品牌与虚拟代言人兴奋个性一致性对社交媒体参与的影响

Impact of the Exciting Personality Congruence between Brand and Virtual Endorser on Social Media Engagement

虚拟代言人策略能够增强品牌对代言人的可控性和可塑性,缓和传统代言人形象与品牌个性不匹配的风险,成为品牌触及消费者的有效途径。尽管已有研究发现传统真人代言人与品牌存在一致性优势,但针对品牌与虚拟代言人个性一致性方面仍缺乏研究。基于期望违背理论和联想网络理论,从兴奋维度细化品牌与虚拟代言人个性一致性的研究思路,提出二者兴奋个性一致性对消费者社交媒体参与的非线性关系假设以及产品设计非典型性的调节假设,并开展3项实证研究验证假设。研究1为问卷调查;研究2通过爬取国外社交媒体平台上的真实数据,构建负二项回归模型,共同检验品牌与虚拟代言人兴奋个性一致性对消费者社交媒体参与的非线性影响;研究3为实验室研究,运用Spss进行方差分析和层次回归分析,检验产品设计非典型性的调节作用。研究1结果表明,品牌与虚拟代言人兴奋个性一致性与消费者社交媒体参与呈U形关系,即与品牌与虚拟代言人兴奋个性中度一致相比,二者高度一致和低度一致时,消费者社交媒体参与较强;研究2在真实社交媒体数据中再次验证了研究1的结果;研究3的结果表明,当代言产品为非典型设计时,品牌与虚拟代言人兴奋个性一致性与消费者反应呈U形曲线关系,当代言产品为典型设计时,二者关系呈正向线性关系。聚焦虚拟代言人这一前沿话题,丰富了代言人营销、消费者社交媒体参与、视觉营销等方面的研究成果,并扩展了期望违背理论和联想网络理论在代言人营销中的应用,为品牌针对非典型性不同的产品选择适宜的虚拟代言人以促进消费者社交媒体参与提供建议。

Virtual endorser strategy can enhance brand′s controllability and plasticity towards endorsers and alleviate the risk of a mismatch between the image of traditional endorsers and brand personality,which has become an effective approach for brands to reach consumers.Although previous literature suggests that the brand-endorser congruence advantage exists,there is still a lack of research focusing on the personality congruence between brands and virtual endorsers.Based on the expectancy violation theory and associative network theory,the current study refines the research approach to the congruence between brands and virtual endorsers from the dimension of exciting personality.It proposes the hypothesis of the nonlinear influence of exciting personality congruence between brands and virtual endorsers on the consumers′social media engagement,along with the moderating hypothesis of product design atypicality.Three empirical studies were conducted to verify our hypotheses.Study 1 conducted a questionnaire survey,and study 2 constructs a negative binomial regression model by crawling real data from foreign social media platforms to jointly examine the nonlinear impact of exciting personality congruence between brands and virtual endorsers on consumers′social media engagement.Study 3 conducted a laboratory study,utilizing Spss for analysis of variance and hierarchical regression analysis,to test the moderating effect of product design atypicality.The results of study 1 indicate that the exciting personality congruence between brands and virtual endorsers exhibits a Ushape relationship with consumer social media engagement.Specifically,when the exciting personality congruence between brands and virtual endorsers is high or low(vs.medium),consumers show a stronger willingness of engagement on the social media platform.Study 2 reconfirms the findings of study 1.The results of study 3 suggest that,the U-shape effect of the exciting personality congruence between brands and virtual endorsers on consumer responses only emerges when the endorsed product has an atypical design.However,when the endorsed product has a typical design,the relationship between brands and virtual endorsers exhibits a positive linear trend.Focusing on the frontier research topic of virtual endorsement,the current study enriches the literature on endorsement marketing,consumer social media engagement,and visual marketing.It also expands the application of the expectancy violation theory and associative network theory in the area of endorsement marketing.Meanwhile,the present study provides important reference and enlightenment for brands on how to choose the appropriate virtual endorser for products with different design atypicality to promote consumer social media engagement.