| dc.description.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. | en_US |
