When personification triggers online consumer engagement: the moderating role of hedonic motive

While abundant work on digital or online consumer engagement has shown that the content featuring brand personality, emotion or hedonic value posted by brands on social media leads to liking, sharing, commenting, or retweeting intentions, surprisingly, little research has explored the underlying psychological mechanisms that drive such engagement. The current research fills these knowledge gaps. Drawing on the advertising literature on personification, the Stereotype Content Model (SCM), and well-being theory, the research demonstrates that the personification (vs. non-personification) appeal featured in a brand posting triggers a higher level of perceived warmth, which in turn heightens the need for social belongingness, thus increasing consumer engagement. More importantly, the current research identifies consumer hedonic motive as a boundary condition to such a serial mediation effect.