The Effects of Animistic Thinking, Animistic Cues, and Superstitions on Brand Responses on Social Media

Malgorzata Karpinska-Krakowiak and Martin Eisend

Journal of Interactive Marketing, 2021, vol. 55, issue C, 104-117

Abstract: Although marketers have been using various message tactics to breathe life into their brands, the concepts of animism and animistic cues, particularly in social media marketing, have received little theoretical and empirical attention. Therefore, we conducted two studies to uncover what drives animistic thinking on social media, how animism is linked to anthropomorphism, how animism can benefit brands online, and what the boundary conditions for this phenomenon are. The findings demonstrate that animistic (vs. non-animistic) cues elicit animistic thinking, which leads to more favorable brand evaluations. This effect is moderated by superstitious beliefs. The results provide new knowledge for both marketing researchers and practitioners, revealing that it is easier to activate animism than anthropomorphism on social media and that such activation can be done via easily devisable cues (such as simple movement), particularly when addressing highly superstitious consumers.

Keywords: Animistic thinking; Animism; Animistic cues; Social media; Superstitions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1094996821000189
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joinma:v:55:y:2021:i:c:p:104-117

DOI: 10.1016/j.intmar.2021.03.002

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Interactive Marketing is currently edited by B. T. Ratchford

More articles in Journal of Interactive Marketing from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().