Abstract

Anthropomorphism in advertising has been shown to create positive advertising and branding outcomes. In this research, we introduce an important internal variation in this ad strategy—advertising a brand as collective- versus solo-anthropomorphized (i.e., the presence of multiple anthropomorphized entities versus one entity). Four studies overall demonstrate that advertising a brand as collective- (versus solo-)anthropomorphized decreases advertising effectiveness. We further show that these two types of brand anthropomorphism significantly interact with gender. That is, our research reveals that women develop lower expectations of relationship closeness with a collective- (versus solo-)anthropomorphized brand, thereby resulting in lower effectiveness of collective anthropomorphic ad appeals. In contrast, we find no detrimental effect of this ad strategy for men. Importantly, our work establishes that explicitly incorporating relationship potential cues in collectively anthropomorphized ad copy or inducing no expectations of close relationships with a brand will attenuate the negative impact of a collective- (versus solo-)anthropomorphized ad appeals on advertising effectiveness.

摘要

广告中的拟人化已被证明可以创造积极的广告和品牌效应。在这项研究中，我们介绍了该广告策略的一个重要内部变体——将品牌作为集体拟人化与单独拟人化（即多个拟人化实体与一个实体的存在）进行广告宣传。四项研究总体表明，将品牌宣传为集体（相对于个人）拟人化会降低广告效果。我们进一步表明，这两种类型的品牌拟人化与性别显着相互作用。也就是说，我们的研究表明，女性对集体拟人化品牌（相对于单独拟人化品牌）的亲密关系期望较低，从而导致集体拟人化广告吸引力的有效性较低。相比之下，我们发现这种广告策略对男性没有不利影响。重要的是，我们的工作表明，在集体拟人化广告文案中明确纳入关系潜在线索或不诱导与品牌建立密切关系的期望将减弱集体（相对于单独）拟人化广告吸引力对广告效果的负面影响。