The brand relationship literature shows that the humanizing of brands and products generates more favorable consumer attitudes and thus enhances brand performance. However, the authors propose negative downstream consequences of brand humanization; that is, the anthropomorphization of a brand can negatively affect consumers’ brand evaluations when the brand faces negative publicity caused by product wrongdoings. They find that consumers who believe in personality stability (i.e., entity theorists) view anthropomorphized brands that undergo negative publicity less favorably than nonanthropomorphized brands. In contrast, consumers who advocate personality malleability (i.e., incremental theorists) are less likely to devalue an anthropomorphized brand from a single instance of negative publicity. Finally, the authors explore three firm response strategies (i.e., denial, apology, and compensation) that can affect the evaluations of anthropomorphized brands for consumers with different implicit theory perspectives. They find that entity theorists have more difficulty in combating the adverse effects of brand anthropomorphization than incremental theorists. Furthermore, they demonstrate that compensation (vs. denial or apology) is the only effective response among entity theorists.

This research shows that brand anthropomorphization increases the perceived unfairness of price increases and the perceived fairness of price decreases. First, analyzing a household panel data set, the authors demonstrate the real-world consequences of brand humanization on consumers' price sensitivity. Second, building on the theoretical premise that fairness judgments depend on consumer focus on the self versus others, they find that brand humanization enhances perceived unfairness of price increases for agency-oriented consumers, who tend to maximize their own self-interests. However, for communion-oriented consumers, who generally consider the needs of others, brand humanization increases perceived fairness of both price increases and decreases. Furthermore, because consumers' focus on the self versus others also depends on relationship goals, the nature of consumer–brand relationships interacts with agency–communion orientation to influence the effect of brand humanization on perceived price fairness. For example, exchange relationship norms reduce the power of brand anthropomorphization to enhance perceived fairness of price changes for communion-oriented consumers. In contrast, the communal nature of these relationships makes both agency- and communion-oriented consumers infer greater positive intent from a humanized (vs. nonhumanized) brand, thus leading to a more positive effect of brand humanization on price fairness for price decreases.

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With the advancement of technological platforms, the use of recommendation agents that can provide highly customisable solutions has become more ubiquitous. Marketing academics and practitioners alike have begun to investigate various communication styles and functionality designs of such decision aid systems. One variant of a design of a recommendation agent is to imbue it with humanlike features (i.e. to anthropomorphise it). However, academic research is silent with respect to whether this type of design would lead to more favourable consumer evaluations. To fill this gap, our research investigates the downstream consequences of anthropomorphising a recommendation agent, when the recommendation itself may require the exchange of personally sensitive information, and the message is customised. The results of two experiments reveal that, when a message is customised, the effect of an anthropomorphised recommendation agent on attitude towards the advertisement is predominantly negative and is mediated by consumers' unwillingness to provide personal information to an anthropomorphic recommendation agent, as well as by greater psychological resistance towards the advertisement. Our research concludes with theoretical and practical implications, as well as further research directions.