Breathing Life into Brands: The Heartbeat of Brand Humanization and Its Pulse on Consumer-Based Brand Equity

This study aims to investigate the influence of brand gender and brand anthropomorphism on consumer-based brand equity (CBBE) through the lens of brand love and brand defense. Leveraging brand emotional attachment is critical in the digital age for maintaining and establishing substantial CBBE. Marketers employ several strategies to instill emotional attachments through the enriched humanization of brand interactions with their consumers, such as brand anthropomorphism. Therefore, marketers are increasingly focused on introducing human-like attributes to their brand in order to attract consumers. Using purposive sampling, data were gathered from 437 respondents through an online survey. This study uses traditional in-sample and contemporary out-of-sample predictions to validate the influence of brand gender and anthropomorphism with CBBE. Brand love and defense also mediate the relationship between CBBE and its antecedents. The results of this research provide imperative implications for brand managers, suggesting that they should focus on the human-like attributes of the brand, enabling consumers to connect emotionally with it. The study sample is limited to a single metropolitan city and uses a cross-sectional design. Future studies should expand to other regions and incorporate longitudinal data to validate causal relationships.