THE ADVERTISING EFFECTIVENESS OF ANTHROPOMORPHIC SPOKES CHARACTERS VERSUS SPOKESPEOPLE IN A COLLABORATIVE CONSUMPTION SERVICE by

This thesis explores the comparison of the advertising effectiveness of an anthropomorphic spokes character versus a spokesperson in a collaborative consumption service. Understanding the relationship between spokes characters and spokespersons in advertising as well as the effect this relationship has in a collaborative consumption service setting is of great relevance in marketing. In addition to ad processing outcomes such as attitude towards the ad (A! ") attitude towards the brand (A#), attitude towards the spokes characters/person (A$%&'($), Behavioral/purchase intentions (P)), a recently developed Process Fluency scale, is used. Three pretests were conducted in order to develop a final experimental design. Multiple hypotheses are tested through a 1 (home sharing) x 2 (spokesperson versus anthropomorphic spoke character) factorial between-subjects experimental design. The stimuli used was created by the author promoting the services of a new home sharing brand Ädventyr. To test the hypotheses, independent sample t-tests were used comparing the means of the experimental stimuli treatments. Results were mixed with most hypotheses being unsupported. The results contrast extant research on anthropomorphic spokes characters showing that surprisingly, respondents generally responded more negatively to the anthropomorphic spokes character compared to the spokesperson. Results show, decreasing advertising effectiveness of the ad featuring the spokes character. There are strong implications for future researchers and marketers. INTRODUCTION This research investigates the advertising effectiveness of a human-like or anthropomorphic, spokes character versus a spokesperson for a fictitious brand for a homesharing collaborative consumption service in the sharing-economy. Many articles have researched how anthropomorphism works in various marketing schemes and contexts (Huang, Hsieh, & Chen, 2011). Previous literature has also looked at the effectiveness between different kinds of spokespeople (e.g., Male/Female, Customer/Celebrity, CEO/Founder, Consumer/Spokes-character/celebrity/Employee) in different consumer-product settings (Agnihorti & Bhattacarya, 2018; Grigaliūnaitė & Pilelien, 2015; Stafford, Stafford, & Day, 2002; Huang, Hsieh, & Chen, 2011). However, what researchers do not discuss is the direct relationship between the advertising effectiveness of spokespeople (the common consumer) and anthropomorphized brand mascots. Only limited work has focused on the effects of animated characters on adult consumers and this represents a new area of the application of our understanding of source effects (effect of a message source on the persuasion of a target audience) in advertising research (Callcott & Lee, 1994). Examination of spokespersons in services advertising has been especially limited and empirical research on service spokes characters has been nonexistent (Stafford, Stafford, & Day, 2002). Out of human spokespeople, celebrities often take the lead in popularity and effectiveness due to the credibility and attractiveness they bring to the brand. However, the use of people and in particular celebrities do not come without risk as their personal (mis)behavior may transfer to negative attitudes towards a brand (Stafford, Stafford, & Day, 2002). The use of animated and animal characters bypasses this risk. Spokes characters are used successfully to present high involvement offerings to audiences and because people are attracted to cartoon-like figures, there is a visibility effect in advertising when they are used (Callcott & Alvey, 1991). As limited extant research compares the effectiveness of brands using a person (spokesperson) versus an anthropomorphized spokes character, our aim is to close this research gap (Heiser, et al., 2008).