Feeling Right Matters: The Impact of Character Design–Appeal Match on Social Media Engagement

ABSTRACT In today's saturated digital environment, brands increasingly use characters to capture attention and engage consumers on social media. Yet little research has examined how brand character design interacts with advertising appeals in social media communication. Drawing on the stereotype content model and research on brand anthropomorphism, this research examines how two distinct character design styles, cute and cool, interact with warmth‐focused and competence‐focused advertising appeals. Across four experiments conducted in different product contexts, we find how the match between character design and advertising appeal influences customer engagement and brand attitude. The results reveal a matching effect. A cute character enhances customer engagement and brand attitude when paired with a warmth‐focused appeal, whereas a cool character produces stronger responses when paired with a competence‐focused appeal. Further analyses demonstrate that this effect occurs because matched combinations evoke a stronger sense of feeling right, which refers to the subjective experience that a message presentation feels appropriate or fitting. By identifying the psychological mechanism underlying character–appeal matching, this research contributes to the literature on brand characters and social media communication. Practically, the findings offer a strategic framework for marketers seeking to optimize brand character design and message framing on digital platforms in order to enhance consumer engagement and brand attitudes.