Examining the causal pathways: How electronic word-of-mouth and influencer marketing impact art toy purchase intentions through brand image among working professionals

Art toys have gained increasing popularity among working professionals in recent years. Thailand has been identified as the main art toy market in the Asia-Pacific region due to significant business growth driven by working adult collectors. The objectives of this research are to develop a causal relationship model of the antecedents of the intention to purchase art toys and use empirical data to validate a causal relationship model of electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM), influencer marketing (INF), and the intention to purchase art toys, mediated by brand image (IMG). This quantitative study collected data through stratified random sampling of 400 potential and existing consumers of art toys through an online questionnaire. Due to the exploratory and prediction-oriented nature of this research, the data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Most of the respondents are females aged 30–39 years old, working as employees, and possessing a bachelor’s degree. Labubu has the strongest brand awareness (45.04%), followed by Crybaby (20.35%), Molly (19.01%), Dimoo (6.20%), and Skullpanda (5.68%). The three most common reasons for purchasing art toys are (1) being influenced by popular trends (40.13%), (2) being considered a collectible item (35.14%), and (3) admiration for the artists/creators (7.38%). The PLS-SEM results reveal that this model has high goodness-of-fit (GOF: 0.546), considerable explanatory power (IMG R2: 0.463 and INT R2: 0.295), and significant predictive power (IMG Q2: 0.443 and INT Q2: 0.214). The path analysis found that e-WOM (β: 0.201) and influencer marketing (β: 0.220) significantly influence the intention to purchase art toys, mediated by brand image, with a statistical significance of less than 0.001. This finding suggests that art toy brand marketers should integrate e-WOM and influencer marketing into their communication campaigns to shape a favorable brand image to increase purchase intention.