Conditioned to Like Brands and Mindless Models
(2018) , 31 pages
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- Authors
Mierop, Adrien 
- Abstract
- Two popular tactics of enhancing brands’ perceptions are: 1) brand anthropomorphism (i.e. thinking of brands as having humanlike mind, MacInnis & Folkes, 2017) and 2) creating associations by presenting a brand with a person (e.g. a model, Shavitt, Swan, Lowrey, & Wänke, 1994). So far, the focus was solely on the consequences of these practices for brands. Here, the aim is to extend the scope on to both brands and models, by looking at the transfer of target’s non-evaluative (i.e. mind) and evaluative (i.e. likeability) properties. By integrating these ideas, an important yet neglected questions is addressed: to what extent attributing mind to objects (e.g. brands) is interwoven with the decreased mind attribution to people (e.g. models, Epley, Schroeder, & Waytz, 2013). Since paring an entity (e.g. a brand) that is initially neutral in meaning (i.e. mind) and valence (i.e. likeability) with an entity that has higher amount of these attributes (i.e. a model) leads to change in former’s perceptions (e.g. Unkelbach, 2011), than, the brand-model (vs brand-brand) pairing should increase brand’s perceived mind and likeability. On the contrary, the theory suggests that the brand-model (vs model-model) pairings should decrease perception of model’s mind and likeability. In sum, repetitive exposure to mix, brand-model pairs, i.e. entities differing in perceived mind and likeability, compared to pairs not differing in these properties (brand-brand and model-model pairs) should result in increased mind and likeability of brands and decreased mind and likeability of models. As expected, exposure to mix vs same pairs resulted in increased mind and likeability of brands and in decreased mind ratings of models. Contrary to expectations, models’ likeability increased after their pairing with brands (vs models). Results are discussed in light of the literature on attribution of humanness and conditioning.
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Citations
Herak, I., Kervyn de Meerendré, N., Mierop, A., & Thomson, M. (2018). Conditioned to Like Brands and Mindless Models (Louvain Research Institute in Management and Organizations Working Paper Series 2018/19). https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/97684