The Impact Of Brand Anthropomorphism And Social Media Interactivity On Brand Engagement In The Digital Age

Abstract

Brand anthropomorphism has long been a significantly efficient strategy in winning customer’s minds and gaining brand engagement. The Michelin man who has become the symbol of the tire brand for a long time, the cheetah of Cheetos snack, the green owl of Duolingo, all of them demonstrates how brand anthropomorphism perceives brands as living things to actively react and engage with. However, as the era for online activity has exploded, the offline tactics or simple mascot will not be able to fully leverage the power of brand anthropomorphism to connect with customers. In today's digital age context, when social media totally changes the way brands and customers interact with each other, how brand anthropomorphism could be adapted in the online world to develop the customer-brand engagement deserves more focus and investigation. To have a closer look into this area, this research aims to investigate not only the impact of brand anthropomorphism but also the coordination with social media interactivity on building relationships with customers, and more importantly, on the extent of brand engagement. Additionally, the moderating role of brand personality congruity on the relationships between these two key variables and brand engagement is also measured. The conceptual framework is adapted from Urška Tuškej and Klement Podnar research model (2018). Seven hypotheses are developed following literature review of several previous studies and theories.