The document summarizes a presentation given at the 2013 Consumer Brand Relations Conference in Orlando, Florida. The presentation explored the relationship between brand love, personality traits, and the propensity to anthropomorphize brands. It hypothesized that extroversion and openness would be positively associated with brand love, and that high involvement and transformational products would score higher in brand love. The results found openness increased brand love and that anthropomorphization increased love as well, though it did not mediate personality traits. The presentation recommended brand managers actively employ anthropomorphization cues in their branding to increase love, especially for lower involvement products.

1. What’s this thing called Love?
Exploring the relationship between brand love,
personality, and the propensity to anthropomorphize.
Ronald Voorn and Sabrina Hegner
CBR Conference, Rollins College, Orlando , Florida.
Sep 27th, 2013
2013 Consumer Brand Relations Conference, Orlando, Florida

2. Content
1. Introduction
2. Research Questions
3. Brand Love and Big 5
4. Anthropomorphisation
5. Product Grid
6. Hypotheses and Model
7. Results
8. Discussion
2013 Consumer Brand Relations Conference, Orlando, Florida

3. Ronald Voorn MSc.
1.0 : Advertising
2.0 : Marketing
3.0 : CEO
4.0 : PhD student/Lecturer
2013 Consumer Brand Relations Conference, Orlando, Florida
Involved with brands since 1979

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6. Research Questions
RQ1: To what extent does personality influence Brand Love
(the BAB prototype and its seven antecedent elements )
RQ2: To what extent does the propensity to
anthropomorphize mediate the influence of personality on the
brand love prototype
RQ3: To what extent does the consumer’s categorization of
products directly influence the brand love scores
2013 Consumer Brand Relations Conference, Orlando, Florida

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Anthropomorphisation

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Rossiter Percy Grid (1991)

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H1: Extroversion is positively associated with brand love
H2: Neuroticism is positively associated with brand love
H3: The relation between personality and brand love is mediated
by the propensity to apply ATP
H4 Brands that belong to the high involvement category will receive
higher scores on brand love
H5: Brands that belong to the transformational category will receive
higher scores on brand love than informational brands
Hypotheses

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Results
● The higher openness, the higher brand love

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● ATP no mediator but the higher ATP the higher
brand love
● High involvement and transformational products
indeed score higher on brand love

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● Clear evidence ATP can have a positive
effect on brand love scores.
● If practitioners do not actively manage this
process it might lead to non-desirable
outcomes for their brands
● Need to apply ATP cues towards the
architecture of their brands by design.
● Especially helpful to lower involvement and
informational products in obtaining more
brand love.
Recommendations

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● Practitioners could offer more opportunities for
consumers to anthropomorphize through:
● visual or other cues like the tone of voice in their
marketing communication efforts,
● the sort of activities, sports or athletes they
sponsor,
● the type of sales promotion offers
● the personas they develop for their social media
activities or
● the kind of actors they select in their TV-
commercials

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Because the one Nespresso is not the other
one