The Effect Of Anthropomorphic Brand Image On Consumers' Purchase Intention

In recent years,there have been a variety of virtual brand image spokespersons,anthropomorphic cartoon characters or brand mascots on the market,such as Tmall's black cat,Jingdong's metal dog,Tencent's penguin,Baidu's paws and so on.For marketers,brand anthropomorphism has become one of the most important marketing strategies and brand positioning strategies.Brand anthropomorphism enables consumers to view the brand as "individuals" with the same motivation,personality,consciousness,emotion and intention as themselves(Epley and Waytz,2010;Kim and McGill,2011).Brand anthropomorphism can often create unique,vivid and specific brand personality or image,and will further promote interaction and communication between consumers and brands.In general,this kind of marketing communication technology can create good consumer reaction,such as increasing the affinity of products,enhancing consumers' positive emotion and more favorable brand personality attribution(Delbaere et al.,2011).In view of the fact that marketers have been widely used means of anthropomorphic,sorting out the related research on anthropomorphism,we find that most scholars focus on on the effect of anthropomorphic "yes" or "no" on attitude and behavior of consumers(Aggarwal and McGill,2007;Chandler and Schwarz,2010;Waytz et al.,2010;Mourey et al.,2017).Surprisingly,academic research on the type of anthropomorphic image is very limited.At the same time,although the scholars have studied a lot of problems associated with the brand,such as brand personality,consumer-brand relationship,brand identity,brand community and so on,few studies directly focus on the brand's anthropomorphic image.However,in real life,the anthropomorphic image of brands varies widely.Consumers tend to have different preferences for different types of anthropomorphic brand images.What factors will influence consumers' preference for different types of anthropomorphic brand images? What is the internal mechanism for forming different preferences for different types of anthropomorphic brand images?This study focuses on the impact of different types of anthropomorphic images on consumers in the context of brand anthropomorphism.Specifically,on the basis of stereotype content model,this paper classifies the anthropomorphic brand image as a warm type and a competency type and explores how the discrete anthropomorphized image("competency" VS."warmth")affects consumer preferences when they face different types of agricultural products and what the mediation mechanism of this process is.Through reviewing the related literatures and theories,this paper constructs a theoretical model and puts forward the research hypothesis.For the empirical test of the theoretical model,this paper mainly uses the quasi-experiment method to collect data,and uses SPSS22.0 to describe the statistical hypothesis,reliability and validity analysis,T-test,variance analysis,regression analysis and other methods to verify the hypothesis.This paper designs two experiments that manipulate the anthropomorphic brand image and product type,and tests the hypotheses.The results of empirical research show that:(1)The interaction of product types and anthropomorphic brand image types has an impact on the purchase intention of consumers.When faced with functional products,consumers are more willing to purchase products with "competency" anthropomorphic brand image than "warm" anthropomorphic brand image.When faced with conventional products,consumers are more willing to purchase products with "warm" anthropomorphic brand image than "competency" anthropomorphic brand image.(2)In the face of functional products,the capacity trust plays an intermediary role in the relationship between the anthropomorphic brand image and the purchase intention of consumers.For functional products,the "competency" anthropomorphic brand image(as opposed to "warm" type)can lead to a higher capacity trust,which in turn stimulates a higher willingness to purchase.(3)In the face of the conventional products,the goodwill trust plays an intermediary role in the relationship between anthropomorphic brand image and the purchase intention of consumers.For conventional products,the "warm" anthropomorphic brand image(as opposed to "competency" type)can lead to higher goodwill trust,which will stimulate higher product purchase intention.These findings clarify the impact of product type on consumers' preferences for different types of anthropomorphic brand images and the internal mechanism.The above research complements the gap in the field of brand anthropomorphism and product type,which provides a certain practical significance for the brand anthropomorphic image design and subsequent marketing management.On the one hand,agricultural enterprises should clarify their product characteristics and positioning.When enterprises further strengthen the market position of products,they should pay attention to different types of agricultural products to design or adopt different anthropomorphic brand images.On the other hand,agricultural enterprises should realize the importance of anthropomorphic brand image.When enterprises are investing and constructing an anthropomorphic brand image,they should pay attention to publicizing information that is consistent with the brand personality and characteristics,and cultivating different anthropomorphic brand images lead to different consumer trust.