Exploring the mechanism of blind box experience marketing driving consumer behavior from the perspective of biological behavioral patterns: An analysis of the mediating effect of customer surprise

In the current blind box consumption market, experiential marketing, as an innovative marketing strategy, is gradually becoming an important tool for businesses to attract consumers and enhance brand competitiveness. This study draws on the stimulus-body-response (SOR) theory to build a research framework of “experience marketing - customer surprise - purchase intention”, and compares the blind box experience marketing to the environmental stimulus factors faced by biology to explore its impact on consumers’ purchase intention, focusing on the intermediary role of customer surprise in this process. Studies have shown that through five dimensions of sensory, emotional, cognitive, behavioral and relational, blind-box experience marketing positively influences customer surprise just as environmental stimuli affect biological decision-making, thus effectively enhancing consumers’ purchase intention. This study not only provides a new perspective for the application of decision behavior theory in biology to social and economic phenomena, but also provides a theoretical basis for optimizing blind box marketing strategies based on biological principles, helping enterprises to innovate marketing methods, enhance market competitiveness, and promote the in-depth development of cross-field research on biology and marketing.