The Impact of Storytelling Marketing on Consumer Purchase Intentions: The Mediating Role of Brand Image in the Real Estate Sector

Abstract

The contemporary understanding of real estate market in Pakistan is undergoing a deep structural change that brings it from old transactional promotional models into the new and developed narrative-based frameworks embedded in emotions and humanity-oriented branding. This study examines the effects of storytelling marketing on consumers purchase intentions in the high-risk and high involvement property sector with particular reference to the mediating role of brand image. The research is anchored in the framework Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) that integrates Signaling Theory and Narrative Transportation Theory in order to explain the process of translation of inputs of digital marketing into internal psychological perceptions as well as subsequent behavioral outcomes. The work overcomes a critical trust deficit and pervasive wait and see consumer sentiments as a result of past administrative opaqueness and current macroeconomic volatility in Pakistan. The research has a quantitative, cross-section approach and information is gathered from a sample of 285 potential investors and homebuyers located in major metropolitan hubs, such as Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad. The analysis was done by Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) using SmartPLS 4 software package in order to measure the complex interrelationships between the variables. The conceptual framework investigates two main independent variables: digital storytelling dimensions which include credibility, resonance and extensibility, content delivery dimensions which include narrative structure, theming and perceived aesthetics. The empirical results prove that both the digital storytelling and the content delivery has a significant positive effect to the consumer purchase intentions and prove the main hypotheses to be true. One of the important conclusions of this study is the nuanced role of brand image in mediating. The results of mediation analysis prove that the concept of brand image is able to mediate the relationship in resonance, the structure of the narrative, theming, and the perceived aesthetics. This means that emotional and visual cues need a reputation building phase in order to have an effective influence on intent. On contrary, the mediating effect of brand image was not supported on credibility and extensibility. In case of trust deficient Pakistani market these variables are direct functional signals where a sense-perceived reliability and persistence is enough to trigger immediate purchase intention and eliminate the need for an emotional bridge between brand. The theoretical implications of this study go beyond the S-O-R model in understanding high ticket property acquisition in the important developing economies by moving Signaling Theory forward by the concept of defining the functional and emotional signals. Practically, the findings are a strategic road map for real estate developers, which shows that while aesthetic excellence across social networks like Instagram is the recipe for establishing long-term brand equity, factual credibility is the most efficient way turn passive observation into tangible financial commitment. This study concludes that humanity-oriented branding based on verifiable authenticity if it provides the psychological scaffolding needed on which to build market stability in the context of an ever more competitive and data saturated landscape.