1.3 Research objectives The general objective of this thesis is to examine the relationships between brand anthropomorphism and brand attachment, brand trust, consumer perceived values,
Trang 1MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY
NGUYEN PHAM PHUONG NHI
ANTHROPOMORPHISM IN BUILDING BEVERAGE BRANDS:
A MODERATED MEDIATION STUDY AMONG
THE YOUNG GENERATION
SUMMARY OF DISSERTATION
Ho Chi Minh City – 2024
Trang 2The Thesis was completed in:
Scientific guide:
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The thesis will be protected by the Board of Review in:
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Trang 3
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Research background
Research on anthropomorphism has increasingly received much attention from scholars since the twenty-first century (M W Zhang et al., 2020) This concept was derived from two Greek words: Anthropos, which refers to "human," and Morphe, which means "shape" (Ding et al., 2022) Anthropomorphism is adopted when people view nonhuman agents as human Epley et al (2007) further conceptualized anthropomorphism as the natural human tendency to ascribe human features, desires, goals, and sentiments to inanimate agents For example, people sometimes name their cars and see them as true friends or loyal companions (Huang et al., 2020)
There is a growing consensus on the definition of brand anthropomorphism, which is rooted in the belief that a brand is viewed as a human being with various emotions, thoughts, and volition (Ding et al., 2022; Guido & Peluso, 2015; Kwak et al., 2015; Puzakova et al., 2009; M W Zhang et al., 2020) Bibliometrics analysis represents the annual trends of growing interest in the research topic of brand anthropomorphism In particular, the graphic image shows the number of studies that have been published during the period from 1994 until the beginning of June 2023 The development of the research field was remarkably split into two stages The early stage was between 1994 and 2017; brand anthropomorphism received less attention from scholars and practitioners during this period However, the "booming" phase was from 2018 till recently, with an increasing number of articles published in more interdisciplinary areas
Anthropomorphism in the context of real-world brands
Anthropomorphism has been widely utilized in branding and marketing disciplines Marketers might adopt visual cues to encourage audiences to think of their branded products imbued with humanlike features A typical example is M&M chocolate or the evolution of Coca-Cola’s bottles, which have been increasingly changed to resemble the shape of a human body (shown in Appendix A) Marketing managers also use verbal cues to persuade consumers to interact with brands via first-person narration (e.g., I am a Superman) (Fleck et al., 2014; Han et al., 2019) In some cases, brands might be imbued with emotional states and considered as real people (e.g., Mrs Fields and Mr Kleen) (Ha et al., 2022) Recently, anthropomorphism applied in marketing robotic services has received much attention from many scholars and practitioners (e.g., automated servers in Southeast Asia or hotel porters in the USA) (Murphy et al., 2019) In the Vietnamese market, several local brands typically adopt anthropomorphism in their advertising campaigns, such as Miss Saigon perfume or Ong Tho brand of Vinamilk company (shown as Appendix 1)
For this study, the healthy and energy drink brands were selected to conduct research experiments for two reasons First, scholars frequently use beverage bottles or advertisements of branded drink brands as stimulus materials to manipulate brand anthropomorphism (Aggarwal & McGill, 2007; Golossenko et al., 2020; MacInnis & Folkes, 2017; Puzakova & Kwak, 2017) Second, it is relatively common to execute anthropomorphism in the context of real-world brands For instance, the Suntory Natchan Orange is a fruit
Trang 4juice brand produced by Suntory Beverage and Food Ltd Another example is the OKF Manuka Honey Lemonade, an Overseas Korean Food branded product of a leading muti-beverage manufacturing company Both firms seem to specialize in product packaging with human faces (shown in Appendix 1) Another example is Tio Pepe, a Spanish sherry sold by the Gonzalez Byass company, which has used an anthropomorphic bottle in its advertising for over 100 years (shown in Appendix 1)
1.2 Research gap
Despite the increasing application of anthropomorphism, especially in the branding context, the existing literature lacks theoretical and synthetic studies exploring given issues (MacInnis & Folkes, 2017) According to Portal et al (2018), the appeal of adopting anthropomorphism in marketing is unwell comprehended Research on brand anthropomorphism and its meaning for consumers is highly fragmented and lacks integration (Bagozzi et al., 2021) To the best of the author’s knowledge, so far, there have been three relevant review papers (Avis & Aitken, 2015; MacInnis & Folkes, 2017; Portal et al., 2018) and one meta-analysis article (Velasco et al., 2021) The limited number of article reviews leads to a call for more conceptual research that offers a unified perspective on the given topic The author’s paper provides a holistic view of brand anthropomorphism by consolidating its related publications in a structured form and interpreting their insights In particular, the bibliographic analysis was conducted based on relevant articles extracted from the Web of Science database The findings visualized the conceptual structure and evolution
