Emotional Design and Audience Intimacy: Comparing Offline and Online Engagement Strategy by Pop Mart

Abstract

In saturated markets, brand-engagement drives customer’s perception, purchase and brand loyalty. This study explores and compares the effectiveness of the offline and online strategy fostering emotional connection and audience’s intimacy with the brand. While online engagement often involves high-frequency yet low-effort interactions, offline engagement provides deeper personal exchanges that may build stronger attachment. The study aims to identify which engagement mode—How do online and offline engagement strategies differ in fostering emotional intimacy and audience connection with the brand, and which engagement mode more effectively supports emotional design principles in building lasting brand relationships—Using a mixed-method approach combining quantitative descriptive-comparative surveys and qualitative expert interview, data were collected from participants familiar with Pop Mart to examine engagement patterns in both digital and physical brand environments. The case study of Pop Mart's market serves as a benchmark for evaluating emotional resonance and participant behaviour. Findings are expected to reveal that while online interactions efficiently enhance reach and frequency, offline interactions maintain superior depth of self-disclosure and non-verbal resonance, contributing to emotional intimacy. This study directly connects to the Visual Communication Design (VCD) context by proposing emotionally driven engagement design strategies that integrate storytelling and personalization and highlights effective engagement strategies that balance both online efficiency and offline emotional depth to create meaningful, lasting brand relationships.