Brands Are Living Beings

What is brand Anthropomorphism?

Imagine you have a stuffed animal, like a favourite teddy bear. You might give it a name and pretend it can talk and play with you. That’s Anthropomorphism. Brand Anthropomorphism is kind of like that but for brands. Normally, brands are just logos and products on shelves. But with Anthropomorphism, they come to life.

Brand Anthropomorphism, in marketing terms, refers to the attribution of human-like characteristics to a brand. This can encompass personality traits, emotions, or even a physical embodiment. The goal is to foster a deeper connection with consumers by making the brand more relatable. By constructing a distinct humanised ‘persona,’ marketers aim to cultivate brand loyalty and forge an emotional attachment that transcends a purely transactional relationship.

The coolest brands don’t just try to sell you products or services, they become a part of your tribe. They make you feel like you and the brand, both, belong to the same special group.


Why Anthropomorphism?

Modern consumers prefer permission marketing, not interruption marketing. Brands that achieve human-like personalities can connect better. From a permission marketing perspective, imagine a friend asking for permission to join your game (humanised brand) vs an alien asking to join your game (objectified brand).

Technically,

Consumers exhibit higher levels of positive emotional connections.
“My Fitbit is my personal cheerleader.”
 
Consumers manifest higher levels of anticipated separation distress.
“Can’t live without Alexa, she knows me better than anyone.”

The consumer–brand relationship literature has accepted the idea that consumers may relate to brands as if they were persons (Fournier, 1998) and that for a consumer–brand relationship to exist, a brand has to turn into an appropriate, valuable, human-like relationship partner. A key mechanism that enables a brand to assume the role of an active and personalised agent in a relationship is Anthropomorphism (MacInnis and Folkes, 2017).


How do brands do it?

Anthropomorphism is a deliberate marketing strategy, not a random occurrence.

Both subtle and explicit superficial human-like characteristics embedded in a brand can facilitate the recognition of similarities between the brand and a human, thus fostering the analogous perception of the brand as a human.

This can be achieved through visual cues, and verbal cues, often by assigning gender to a brand, or by using first person in describing a brand in the brand’s communications.


Some key points:

• Strategic process: Anthropomorphism is a deliberate marketing strategy.
• Human-like characteristics: The focus is on imbuing the brand with traits associated with people.
• Social agency: The brand is presented as capable of independent thought and action.
• Objectives: The goal is to build deeper connections and emotional engagement.
• Psychological principles: The strategy leverages existing human psychology regarding social interaction.