Anthropomorphizing religious advertising: The moderating role of political ideology

Abstract

We examine the anthropomorphism of brands as either a servant or a partner in religious advertising. Across five studies, we demonstrate that the impact of such anthropomorphism depends on consumers' political ideology. When exposed to religious advertisements (vs. nonreligious advertisements; Studies 1B and 1C), politically conservative consumers are more favorable toward brand-as-a-servant anthropomorphism (Study 1), which arises from greater state-based compassion (Study 2). However, this conditional preference for servant anthropomorphism only occurs for less religious consumers (Study 3). This study informs marketers regarding optimizing the effectiveness of using anthropomorphic brand images in religious advertising predicated on political ideology-based segmentation strategies. The key takeaway is that portraying a brand as a servant is more appealing for conservative consumers who are less religious.

A systematic review on political ideology and persuasion

“…Conservatives believe that a hierarchical social structure is necessary and legitimate, while liberals think otherwise (Ordabayeva & Fernandes, 2018). Therefore, using authorities as message sources (e.g., military members; Goldberg et al, 2021) or using appeals that highlight the importance of hierarchy (e.g., portraying brands as subservient to the consumer; van Esch et al, 2022), rewards based proportionally on contributions (e.g., “The 100 most generous donors will receive first‐class seats”; Lee et al, 2018), or promoting a sense of superiority over others (e.g., “Just better”; Ordabayeva & Fernandes, 2018; “Make yourself superior to others”; Gohary et al, 2023) can be more effective when persuading conservatives. Indeed, conservatives' receptiveness to messages that highlight hierarchy (e.g., “Not all seats are equal”) increases when their political identity is salient (Kim, Han, et al, 2018).…”