of research themes and propose possible directions for future research
Several scholars have recently found that anthropomorphizing brands is potentially seen as an effective way to enhance brand attachment, defined as “the strength of the bond connecting the brand with the self” (Park et al., 2010, p.2) However, up to date, there are just a few empirical studies (K J Chen & J
S Lin, 2021; Girardin et al., 2023; Yoshiaki Kikuchi et al., 2021; Li et al., 2023; Ma et al., 2023; Rajput et al., 2020; J Wu et al., 2017) exploring a mechanism underlying how and when anthropomorphism influences brand attachment The bibliographic coupling analysis and systematic review of given issues showed that no study thus far has expressed the essential role of customers’ perceived values as a mediator between brand anthropomorphism and brand attachment To address prior research's shortcomings, the author’s paper provides a richer and more complete perspective of brand anthropomorphism, brand attachment, and consumer values
Significant articles of the research stream have concentrated on the positive side of the relationship, while the negative brand relationship has received less attention from previous scholars (Bagozzi et al., 2021; Puzakova & Aggarwal, 2018) The author’s research moved beyond past studies by examining both sides of consumer-brand interactions The positive side of relationships is closely related to brand attachment, subsequently leading to pro-brand behaviors (e.g., brand loyalty) (MacInnis & Folkes, 2017) The opposite of brand attachment is brand betrayal, which describes a state where prominent brands violate consumers' trust, influencing their judgments (Bagozzi et al., 2021)
Psychologists argue that when brands are perceived as social members, their actions are governed
Trang 5by social norms and are expected to match these rules (Aggarwal, 2004) Thus, consumer-brand interactions move beyond mere functional or economic gains to what is believed to be the right thing to do in that encounter The brand assessment will be positive if the brand meets people’s expectations In contrast, if its action violates behavioral norms, the brand may be assessed negatively (Gefen et al., 2008) Inspired by these views, the author posited that when people interact with humanized brands and treat them as members
of social groups, then the actions of the brands need to be consistent with consumers’ expected beliefs Increasing prices could harm brand relationships (Bagozzi et al., 2021) and lead to unfair perceptions of consumers (Kwak, 2017) The perceived price unfairness would result from unreasonable differences
between a seller’s and reference prices (Xia et al., 2004) However, users become less sensitive to price
increases by emphasizing their’ trust in brand competence (i.e., credibility) On the other hand, when consumers are more concerned about benevolence beliefs (i.e., goodwill and sympathy), they are more likely
to perceive disadvantaged price experiences as unfair (Riquelme et al., 2019)
1.3 Research objectives
The general objective of this thesis is to examine the relationships between brand anthropomorphism and brand attachment, brand trust, consumer perceived values, perceived price fairness, and purchasing intentions, as well as explore the moderating role of brand stereotypes, in the context of beverage brands Accordingly, this paper has four specific research objectives, shown as follows
Objective 1: investigate the effects of brand anthropomorphism on emotional brand attachment via
young consumers’ perceived values
Objective 2: examine the effects of brand anthropomorphism on young consumers' perceptions of
perceived price fairness, subsequently leading to purchasing intentions
Objective 3: explore the moderating effects of brand stereotypes from an anthropomorphic point of
view
Objective 4: provide valuable recommendations for marketing managers to enhance brand
relationships and mitigate young consumers’ sensitivity to price changes in the beverage industry
1.4 Research questions
Taken together, the research questions of this paper are as follows:
(1) How does brand anthropomorphism directly influence brand attachment in the context of beverage brands?
(2) How do young consumers’ perceptions of sentimental, social, and instrumental value partially mediate the relationship between brand anthropomorphism and brand attachment?
(3) How does brand attachment impact young consumers’ buying intentions towards anthropomorphized beverage brands under price increases?
Trang 6(4) How do anthropomorphic beverage brands affect young consumers’ perceptions of fairness and their purchasing intentions, applying in the case of price increases?
