Research On Consumers’ Preference For Anthropomorphic Brand Roles Under The Influence Of Social Exclusion

Social exclusion is a universal phenomenon.Previous studies have found that social exclusion will have a certain impact on consumers’ behavioral decisions.Based on previous studies,this paper divides anthropomorphic brands into partner brands and servant brands,and a longitudinal and in-depth study of anthropomorphic brands is conducted from the social dimension.In addition,by introducing self-construction and considering threat of belongingness and threat of control,this paper finds that social exclusion has a significant impact on anthropomorphic brand role preferences.By combing and summarizing the literature on social exclusion,brand personification,self-construction,threat of belongingness and threat of control,this paper proposes six hypotheses based on need-threat model and compensatory consumption theory.Through three experiments,the following conclusions are drawn.First,socially excluded consumers prefer anthropomorphic brand role more than socially accepted ones.Second,different self-constructed consumers prefer different personified brand roles after being excluded.Among them,interdependent selfconstructors prefer partner brands,while independent self-constructors prefer servant brands.Third,interdependent self-construction consumers prefer partner brands after exclusion because of the mediating effect of threat of belongingness,while independent self-construction consumers prefer servant brands after exclusion because of the mediating effect of threat of control.In addition,Experiment 3 also excluded the influence of product type and emotion,which enhanced the robustness of the research conclusion.On the basis of expanding previous studies,this paper has in-depth longitudinal research on brand personification,which to some extent makes up for the lack of neglect of control needs in previous studies.The conclusion of the study has important reference significance for enterprises to choose the appropriate brand role to carry out anthropomorphic brand marketing and pay attention to the self-construction and psychological needs of consumers.