Anthropomorphised Message Framing and Political Ideology on Advertisement Evaluation and Willingness to Purchase

Date
2021
Authors
Phichit, Xinnouvat
Supervisor
van Esch, Patrick
Item type
Dissertation
Degree name
Master of Business
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Volume Title
Publisher
Auckland University of Technology
Abstract

Political ideology has an influence on consumption behaviour. It is certainly influencing how the consumer perceives information from the advertisement. Marketers are trying to exploit this area to further increase consumers' purchase intent (e.g., hereafter: willingness to purchase [WTP]). A small tweak in a message framing in brand advertisement certainly improves consumer products’ evaluation to be more appealing and appreciative to some group of consumers, while the same message may not be so effective to another group, providing political ideology context. Using an experimental methodology, this study collected data from 682 M-Turkers in the United State to examine how anthropomorphised brand advertisement message framing as a servant (vs. partner) based on consumers' political ideology as conservative (vs liberal) influence WTP (Study 1). This research also replicated Study 1 to confirm the findings and examine the underlying causal mechanism (e.g., mediator) of the state-based emotion “relaxation” and rule out other alternative discrete emotions (Study 2). The results of the two studies found that, for politically conservative consumers, anthropomorphised brand message frames as a servant, had a significant impact on purchase intent (WTP) but the same effect was not found significant for politically liberal consumers. The further study also found that the conditional effect of the message framing for politically conservative consumers was driven by a state-based relaxation, evoked by the brand message framing as a servant has a significant indirect effect on purchase intent (WTP). In contrast, the same result was not found significant for politically liberal consumers. This study provides several contributions to the developing framework in marketing literature. It offers the marketers and retailers in-depth information in improving a behavioural segmentation in marketing strategy. Precisely, marketers and retailers can utilise this information to generate a greater purchase intent (WTP) among politically conservative consumers. At the same time, this information can also prevent the marketers from using ineffective strategies to the politically liberal consumers’ group.

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Keywords
Anthropomorphism , Political Ideology , Advertisement , Willingness to Purchase
Source
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