The Effect of Key Opinion Leaders and Visual Storytelling on Consumer Purchase Intention Trough Brand Awareness in Traditional Culinary Products

Daivano Farraz (Bisnis Digital, Fakultas Ekonomika dan Binsis Universitas Negeri Surabaya)
Muhammad Fachmi (Bisnis Digital, Fakultas Ekonomika dan Binsis Universitas Negeri Surabaya)
Fresha Kharisma (Department of Digital Business, Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitas Negeri Surabaya, Surabaya, Indonesia)
Dhiyan Septa Wihara (Bisnis Digital, Fakultas Ekonomika dan Binsis Universitas Negeri Surabaya)

Economics and Digital Business Review
Vol. 7 No. 2 (2026)

Growing competition within the traditional culinary industry is pushing business owners to sharpen their digital marketing efforts as a way of building Brand Awareness and driving consumer Purchase Intentions. This research examines how Key Opinion Leader and Visual Storytelling shape consumer Purchase Intentions toward traditional culinary products, treating Brand Awareness as the variable that mediates this relationship. A quantitative design was applied, drawing on purposive sampling to gather 108 respondents through a distributed questionnaire; the resulting data were processed with Structural Equation Modeling Partial Least Squares (SEM-PLS) alongside hypothesis testing. Findings reveal that Key Opinion Leader exerts a positive and significant influence on both Purchase Intentions and Brand Awareness, whereas Visual Storytelling only shows a significant effect on Brand Awareness. Brand Awareness itself significantly affects Purchase Intentions and serves as a mediator linking Key Opinion Leader and Visual Storytelling to Purchase Intentions. These results suggest that strengthening Brand Awareness deserves priority when designing digital marketing strategies for traditional culinary businesses such as Soto Boyolali Mbok Yem.