Personality structure of brands on social networking sites and its effects on brand affect and trust: evidence of brand anthropomorphization

ABSTRACT

The current study explored the personality dimensions of brands on Social Networking Sites (SNSs) using a South Korean sample. Through a series of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, six dimensions (i.e. Openness, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Extraversion, Warmth, and Contentiousness) were yielded for brands with SNS presence. The data also produced six dimensions (i.e. Openness, Sincerity, Extraversion, Competence, Agreeableness, and Ruggedness) for brands without SNS presence. The results show that brands with which consumers interact on SNSs have more human-like personalities than brands absent from SNSs, and the personality dimensions affected brand affect and trust to varying degrees.

KEYWORDS:

• Brand anthropomorphization
• social media
• social networking
• brand personality
• South Korea

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Jooyoung Kim (Ph.D., University of Florida) is an associate professor of advertising in the Department of Advertising and Public Relations, Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, at the University of Georgia. His current research interests are advertising engagement and consumer emotion.

Eun Sook Kwon (Ph.D., University of Georgia) is an assistant professor in the School of Communication at Rochester Institute of Technology. Her main research area is consumer engagement with advertising and media.

Bongchul Kim (Ph.D., Hanyang University) is a professor of advertising in the Department of Journalism and Communications, College of Social Science, at the Chosun University in Korea, Gwangju. His current research interests are health communication and public relations.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a research fund from Chosun University, 2017.