Personifying Persuasion: The Synergistic Effects of Anthropomorphic Marketing and Product Involvement on Purchase Intention

Marketers have been embracing anthropomorphism since times immemorial. Anthropomorphism being a psychological phenomenon must be consistently studied in different settings in order to demonstrate its real relationship with customer assessments. The study investigates the impact mechanism of anthropomorphic advertisement on consumers’ purchases intentions, with the interaction effect of product involvement (low vs high). The tenor of the study is primary survey-based research that is purely quantitative. Data were analysed using SmartPLS. The study exhibited that anthropomorphic advertisement has a favourable impact on advertisement effectiveness (measured through four variables: information, entertainment, creativity and emotional appeal). Furthermore, the moderation effect of product involvement was also proven. The study demonstrated that information content of anthropomorphic advertisement is crucial for low-involvement product, and the creativity aspect of the anthropomorphic advertisement is significant for high-involvement products. The findings provide practitioners with crucial epiphanies on how to design a rewarding advertising message. Future researchers can corroborate the findings by adding or modifying the variables used to measure advertising effectiveness. They can invigorate the relationship between the variables by using a different medium of anthropomorphic advertisement.