How guilt influences consumer response to anthropomorphized brands taking the servant (vs. partner) role

Purpose This research aims to examine how guilt emotion influences consumers’ choices between partner brands (work with consumers) and servant brands (serve consumers) and the underlying mediation mechanism of consumer perception (i.e. perceived deservingness). Design/methodology/approach Three experimental studies were conducted to test the hypotheses. Study 1 provided preliminary evidence showing that guilty consumers are more likely to choose partner (vs servant) brands. Study 2 examined perceived deservingness as the underlying mechanism using a manipulation-of-mediator approach. Study 3 replicated the main effect and further demonstrated that perceived deservingness mediated the interaction effect of guilt and brand roles on consumers’ purchase likelihood. Findings The findings reveal that guilty consumers prefer partner brands compared with servant brands. Specifically, this interaction effect arises because guilty consumers tend to avoid servant brands, which symbolically reinforce their reduced sense of self-deservingness induced by guilt. Originality/value This study pioneers the empirical integration of brand anthropomorphism and incidental emotion. First, this study enriches the anthropomorphism branding literature by providing a new antecedent factor related to incidental emotion. Second, this paper brings to light how anthropomorphized brand roles influence consumer responses. The findings show that this anthropomorphism strategy might induce a negative influence to brands and extend prior research by examining how consumers respond to different brand roles (i.e. partner vs servant).