Can brand anthropomorphism trigger emotional brand attachment?

Jianfeng Ma, Hongwei Tu, Xing Zhou and Wanjie Niu

The Service Industries Journal, 2023, vol. 43, issue 7-8, 555-578

Abstract: Although brand anthropomorphism has received considerable attentions, research on the relationship between brand anthropomorphism and emotional brand attachment is limited. In hospitality industry context, we conducted three experiments to examine the influence of brand anthropomorphism on emotional brand attachment. It was found that anthropomorphic brand significantly enhances emotional brand attachment. We also demonstrated that the reason why consumers exposed to anthropomorphic brand display greater emotional brand attachment is that their positive affect is activated. Regarding the boundary conditions, we shed lights on social exclusion and brand nostalgia. Consumers who experienced social exclusion reported more positive effect and emotional brand attachment when they were exposed to anthropomorphic brand versus non-anthropomorphic brand. In addition, we found significant moderating effects of brand nostalgia. We observed that the relationships between brand anthropomorphism and positive affect and brand anthropomorphism and emotional brand attachment are stronger for consumers with feelings of brand nostalgia than those not.

Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/02642069.2021.2012163 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:taf:servic:v:43:y:2023:i:7-8:p:555-578

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/FSIJ20

DOI: 10.1080/02642069.2021.2012163

Access Statistics for this article

The Service Industries Journal is currently edited by Eileen Bridges, Professor Domingo Ribeiro, Ronald Goldsmith, Barry Howcroft and Youjae Yi

More articles in The Service Industries Journal from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().