If This Brand Were a Person, or Anthropomorphism of Brands Through Packaging Stories

가설품패시인(假设品牌是人), 혹통과고사포장장품패의인화(或通过故事包装将品牌拟人化)

The anthropomorphism of brands, defined as seeing human beings in brands (Puzakova, Kwak, and Rosereto, 2008) is the focus of this study. Specifically, the research objective is to understand the ways in which brands are rendered humanlike. By analyzing consumer readings of stories found on food product packages we intend to show how marketers and consumers humanize a spectrum of brands and create meanings. Our research question considers the possibility that a single brand may host multiple or single meanings, associations, and personalities for different consumers. We start by highlighting the theoretical and practical significance of our research, explain why we turn our attention to packages as vehicles of brand meaning transfer, then describe our qualitative methodology, discuss findings, and conclude with a discussion of managerial implications and directions for future studies. The study was designed to directly expose consumers to potential vehicles of brand meaning transfer and then engage these consumers in free verbal reflections on their perceived meanings. Specifically, we asked participants to read non-nutritional stories on selected branded food packages, in order to elicit data about received meanings. Packaging has yet to receive due attention in consumer research (Hine, 1995). Until now, attention has focused solely on its utilitarian function and has generated a body of research that has explored the impact of nutritional information and claims on consumer perceptions of products (e.g., Loureiro, McCluskey and Mittelhammer, 2002; Mazis and Raymond, 1997; Nayga, Lipinski and Savur, 1998; Wansik, 2003). An exception is a recent study that turns its attention to non-nutritional packaging narratives and treats them as cultural productions and vehicles for mythologizing the brand (Kniazeva and Belk, 2007). The next step in this stream of research is to explore how such mythologizing activity affects brand personality perception and how these perceptions relate to consumers. These are the questions that our study aimed to address. We used in-depth interviews to help overcome the limitations of quantitative studies. Our convenience sample was formed with the objective of providing demographic and psychographic diversity in order to elicit variations in consumer reflections to food packaging stories. Our informants represent middle-class residents of the US and do not exhibit extreme alternative lifestyles described by Thompson as "cultural creatives" (2004). Nine people were individually interviewed on their food consumption preferences and behavior. Participants were asked to have a look at the twelve displayed food product packages and read all the textual information on the package, after which we continued with questions that focused on the consumer interpretations of the reading material (Scott and Batra, 2003). On average, each participant reflected on 4-5 packages. Our in-depth interviews lasted one to one and a half hours each. The interviews were tape recorded and transcribed, providing 140 pages of text. The products came from local grocery stores on the West Coast of the US and represented a basic range of food product categories, including snacks, canned foods, cereals, baby foods, and tea. The data were analyzed using procedures for developing grounded theory delineated by Strauss and Corbin (1998). As a result, our study does not support the notion of one brand/one personality as assumed by prior work. Thus, we reveal multiple brand personalities peacefully cohabiting in the same brand as seen by different consumers, despite marketer attempts to create more singular brand personalities. We extend Fournier's (1998) proposition, that one's life projects shape the intensity and nature of brand relationships. We find that these life projects also affect perceived brand personifications and meanings. While Fournier provides a conceptual framework that links together consumers’ life themes (Mick and Buhl, 1992) and relational roles assigned to anthropomorphized brands, we find that consumer life projects mold both the ways in which brands are rendered humanlike and the ways in which brands connect to consumers' existential concerns. We find two modes through which brands are anthropomorphized by our participants. First, brand personalities are created by seeing them through perceived demographic, psychographic, and social characteristics that are to some degree shared by consumers. Second, brands in our study further relate to consumers' existential concerns by either being blended with consumer personalities in order to connect to them (the brand as a friend, a family member, a next door neighbor) or by distancing themselves from the brand personalities and estranging them (the brand as a used car salesman, a "bunch of executives.") By focusing on food product packages, we illuminate a very specific, widely-used, but little-researched vehicle of marketing communication: brand storytelling. Recent work that has approached packages as mythmakers, finds it increasingly challenging for marketers to produce textual stories that link the personalities of products to the personalities of those consuming them, and suggests that "a multiplicity of building material for creating desired consumer myths is what a postmodern consumer arguably needs" (Kniazeva and Belk, 2007). Used as vehicles for storytelling, food packages can exploit both rational and emotional approaches, offering consumers either a "lecture" or "drama" (Randazzo, 2006), myths (Kniazeva and Belk, 2007; Holt, 2004; Thompson, 2004), or meanings (McCracken, 2005) as necessary building blocks for anthropomorphizing their brands. The craft of giving birth to brand personalities is in the hands of writers/marketers and in the minds of readers/consumers who individually and sometimes idiosyncratically put a meaningful human face on a brand.

