A Name You Can Trust?

Personication
Effects Are Inuenced by Beliefs About
Company Values
Kendall J. Eskine and William H. Locander
Loyola University New Orleans
ABSTRACT
Are consumers more likely to trust a product when it is branded with a human name rather than a
nonhuman name? While the extant literature on brand personication reveals a positivity bias for
personied products, other research suggests that many contemporary consumers harbor
underlying feelings of mistrust toward companies more generally. The present research was the rst
empirical research to date to investigate the moderating role of consumers beliefs toward company
values on brand trust judgments for human-named and nonhuman-named products. The results
showed that although consumers signicantly trusted nonhuman-named products over human-
named products (Studies 1a and 1b), this pattern only occurred for those who generally mistrusted
companies (Study 2). These novel ndings signicantly shed light on the dynamics of brand
personication by emphasizing the crucial role of individual differences in consumer judgment.
C
2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Brand names are powerful symbolic structures. In-
deed, in many ways, a brand name can go beyond its
own label and represent qualities, characteristics, and
ideas that help engender and sustain relationships be-
tween consumers and products. To this end, some re-
searchers have argued that a brands personality plays
a signicant role in the development of this relation-
ship (Aaker, 1997; Delbaere, McQuarrie, & Phillips,
2011). As Aaker (1997, p. 347) put it, a brands per-
sonality refers to the set of human characteristics as-
sociated with a brand, and considerable research has
been conducted in this vein. Diverse perspectives range
from dening the construct and developing assessment
tools to exploring brand personication across differ-
ent personality characteristics and dissociating brand
personality effects on consumers beliefs about brands,
on the one hand, and the actual products themselves,
on the other hand (Azoulay & Kapferer, 2003; Govers
& Schoormans, 2005; Maehle, Otnes, & Supphellen,
2011; Maehle &Supphellen, 2008; Ramaseshan&Tsao,
2007; Zinkhan & Martin, 1987). Together, this growing
body of literature suggests that personication (i.e., as-
cribing human traits to inanimate objects) can alter
consumers perceptions about products in various ways
(Delbaere, McQuarrie, & Phillips, 2011).
Although much of the above research indicates that
perceiving products in terms of human characteristics
can enhance and/or facilitate positive relationships be-
tween consumer appraisals and products, surprisingly
little research has explored the extent to which indi-
viduals general views about for-prot companies alter
such personication effects. Taking this critical individ-
ual difference into consideration, the present research
signicantly extends our understanding of brand per-
sonication by empirically investigating the effects of
using human and nonhuman brand names on various
products in the context of brand trust.
PERSONIFICATION,
ANTHROPOCENTRICISM, AND BASIC
MOTIVATIONS
As noted by Delbaere, McQuarrie, and Phillips (2011),
personication effects are rooted in a deeper cogni-
tive bias to perceive the world in terms of human-like
traits, which expresses the core tenet of anthropocen-
trism (Aggarwal & McGill, 2007). As Moynihan (1997)
argued, anthropocentrism is so natural and robust be-
cause it enables people to conceptualize and understand
less familiar objects or events in terms of their own sub-
jective experience. Along these lines, it is a truism in
the social psychological literature that people gener-
ally want to feel both condent that (1) their percep-
tion of the world is accurate and (2) they themselves
are good. Therefore, these two basic motivations might
potentially underlie the ubiquitous nature of anthro-
pocentrism (and ultimately personication) for the fol-
lowing reason: If peoples conceptual representations
are founded on their unique experience and conceptions
Psychology and Marketing, Vol. 31(1): 4853 (January 2014)
View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/mar
C 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. DOI: 10.1002/mar.20674
48
about how the world works, then this same experience
will be organized and recruited to recognize, categorize,
and explain novel objects and events. Thus, anthro-
pocentrism and personication effects are necessarily
entailed in the human conceptual system, which is con-
sistent with current ndings in the cognitive sciences.
Anthropomorphism thus offers a relatively clear
and parsimonious account about how people perceive
products. According to Maehle, Otnes, and Supphellen
(2011), anthropomorphism leads to three particular ef-
fects, as they state (p. 291):
First, anthropomorphizing makes non-human ob-
jects seem more human, and thus more familiar.
Second, people gain comfort and reassurance when
interacting with objects they have anthropomor-
phized. Finally, by ascribing human characteristics
to objects, people decrease their uncertainty in a
complex, ambiguous world.