(5) How do competence and benevolence trust mediate the relationship between brand anthropomorphism and consumers’ inferences of perceived price fairness?
(6) How do brand stereotypes (warmth vs competence) convey their moderating effects regarding anthropomorphic views?
(7) How does this research provide recommendations for marketing managers to enhance brand relationships and mitigate young consumers’ sensitivity to price changes in the beverage industry?
1.5 Research methodology
To address the above research questions, the author proposed a research framework that focused on brand anthropomorphism's effects on brand attachment via three types of perceived values The research model further concentrated on the influences of anthropomorphic brands on perceived price fairness (under the context of price increases) through different dimensions of brand trust The four experiments applied in the context of energy / healthy drink brands were carried out to test the hypothesis of the research model
As mentioned, the young generation covers the most considerable proportion of consumers for energy drinks and healthy beverages (Al-Ashwal et al., 2014; Hutak et al., 2022) Hence, the older cohort of Generation Z (18 - 24) and the younger cohort of millennials (25 - 30) who were interested in sports/juice drink brands were selected as the research sample of the author’s experimental studies
In conclusion, the research process has three main steps The bibliometric analysis and systematic review were conducted in the first step to uncover research problems and gaps Next, the research models and hypotheses were proposed based on the identified research gaps Then, the measurement scales were adopted from previous well-established studies to access the research variables of the proposed research models In the second step, the author conducted two pilot studies to validate the manipulations of brand anthropomorphism and price changes In the final step, four experiments were conducted to test the moderated mediation relationships Data was collected from 531 young participants, and the Partial Least Squares technique was applied for statistical analysis
1.6 Research contribution
Responding to the mentioned literature gaps, this study drew on Epley et al.’s (2007) three-factor theory of anthropomorphism, attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969), and social judgment theory (Atkin & Smith, 2008; Sherif & Hovland, 1961) to provide a deep understanding of consumer-brand interactions in the context of anthropomorphic brands On the positive side, the author’s research aimed to test the influence
of brand anthropomorphism on brand attachment empirically By examining the mediating roles of different dimensions of perceived values, this study also offered an underlying mechanism explaining how and when such anthropomorphic brands affect consumers’ emotional attachment On the other hand, the author
Trang 7targeted to observe consumers’ perceptions of fairness, and their purchasing intentions if product prices suddenly increased In this case, the mediating roles of competence trust and benevolence trust were assessed
to clarify diverse perceptions of price fairness and different level of buying intentions The study further evaluated the role of brand stereotypes (competence vs warmth) which expectedly moderate correlations in the author’s research models The findings offer several theoretical and managerial contributions to the given research area
1.7 Research structure
This research is structured as follows
Chapter 1 – Introduction
Chapter 2 – Literature review and hypotheses development
Chapter 3 – Research methodology
Chapter 4 – Data analysis, results, and discussions
Chapter 5 – Conclusions and implications
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES DEVELOPMENT
2.1 Theoretical approaches
The proposed research framework was developed from a combination of the Three-Factor Theory
of Anthropomorphism (Epley et al., 2007), Attachment Theory (Bowlby, 1969), and Social Judgement Theory (Atkin & Smith, 2008; Sherif & Hovland, 1961) Drawing on these theories, the study aimed to investigate both the positive and negative sides of consumer-brand interactions under the context of anthropomorphic brands According to Epley et al.'s theory (2007), the author expected that anthropomorphism can enhance customers' perceived value of the brands, including sentimental value, social value, and instrumental value When consumers obtain brand-generated values, they tend to make strong emotional bonds with brands, shaping strong brand attachments This belief was built on the Attachment Theory (Bowlby, 1969) Referring to the Social Judgement Theory, the author’s study also explained diverse brand trust and various perceptions of fairness in the situation of price increases
2.2 A systematic review of main concepts
2.1 Concept of Brand Anthropomorphism
2.2.2 Concept of brand attachment
Trang 82.2.3 Concept of Brand Trust
2.2.4 Concept of brand stereotypes
2.2.5 Concept of perceived value
2.2.6 Concept of Perceived Price Fairness
2.3 Hypothesis Development
The summary of the proposed research hypotheses is as follows:
Table 7 Summarization of hypotheses of proposed research model
