Content Marketing and Live Streaming as Predictors of TikTok Shop Purchase Intention among Generation Z Management

Abstract

Social commerce platforms increasingly integrate promotional content with real-time seller–consumer interaction, creating new ways for consumers to evaluate products and develop purchase intentions. TikTok Shop exemplifies this environment by combining content marketing and live streaming within a single platform, particularly relevant to Generation Z consumers. This study examined the associations of content marketing and live streaming with purchase intention among Generation Z consumers on TikTok Shop. A quantitative cross-sectional explanatory survey was conducted among 96 active Management students at Universitas Kristen Maranatha who had TikTok accounts, had been exposed to product-related marketing content, and had watched product-oriented live streams on TikTok Shop. Participants were selected using purposive sampling, and the data were analyzed using multiple linear regression. The results showed that content marketing was positively and significantly associated with purchase intention (B = 0.270, β = 0.208, p = .025), while live streaming also demonstrated a positive and significant association (B = 0.754, β = 0.561, p = .001). The larger standardized coefficient indicates that live streaming was the stronger predictor of purchase intention within the examined model. Collectively, the two predictors formed a statistically significant model that explained 48.4% of the variance in purchase intention (adjusted R² = .484). These findings demonstrate that content-based promotion and real-time interactive selling are both relevant to purchase intention in the examined social commerce context, with live streaming showing a more prominent statistical contribution. The study highlights the particular relevance of real-time commercial interaction for understanding purchase intention among young consumers using TikTok Shop.