This series of steps further conrms the previous
assertion that anthropocentrism is at least partially
driven by a deeper psychological motive to view the
world accurately. In terms of uncertainty in a complex,
ambiguous world, previous research has demonstrated
that the ease with which people process information bi-
ases their judgments so that more uent processing
generally induces more positive appraisals (Schwarz,
2004). Therefore, uency effects help accomplish accu-
racy motives by revealing a positive bias for simpler and
better understood stimuli, which further enables people
to judge themselves as a good and reliable sources of in-
formation. This basic motive can also be accomplished
by projecting well-understood experience into novel do-
mains such that the former structures the latter.
Personication effects can clearly inuence howpeo-
ple perceive products, but they also have the potential
to shape how people judge themselves. For example,
previous research has shown that exposure to com-
fort foods such as chicken noodle soup actually alle-
viated feelings of loneliness in participants, but only
when they valued the soup as a comfort food (Trisoli
& Gabriel, 2011). In this case, those participants who
personied the soup to be comforting could therefore
use food as a social surrogate to represent emotional
comfort. In this way, consumers beliefs about products
traits frame their relationships with them and reliably
alter howconsumers understand themselves. However,
much of the extant research has focused on how brand
personication enhances preference for those brands,
particularly when there is high contiguity between con-
sumer and brand personalities (Malhotra, 1988; Sirgy,
1982).
Taken together, these general ndings indicate that
personifying products leads consumers to form positive
judgments about products, which is a result of anthro-
pomorphic cognitive biases to view most aspects of the
world in human-like ways. In line with this idea is the
nding that personication increases consumers trust
in products (Fournier, 1998).
BRAND TRUST
Brand trust is a critical component in market rela-
tionships. As noted elsewhere (Sung & Kim, 2010),
trust has been conceptualized a variety of ways, in-
cluding loyalty (Berry, 1983), service quality (Para-
suraman, Zeithaml, & Berry, 1985), relationship qual-
ity (Dwyer, Schurr, & Oh, 1987), and cooperation
(Anderson & Narus, 1990), among others. Following
other researchers, the present research considers brand
trust to be the willingness of the average consumer to
rely on the ability of the brand to perform its stated
function (Chaudhuri & Holbrook, 2001, p. 82; Morgan
& Hunt, 1994, p. 23; Sung & Kim, 2010, p. 644).
At the macrolevel, however, there is evidence for
generalized consumer mistrust toward companies and
their products (Lantieri & Chiagouris, 2009). To help
companies buffer against this trend, the researchers
identied several themes that brand strategy experts
believe play a role in this growing mistrust, which in-
clude some of the following: more cynical consumers,
frequent product recalls, perceived emphasis of busi-
ness needs over the consumer needs, company struc-
ture, uneven quality advances and quality decline, and
insincere relationships between consumers and compa-
nies, among others. Collectively, these components all
seem to highlight a companys values or philosophy of
business. These ndings further suggest that mistrust
in companies might be implicitly underlying many con-
sumers product judgments and are more widespread
than previously thought.
THE PRESENT RESEARCH
Thus far, the presented evidence indicates that per-
sonication is undergirded by cognitive biases involved
with anthropocentrism, which helps people achieve ba-
sic psychological motives involved with feeling accurate
about their perceptions of the world. While much of the
extant literature on personication has revealed a posi-
tive bias for personied products, more recent evidence
has indicated that the macro trends in contemporary
consumer culture suggest underlying mistrust toward
companies and their products. Hence, it follows that
personication would be more likely to activate nega-
tive concepts for those who generally harbor mistrust
toward company values, and, as a result, personied
brands should induce a negative bias in brand trust for
these consumers.
To further explore the effects of brand personi-
cation, Studies 1a and 1b investigated the extent
to which branding products with human (vs. nonhu-
man) names affected brand trust. Further, participants
beliefs about company values were also assessed to
determine its potential moderating effects on trust
judgments (Study 2). It was hypothesized that partic-
ipants would trust nonhuman-named products more
than human-named products, but only for those who
mistrust company values more generally.
NAMING PRODUCTS 49
Psychology and Marketing DOI: 10.1002/mar
STUDY 1a
Materials and Procedure
Eighty-nine Loyola University business school un-
dergraduates (56 females, 32 males, 1 unidentied;
M
age
=19.26) volunteered to participate in a brief study
assessing consumer trust judgments. Each partici-
pant received a packet containing pictures of a vari-
ety of products (computer, vacuum, wristwatch, TV,
teabags, calculator; one product per page). All partic-
ipants were told to look at each product and rate it in
terms of howmuch they trust the product on a 7-point
point scale (1 = not at all, 7 = very much). It was em-
phasized during the study that participants should not
contemplate the products too deeply but rather go with
their gut feelings about them. Trust was also further
dened during this phase according to the denition
provided earlier.
