Is It Better To Be A Partner Or A Servant? Research On The Influence Of The Roles Of Brand Anthropomorphism On Consumers’ Value Co-creation Intention

The role of brand anthropomorphism brings a variety of social features.All kinds of people’s lives are demonstrated in the era of character setting.Virtual personified roles are shaped by enterprises through brand anthropomorphism,and are endowed with features such as profile and character personality.In this way,credit from consumers can be gained through interactions beyond the product.Specifically,the partner-like brand anthropomorphism role is adopted by brands as a benefit sharer to regard consumers as friends and communicate equally with consumers,forming a mutually supportive relationship.Also,brands take the servant-like brand anthropomorphism role as an interest provider to regard the consumer as the master and listen to them,forming a class relationship.Moreover,the point of value co-creation is proposed by service-dominant logic theory,holding that both enterprises and consumers are the co-creators in the value-creating process.Therefore,the paper is aimed at probing into the impact of anthropomorphism roles from different brands on consumers’ intentions towards value co-creation.Based on that,the mechanism of brand anthropomorphism influencing consumer intentions towards value co-creation is uncovered from the angle of brand credit.The research hypothesis is validated through a pre-test experiment and two formal situational experiments in this paper.And validation study on the research hypothesis is carried out based on data collected from the number platform using SPSS26.0 software,by means of paired sample T test,ANOVA variance analysis,and regression analysis.By doing so,the results are shown as below: First,compared with brand non-anthropomorphism,consumers’ intentions towards value co-creation are positively affected by both partner-like and servant-like brand anthropomorphism.Second,the impact of partner-like brand anthropomorphism is significantly higher than servant-like brand anthropomorphism.Third,a much more significant influence on the competence-based credit of a brand exists in partner-like brand anthropomorphism than that in servant-like brand anthropomorphism.Fourth,the influence of servant-like brand anthropomorphism on the benevolence-based credit of the brand is significantly higher than that of partner-like brand anthropomorphism.Fifth,consumers’ intentions towards value co-creation can be jointly promoted by competence-based and benevolence-based credits.Sixth,the competence-based credit has a mediating role in partner-like brand anthropomorphism and value co-creation intention.Seventh,the benevolence-based credit has a mediating role in servant-like brand anthropomorphism and value co-creation intention.Certain theoretical and practical value exists in the conclusions of this paper.Firstly,the research literature is expanded through comparing different effects of different dimensional brand anthropomorphism on consumers’ intentions towards value co-creation.Secondly,the relevant literature is further enriched by exploring the mediating role of brand credit in brand anthropomorphism and value co-creation intention.Finally,the relevant research is further deepened by exploring the different dimensional influences of servant-like brand anthropomorphism and partner-like brand anthropomorphism on brand credit.What’s more,corresponding management suggestions are also provided for brand managers by the findings of this paper.