Bringing Brands to Life: A study on the impact of brand anthropomorphism and personalization on advertisement attitudes in a social media context

Abstract: Brand anthropomorphism is a frequently used marketing strategy to enhance a brand's humanlike features and characteristics. Businesses use brand anthropomorphism to increase their brands' appeal, likeability, and memorability for consumers. They do this by imbuing a brand with human qualities like emotions, personality traits, and behaviors to build an emotional connection with consumers. Brand anthropomorphism is becoming prevalent in the digital driven-marketplace, where its ability to improve social relationships between brands and consumers provides a more personalized experience. This personalized experience is further enhanced by vast amounts of consumer data which can create tailored messages that encourage a two-way relationship between brand and consumer. However, academic research is silent concerning the effects of combining brand anthropomorphism and personalization on advertising outcomes. Additionally, the existing research is currently limited and presents conflicting results. Thus, this study investigates whether brand anthropomorphism and personalization influence advertising attitudes and whether brand trust and privacy concerns mediate this relationship. Using a deductive approach and a 2×2 factorial survey-based experiment (N=203), the underlying hypotheses are tested through quantitative analysis. The results suggest no effects on advertisement attitudes, neither from brand anthropomorphism, personalization, or the combination. Therefore, our findings suggest that brand anthropomorphism and personalization do not positively affect advertisement attitudes in social media marketing. Instead, the findings indicate that brand anthropomorphism and personalization outcomes are complex and context-dependent. Our findings hold valuable theoretical and practical implications and relevant suggestions for future research.