As a between-subjects manipulation, participants
were randomly assigned to receive product pictures
branded with human names (e.g., Patricias Comput-
ers, Wristwatches by Thomas, Teabags by Samantha,
Erics HD Television, etc.) or nonhuman names (e.g.,
Precise Computers, Wristwatches by Timekept, EZT
bags, TVCOM HD Television). A male name, female
name, and nonhuman (control) name was created for
each item. All items were counterbalanced, as were
the female and male names across the human name
condition. After completing the trust ratings for each
product, participants then provided basic demographic
information (age, gender, major, ethnicity, etc.).
Results and Discussion
All trust judgments were averaged into a single trust
index, as a reliability analysis conrmed =0.852. This
trust index was submitted to an independent samples
t-test, and revealed that participants trusted the prod-
ucts signicantly more in the nonhuman name condi-
tion (M = 5.06, SD = 1.16, n = 44) compared to the
human name condition (M = 4.29, SD = 1.35, n =
45), t(87) = 2.867, p = 0.005. These ndings indi-
cated that personifying products with human names
reduced participants trust in them, which is an impor-
tant and novel nding in the branding literature that
corroborates more recent claims about mistrust pat-
terns (Lantieri & Chiagouris, 2009).
STUDY 1b
To conceptually replicate the above ndings, 68 Loy-
ola University undergraduates (43 females, 25 males;
M
age
= 19.76) were approached on campus by an exper-
imenter and asked if they would be willing to volunteer
in a one-shot, forced-choice decision-making task. All
participants received a single product type (teabags)
and were asked to choose which teabags they trusted
more. There were two options from which to choose:
teabags branded with a human name (Teabags by
Samuel) or teabags branded with a nonhuman name
(EZT bags). Results showed that participants chose
the nonhuman-branded teabags (63.2%) signicantly
more than the human-branded teabags (36.8%), t(67) =
2.257, p < 0.05. These ndings replicated the previous
study by indicating a positive bias in brand trust for
nonpersonied products.
STUDY 2
The ndings thus far provide evidence that people ac-
tually prefer nonhuman-branded products over human-
branded products, which seems to contradict much of
the previous literature indicating a positive bias for
personied products. Recall that it was further hypoth-
esized that consumers beliefs about company values
moderates this effect. More specically, and as sug-
gested elsewhere (Lantieri & Chiagouris, 2009), it was
predicted that only those participants who indicated
greater mistrust toward company values would show
preference for nonpersonied products. Participants
low in company mistrust should show positivity biases
toward personied brands that are consistent with pre-
vious ndings.
Materials and Procedure
Fifty-nine Loyola University undergraduates (34 fe-
males, 24 males, 1 unidentied; M
age
= 20.07) were ap-
proached on campus and asked if they would be willing
to volunteer in a brief study assessing consumer trust
judgments. They received all of the same instructions
and materials as in Study 1a, but with a brief added
survey designed to assess their general beliefs about
company values. Three questions were designed to
assess company value beliefs, which were rated on a 7-
point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree).
Questions were as follows: Most companies are more
interested in their business needs as opposed to the con-
sumers needs, Most companies care more about big
prots rather than producing quality products, and It
is hard to trust companies in general.
Results and Discussion
A principal components factor analysis with no rota-
tions conrmed that the three items assessing company
value beliefs all loaded onto a single factor. A reliability
analysis further indicated that these items did in fact
measure the same construct ( = 0.958), and therefore
these three items were averaged into a single company
value index. As in Study 1a, all trust judgments for the
products gave high reliability ( = 0.957) and were also
averaged into a brand trust index.
50 ESKINE AND LOCANDER
Psychology and Marketing DOI: 10.1002/mar
Figure 1. Participants mean brand trust scores (higher values indicate greater trust) as a function of the personication
manipulation (categorical) and mean-centered beliefs about company values (continuous), where higher values indicate greater
mistrust toward company values.
To determine the extent to which company value be-
liefs moderated the effects of personication on brand
trust judgments, the regression analog of an analysis
of variance (ANOVA) was conducted. Brand trust was
regressed on one categorical predictor (personication:
human name vs. nonhuman name), a continuous pre-
dictor (company value beliefs), and their interaction.
Results revealed a marginal main effect of personi-
cation (b = 0.589, SE = 0.307, p = 0.06), a signicant
main effect of company value beliefs (b = 0.888, SE =
0.324, p =0.008), and, most critically, the predicted sig-
nicant interaction (b = 0.710, SE = 0.211, p = 0.001,
see Figure 1). Second, the simple slopes between high-
and low-company value beliefs were tested (see Aiken
& West, 1991). Results showed that those who mis-
trusted company beliefs trusted nonhuman-named sig-
nicantly more than human-named products (simple
slope = 1.634, SE = 0.435, t(55) = 3.76, p < 0.001);
those who trust company beliefs indicated the opposite
pattern, although this simple slope was not signicant
(p = 0.31).
