The Influence Of Brand Anthropomorphism: Self-expression Strategy On Consumers’ Purchase Intention

As a key brand marketing strategy,anthropomorphism plays an important role in brand promotion and is widely used in marketing management.In some cases,marketers use anthropomorphic animals or mascots in product advertising,such as M&M candy.In other cases,marketers infuse products and brands with special designs to promote anthropomorphism,such as the Pepsi logo that resembles a smiley face.With the rapid growth of the Internet and social media,some brands have even started their own blogs and chatted with fans online to get closer to consumers,such as Durex and Sky mall.In practice,marketers often use anthropomorphization strategies to infuse brands with images and special personalities in order to foster relationships with consumers and consumer affection.However,most of the existing studies have explored the impact of anthropomorphic brand personas(partner type/servant type),anthropomorphic brand images(passionate/competent type),and anthropomorphic brand cues(impressionistic cues/interactive cues)on consumers,and few studies have discussed brand anthropomorphism in conjunction with verbal delivery style.In view of the close relationship between brands and products,this paper explores the influence of brand anthropomorphic self-expression strategies(self-improvement expression strategy and self-deprecation expression strategy)on consumers’ purchase intention based on the SOR model and symbolic interaction theory,and relies on dual system theory and psychological schema theory,introducing brand trust as a mediating variable and product type as a moderating variable to explore the internal mechanism and the impact of brand anthropomorphic self-expression strategies on consumers’ purchase intention.The internal mechanism and boundary conditions of brand anthropomorphic self-expression strategies on consumers’ purchase intention are explored.In the empirical part,three experiments were designed using the experimental method,and the data were analyzed using SPSS26.0 software to test the hypotheses.Through the analysis,the study obtained the following conclusions: first,brand anthropomorphic self-expression strategy(self-empowerment expression strategy vs.self-deprecation expression strategy)positively influences consumers’ purchase intention.Secondly,competence trust plays a mediating role in the process of self-empowering expression strategy influencing consumers’ purchase intention.Goodwill trust plays a mediating role in the process of self-deprecating expression strategy influencing consumers’ purchase intention.Third,the moderating role of product type between the effects of brand anthropomorphic self-expression strategies on consumers’ purchase intentions.When making purchase decisions,consumers are more likely to purchase branded anthropomorphic self-expression strategies relative to hedonic products and more likely to purchase branded anthropomorphic self-deprecating expression strategies relative to functional products.The marketing insights derived from this paper are as follows: First,companies should pay attention to the important influence of brand anthropomorphic self-expression strategies on consumers.Second,companies need to make their content more vivid and interesting when designing brand anthropomorphic self-expression strategies so as not to provoke consumers’ resistance.Thirdly,brands should choose different styles of anthropomorphic expressions by product type through early research on product types,so as to form a more efficient marketing strategy.