Research on consumers’ purchase intention of cultural and creative products—Metaphor design based on traditional cultural symbols

Chinese traditional cultural symbols possess great aesthetic and cultural value, and are widely utilized in product design. In this study, we explore the relationship between metaphor design based on traditional cultural symbols, customer experience and cultural identity, and further estimate how these three variables stimulate consumers' perceived value to generate consumers' purchase intention. Based on existing traditional cultural literature and Stimulus-organism-response theory (SOR), we proposed a theoretical research model to characterize the relationship among metaphor design based on traditional cultural symbols, customer experience, cultural identity, perceived value and consumers' purchase intention. A research survey was conducted and 262 questionnaires were collected in total with 241 valid. We used Smart PLS graph version 3.0 for data analysis. Results indicate that the cognition of metaphor design based on traditional cultural symbols and customer experience has a direct and significant impact on the emotional value thereby, eliciting consumers' purchase intention, metaphor design based on traditional cultural symbols is directly and indirectly (i.e., through customer experience or perceived value) positively associated with consumers' purchase intention, also customer experience is directly and indirectly (i.e., through perceived value) associated with consumer purchase intention, cultural identity mediates the indirect effect of customer experience and perceived value on purchase intention, the moderating role of cultural identity between customer experience and perceived value is not significant. Our findings help to expand the existing literature on consumer purchase intentions by rationally using traditional cultural symbols in the product metaphor design.