Corporate Ethical Branding on YouTube: CSR Communication Strategies and Brand Anthropomorphism

Brand avatars: impact of social interaction on consumer–brand relationships

“…Although prior studies underscore the importance of building and maintaining online relationships with consumers, and advances in digital communication make it financially lucrative for companies to cultivate social relationships (Hammick and Ju, 2018), no research to date determined how including social elements to brand avatar communication would impact the CBR. This study fills that gap; thus, understanding the impact of social characteristics in brand avatar communication is beneficial for both research and industry as consumers come to expect social interactions with brands, particularly within a digital environment (Wen and Song, 2017) where consumers can often suffer from information overload when communicating with brands (Accenture Interactive, 2018). The implications of this more engaging, interactive social dialogue are that it can essentially enable the development of closer relationships to the point where the marketer can actively anticipate customer needs and wants to pre-empt consumer problems (Butler and Peppard, 1998).…”

“…At the same time, as marketers have been making the shift from focusing on discrete transactions to relationship building where the consumer is an active participant (Dwyer et al , 1987; Sheth, 2002; Vargo and Lusch, 2004; Wang, 2021), technological advancements have provided more efficient and less costly ways of facilitating those interactions. Consumers today are able and willing to engage in social interaction in a digital format (Biocca and Nowak, 2001; Feine et al , 2019; Gretry et al , 2017; Wen and Song, 2017), thereby making it easier for consumer–brand relationships (CBRs) to form in the prevalent but somewhat impersonal online context.…”

“…Therefore, there is potential to go beyond transactional communication and use the brand avatar to interact with the brand in a more social way, thereby providing both the consumer and brand with added value. Although research supports the notion that consumers get value from socializing in current digital environments (Park et al , 2011; Wang, 2021; Wen and Song, 2017), many companies still seem reluctant to embrace social interaction with consumers. This suggests the need to consider how the inclusion of social interaction in brand avatar dialogue may impact consumer outcomes.…”

Human-like versus me-like brands in corporate social responsibility: the effectiveness of brand anthropomorphism on social perceptions and buying pleasure of brands

“…In turn, these personified brand perceptions may direct consumers to elicit positive emotions in buying the brands. Given that consumer buying is often solicited to engage in CSR (Wen and Song 2017), the current study posits that the consumer will rate their buying experience as more pleasurable due to positive emotions induced by anthropomorphized brands. Furthermore, as discussed before, we post that warmth and competence geared by brand anthropomorphism are viable psychological mediators underlying the positive influence of anthropomorphized brands on buying pleasure.…”

“…The current study will provide theoretical and practical implications for CSR. Even though brand anthropomorphism is ubiquitous in today's CSR messages (Wen and Song 2017) (e.g., M&M's Better with M, Aflac's Duckprints), little has been known to us regarding how these two concepts are synthesized to magnify the effectiveness of CSR. Our contribution lies in aiding companies in creating brand personas that are effective in refining their CSR messages and encouraging "happy" buying among consumers.…”