本研究的焦点是品牌的拟人化. 品牌拟人化被定义为将品牌看作是人类. 具体来说, 本研究的目标是理解如何将品牌拟人化的方法. 通过分析消费者对食品包装上的故事的阅读, 我们试图展示行销者和消费者如何将一系列品牌拟人化并创造意义. 我们的研究问题是一个品牌对不同的消费者具有多个或单一意义, 联想, 个性的可能性. 我们首先强调了本研究在理论和实践方面的重要性, 解释了为什么我们关注作为品牌意义传递工具的包装. 然后我们阐述了我们量性研究方法, 讨论了结果. 最后总结了管理方面的启示和对未来研究的建议. 本研究先让消费者直接阅读品牌意义传递的工具然后让这些消费者口头自由表达他们所感受到的意义. 具体来说, 为了获得有关感知意义的数据, 我们要求参与者去阅读选择的品牌食品包装上的非营养的故事. 包装在消费者研究方面还没有得到足够的关注(Hine, 1995). 直到现在, 研究还是仅关注包装的实用功能并形成了探索营养信息的影响的研究主体. (例如Lourei ro, McCluskey and Mittelhammer, 2002; Mazis and Raymond, 1997; Nayga, Lipinski and Savur, 1998; Wansik, 2003). 一个例外是最近的研究, 将注意力转向非营养信息的包装说明, 并视其为文化产品和将品牌神话的工具(Kniazeva and Belk, 2007). 下一步就是探索这些神话活动如何影响品牌个性感知以及这些感知如何与消费者相关. 这些都是本研究所要强调的. 我们用深度访谈来帮助消除量性研究的局限性. 我们的便利样本的构成具有人口统计和消费心态学的多样化以达到获得消费者对包装故事的不同的感知. 我们的参与者是美国的中产居民, 并没有表现出Thompson(2004)所描述的 "文化创造者" 的极端生活方式. 九名参与者被采访关于他们食品消费偏好和行为的问题. 他们被要求看看12个展示的食品产品包装并阅读包装上的文字信息. 之后, 我们继续进行关注消费者对阅读材料的解释的问题. (Scott and Batra, 2003). 平均来看, 每个参与者感知4-5个包装. 我们的深度访谈是一对一的并长达半个小时. 采访内容被录音下来并转录, 最后有140页的文字. 产品赖在位于美国西海岸的当地食品杂货店, 这些产品代表了食品产品类别的基本范围, 包括零食, 罐装食品, 麦片, 婴儿食品和茶. 我们使用Strauss和Corbin (1998)提出的发展扎根理论的步骤来分析数据. 结果表明, 我们的研究不支持先前的研究所假设的一个品牌/一个个性的概念. 因此我们展示了在消费者看来多个品牌个性可以在同一品牌身上很好的共存, 尽管行销者试图创造更多单一的品牌个性. 我们延伸了Fournier's (1998) 的假设, 某人的人生计划可以形成与品牌关系的强度和本质. 我们发现这些人生计划也影响感知的品牌拟人化和意义. Fournier提出了把消费者人生主题(Mick和Buhl, 1992)和拟人化产品的相关作用联系在一起的概念框架. 我们发现消费者人生计划形成了把品牌拟人化和品牌与消费者现有的关注相关联的方式. 我们通过参与者发现了两种品牌拟人化的方法. 第一种, 品牌个性通过感知的人口统计, 消费心态学和社会个性所创造. 第二, 第二, 在我们的研究还涉及到品牌的消费者所存在的问题与消费者的个性被混合, 以连接到他们(品牌为朋友, 家庭成员, 隔壁邻居)或远离自己的品牌个性和疏远他们(品牌作为二手车推销员, "一群高管".) 通过关注食品产品包装, 我们阐明了非常具体的, 被广泛使用, 但很少深入研究的营销传播工具: 品牌故事. 近期的研究已经视包装为神话制造者. 对行销者来说要创作出和产品及消费它们的消费者相连的文字故事的挑战越来越大, 并建议 "为创造需求的消费者神话的构成材料的多样化是后现代消费者可论证的需求"(Kniazeva和Belk, 2007). 作为叙述故事的的工具, 食品包装可以食品包装可以用理性和感性的方式, 为消费者提供无论是 "讲座" 或 "戏剧"(Randazzo, 2006), 神话(Kniazeva and Belk, 2007; Holt, 2004; Thompson, 2004), 或意义(McCracken, 2005) 作为他们拟人化产品的构成材料. 孕育工艺品牌个性掌握在作家/营销人员手中, 在读者/消费者心目中. 这些消费者会赋予品牌有意义的脸谱.