Together, these ndings support the hypothesis that
peoples general beliefs about company values play a
signicant role in the process of brand personica-
tion. Further, these results indicate that while brand-
ing products with a human name helps personify a
product and reveals judgment patterns consistent with
previous literature, this positivity bias failed to reach
signicance.
GENERAL DISCUSSION
The purpose of the present research was to extend
and enhance our understanding of brand personica-
tion by empirically investigating its effects on brand
trust. Across three studies, results have shown that
consumers generally prefer nonhuman-named products
over human-named products. Although this pattern of
judgments might seem puzzling, ndings from Lantieri
and Chiagouris (2009) suggest that contemporary con-
sumers are more mistrusting toward company values
than they were in previous years. To build on this point,
the moderating role of consumers beliefs about com-
pany values was explored, with results revealing that
only those who mistrusted company values showed a
negative bias toward personied products. Taken to-
gether, these studies provide the rst empirical support
that personication effects are signicantly affected
by consumers beliefs about what companies actually
value.
Beliefs play a fundamental role in conceptual knowl-
edge, and the accessibility of those beliefs is instru-
mental in determining the extent to which conceptual
knowledge becomes activated. One possible explana-
tion for the present ndings is that exposure to human-
named products enhances accessibility of participants
underlying beliefs about company values. When con-
sumers believe that they are valued by companies, as
well as their interactions with company products, a
NAMING PRODUCTS 51
Psychology and Marketing DOI: 10.1002/mar
human name can symbolize this relationship of trust-
worthiness; in this case, personied products are
judged as more trustworthy. On the other hand, mis-
trusting consumers who are exposed to human-named
products are likely to experience increased accessibility
of negative thoughts about company values, which en-
genders a negativity bias toward personied products
in terms of brand trust.
Since these ndings revealed a somewhat sur-
prising negativity bias, particularly given the large
body of pro-personication literature, one criticism
is that the questions assessing generalized company
mistrust were leading in nature and hence inu-
enced participants judgments. Indeed, it is a possibil-
ity that asking howmuch one trusts a company might
engender thoughts of mistrust simply by virtue of the
question itself, which could in turn further alter sub-
sequent trust judgments about various products. How-
ever, the product judgments were made prior to the
company mistrust assessment, and thus it is extremely
unlikely that this assessment biased participants trust
judgments given their temporal order. Further, despite
the arguably leading nature of the company mistrust
questions, participants still provided a range of re-
sponses, and more critically, these responses were in
line with participants product trust judgments in ways
both theoretically and empirically consistent with the
present researchs hypotheses and general framework.
For these reasons, it seems likely that the company
mistrust questions helped reveal honest signals of par-
ticipants general views toward company values.
Yet, we believe it is worth noting that the present
ndings should be replicated with additional measures
that assess consumers (mis)trust toward companies.
Furthermore, the (somewhat) surprising personica-
tion results could potentially be an artifact of the hu-
man name manipulation, and hence it would be impor-
tant to conceptually replicate the results reported here
with previously established techniques for empirically
investigating brand personication effects.
Overall, the present research provides a novel
demonstration that personication effects depends
on consumers beliefs about company values. More
broadly, these ndings also point to the importance
of individual differences in branding and marketing.
If consumers are naturally personifying and anthro-
pomorphizing products, then they are doing so from
their own perspectives, which are grounded in their
unique experience. To this end, Hirsh, Kang, and Bo-
denhausen (2012) found that participants evaluated
advertisement more favorably when they were congru-
ent with participants dispositional traits. Going a step
further, this same reasoning could be applied to con-
sumers individual differences in how they relate to,
identify with, and ultimately use their own bodies. For
example, Casasanto (2011) offers the body-specicity
hypothesis, according to which peoples different body
typesand thus differential interactions with the phys-
ical worldcritically shape their evaluation and judg-
ment toward various stimuli (e.g., handedness inu-
ences processing of good/bad concepts such that good
is on the right for right-handers and vice versa for
left-handers). Future research should thus explore in-
dividual difference and congruency effects in various
grounded formats to help reveal how consumers im-
plicitly and explicitly use both their bodies and beliefs
to relate to products. A critical implication of this view
suggests that brands could be marketed in multiple
ways that (1) give it a complex personality more akin
to consumers and (2) can be tailored to reach a greater
variety of target audiences.
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Correspondence regarding this article should be sent to:
Kendall J. Eskine, Assistant Professor, Department of
Psychological Sciences, Loyola University, 6363 Saint Charles
Avenue, New Orleans, Louisiana 70118 (kjeskine@loyno.edu).
NAMING PRODUCTS 53
Psychology and Marketing DOI: 10.1002/mar