Effectiveness of anthropomorphism in ugly food promotion: Do gender and age matter?

Due to the cosmetic standards of food service operators, most consumers have had limited exposure to visually unappealing foods. Thus, unused ugly foods end up becoming food waste. To encourage consumers to buy ugly foods with the hope of relieving the severity of food waste, this study attempts to further verify the effectiveness of anthropomorphism in advertising. The purpose of this study is to determine whether the effectiveness of anthropomorphism varies based on the individual consumer characteristics of gender and age. Specifically, the objectives of this study are 1) to investigate whether gender interacts with anthropomorphism and 2) to identify the moderating effect of age. A total of 421 participants were hired through Amazon Mturk, and a 2 × 2 × 2 between-subjects full-factorial experimental design was used. The results suggest that anthropomorphism could be advantageous in improving consumers’ purchase intentions, as well as confirm anthropomorphism’s interactional effect with gender. Furthermore, this interactional effect varies across different age groups (younger vs. older). This study extends the relevant literature and provides the food service industry with insightful marketing suggestions to promote ugly foods.