, video durations, presentation formats, title types, presence of topic hashtag, content quality, production categories, and emotional types of these samples. The Kappa test results showed that all Kappa values exceeded 0.85, indicating consistent classification results between the two evaluators. Subsequently, the 500 samples were independently coded.
Statistical Analysis
Excel software was used to collect, preprocess, and standardize the data to ensure the quality and integrity of the data. Using SPSS 27.0 statistical analysis software, the basic information of TikTok’s account number was analyzed by descriptive statistics to reveal the distribution of various features in the sample directly.
The ordinary least square method was used for regression analysis of the relationship between variables and their influence intensity. P value less than 0.1 was used as the standard threshold for judging the significance.
Table 1. Variable Assignment and Description
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Basic Information of TikTok Account of Furniture Brand
Five short video TikTok accounts of furniture brands that meet the standards were included, with a total of 500 short videos. As shown in Table 2, Chihuahua published the most works, with 1,586 in the past six months, and the number of works by Gu Jiaju was the least, with 193. The number of likes ranged from 25,800 to 239,400; the number of collections ranged from 599,300 to 9,240,000. The number of comments ranged from 0,700 to 26,900, and the number of reposts ranged from 0,210 to 11,100. The number of fans ranged from 182,000 to 1,651,000. DCI ranged from 623.50 to 843.77.
Table 2. Basic Account Information of TikTok (June 1, 2023-December 31, 2023)
Table 3. Basic Information of Short Video Dimensions (n=500)
Table 4. Regression Analysis Results of Influencing Factors of Short Video Communication Effect (n=500)
Basic Situation of Short Video
Among the 500 short videos included in this study, the content topics were mainly shopping skills and scene content, accounting for 44.7% and 29.0%, respectively. Medium quality video accounts for the largest proportion, accounting for 49.2%. In terms of production categories, sitcoms, real scenes, and live broadcasts were the main types, accounting for 48.8%, 25%, and 21.2%, respectively. The growth of time was controlled within 60 seconds, of which 16 to 30 s and 31 to 60 s were the majority, accounting for 49.8% and 26%. A total of 85.6% of the short videos are subtitled, and the same nearly universal proportion (99.6%) carry hashtags. According to the emotional types of background music, 17.2% of the videos have no background music. Most of them were gentle and lively music, 37.8% were gentle and 36.4% were lively. 65% of the short video titles were declarative sentences, and 28.9% of the videos were mainly interrogative sentences, as shown in Table 3.