1 H1 Brand anthropomorphism positively influences brand attachment
2 H2a Brand anthropomorphism leads to higher consumers’ perception of sentimental value
3 H2b Perceived sentimental value has a positive effect on brand attachment
4 H2c Perceived sentimental value mediates the effect of anthropomorphism on brand
attachment
5 H3a Brand anthropomorphism leads to higher consumers’ perception of social value
6 H3b Perceived social value has a positive effect on brand attachment
7 H3c Perceived social value mediates the effect of anthropomorphism on brand attachment
8 H4a Brand anthropomorphism leads to higher consumers’ perception of instrumental value
9 H4b Perceived instrumental value has a positive effect on brand attachment
10 H4c Perceived instrumental value mediates the effect of anthropomorphism on brand
attachment
11 H5 Brand attachment positively influences consumers’ purchasing intentions
12 H6a Brand stereotypes moderate the effect of anthropomorphism on brand attachment
13 H6b Under brand stereotype warmth (vs competence) condition, anthropomorphic brand
facilitates higher consumers’ perceptions of sentimental value
14 H6c Under brand stereotype warmth (vs competence) condition, anthropomorphic brand
facilitates higher consumers’ perceptions of social value
15 H6d Under brand stereotype competence (vs warmth) condition, anthropomorphic brand
facilitates higher consumers’ perceptions of instrumental value
16 H7 Brand anthropomorphism positively influences perceived price fairness
17 H8 Perceived price fairness positively influences consumers’ purchasing intentions
18 H9a Brand anthropomorphism has a positive effect on competence trust
19 H9b Competence trust leads to higher consumers’ perception of price fairness
20 H9c Competence trust mediates the effect of anthropomorphism on perceived price fairness
Trang 9Number Hypotheses
21 H10a Brand anthropomorphism has a positive effect on benevolence trust
22 H10b Benevolence trust leads to lower consumers’ perception of price fairness
23 H10c Benevolence trust mediates the effect of anthropomorphism on perceived price fairness
24 H11a Brand stereotypes moderate the effect of anthropomorphism on perceived price fairness
25 H11b Under brand stereotype competence (vs warmth) condition, anthropomorphic brand
facilitates higher competence trust
26 H11c Under brand stereotype warmth (vs competence) condition, anthropomorphic brand
facilitates higher benevolence trust
(Source: Author’ summarization of hypotheses, 2024)
2.4 Proposed Research Model
In sum, the author’s study proposed a research framework (see Figure 3) to provide a deep understanding of consumer-brand interactions, applying in the context of anthropomorphic brands This research model examined the positive relationship between brand anthropomorphism and brand attachment via the mediating roles of consumers’ perceived values These correlations were developed based on a combination of Epley et al.’s (2007) three-factor theory of anthropomorphism and attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969) Next, users were put into the situation of price increases In this context, the study further assessed the influence of anthropomorphic brands on people’s perceptions of price fairness and their purchasing intentions Building on social judgment theory (Atkin & Smith, 2008), the research also accounted for both positive and negative effects of different dimensions of trust, which expectedly mediated the connections between brand anthropomorphism and consumers’ perceived price fairness In this work, brand stereotypes (competence vs warmth) were regarded as crucial moderators, which might be helpful to explain the diverse effects of anthropomorphism on users’ evaluations
Trang 10Figure 3 Proposed research model (Source: Author’s proposal, 2024)
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1 Research timeline
3.2 Bibliometric data collection and screening
3.3 Research process
The research process has three main steps (shown in Figure 5) In the first step, the bibliometric analysis, and systematic reviews of 368 publications (as mentioned above) were conducted to uncover research problems and gaps Next, the research models and research hypotheses were proposed based on the identified research gaps Then, the measurement scales were adopted from previous well-established studies
to access the research variables of the proposed research models
In the second step, the author conducted two pilot studies To validate the manipulation of anthropomorphism, the study carried out a pre-test with 20 independent judges from the management school The concept of brand anthropomorphism was explained to the judges After that, they were presented with both non-anthropomorphized and anthropomorphized stimuli Subsequently, they were asked to choose the brand that they perceived as more anthropomorphic
To validate the manipulation of price changes, the author additionally piloted with 40 respondents They reported that the price of the branded product had increased unexpectedly The pilot test showed that users’ purchasing intentions were significantly different before and after being exposed to the price increase This effect occurred in both anthropomorphism and non-anthropomorphism conditions