Journal of Sustainable Marketing

Introduction

Among the major concerns of this century are climate change and environmental sustainability (Mayer & Frantz, 2004). Sustainable consumption is defined as the use of goods and services that cater to basic needs and ensure a better quality of life while minimizing the use of natural resources, toxic materials, and emissions of waste and pollutants to avoid jeopardizing the needs of future generations (Lorek & Vergragt, 2015). Given the growing body of literature on sustainable consumption, several review papers have summarized the key studies on the subject (e.g.,Iyer & Reczek, 2017;Narula & Desore, 2016;White, Habib, & Hardisty, 2019; Trudel, 2019).

One common consumer phenomenon pointed out by researchers is the so-called attitude-behavior discrepancy (Johnstone & Tan, 2015; Reczek & Irwin, 2015; White et al., 2019). Although consumers report favorable attitudes toward sustainable behaviors, they do not display sustainable behaviors in reality. This discrepancy may occur because sustainable behaviors are interpreted as requiring time, money, and effort, sustainable products are believed not to be as strong and effective as traditional products, and consumers’ memory regarding sustainability is unreliable (Johnstone & Tan, 2015; Luchs, Naylor, Irwin, & Raghunathan, 2010; Reczek & Irwin, 2015; Reczek, Trudel, & White, 2018b). Also, consumers are uncertain about the effectiveness of sustainable consumption practices for attaining sustainable goals (Johnstone & Tan, 2015; Reczek & Irwin, 2015). Further, some consumers hold unfavorable perceptions of green or ethical consumers (Brough, Wilkie, Ma, Isaac, & Gal, 2016; Johnstone & Tan, 2015; Shang & Peloza, 2016; Zane, Irwin, & Reczek, 2016).

Accordingly, previous studies have focused on understanding consumers’ evaluations of sustainable consumption from various aspects (Iyer & Reczek, 2017). In particular, proposing ways to encourage consumers to engage in sustainable consumption has been a vital research topic acknowledged by researchers. However, studies examining these in detail remain limited because of the abovementioned psychological barriers. Also, consumers often resist changing their behavior and avoid considering the sustainability aspects of products (Reczek, Irwin, Zane, & Ehrich, 2018a). Further, some consumers show resistance to environmental appeals and messages (Wang, Krishna, & Mcferran, 2017; Yakobovitch & Grinstein, 2016) and sustainability interventions (Gonzalez-Arcos, Joubert, Scaraboto, Guesalaga, & Sandberg, 2021). Thus, much more work is needed to explore how to promote sustainable consumption. The present study aims to tackle this issue and explore whether anthropomorphizing a sustainable product helps elicit a more favorable consumer response.

Anthropomorphism refers to the process of imbuing non-human agents and objects with human-like properties, characteristics, and mental states (Epley, Waytz, & Cacioppo, 2007). The term also refers to an inference process regarding the unobservable characteristics of non-human agents and objects.Aggarwal and Mcgill (2007) stated that consumers tend to anthropomorphize things such as natural phenomena (e.g., clouds, moon, and mountains) and artifacts (e.g., cars, engines, and computers). Marketers often encourage this tendency by imbuing brands with distinct personalities and images or designing anthropomorphized representations of brands (Aggarwal & Mcgill, 2007; Delbaere, Mcquarrie, & Phillips, 2011; Puzakova & Aggarwal, 2018). Accordingly, consumers often associate personality traits with brands and “easily can think about brands as if they were celebrities or famous historical figures” (Aaker,1997, p. 347).

Previous studies have demonstrated that anthropomorphizing products can elicit positive consumer responses (Aggarwal & Mcgill, 2007; Chandler & Schwarz, 2010; Delbaere et al., 2011; Wan, Chen, & Jin, 2017). This anthropomorphism effect was also examined in sustainable contexts, and anthropomorphism was found to drive sustainable consumption under certain conditions (Chen, Razzaq, Qing, & Cao, 2021; Cooremans & Geuens, 2019; Han, Baek, Yoon, & Kim, 2019; Ketron & Naletelich, 2019). However, these studies based their findings on anthropomorphizing cues (i.e., earth and trees), reusable tableware (i.e., coffee mugs), produce, and shipping materials. Little research has addressed how anthropomorphizing sustainable products (i.e., products with sustainability features) influences consumer evaluation. This product type is worth investigating because a variety of brands, including those that are sustainable and those that are less sustainable, compete in many product categories. Consumers can choose from a wide variety of options, so sustainable products face severe competition in attracting consumers. Identifying ways to catch consumers’ attention and increase their interest is pivotal (Macinnis & Jaworski, 1989). Therefore, the first research question addressed herein is how using anthropomorphism for sustainable products influences consumers’ evaluation. In addition, this study explores potential mediators related to the effect of anthropomorphism on consumer attitudes; specifically, perceived personal relevance of the products and their packaging attractiveness. As such, this research conceptually differs from previous studies and contributes to deepening our knowledge of the anthropomorphism effect.

The following section reviews the literature on sustainable consumption and indicates a research issue requiring further investigation. Next, we describe our hypotheses along with a study designed to test them. Finally, we summarize our findings, implications, and directions for future research.

Literature Review

Research on sustainable consumption has a long history. According to Chamorro, Rubio, and Miranda (2009), researchers began to take an environmental perspective during the 1970s. Early works focused on the relationship between environmental concerns and behavior and the characterization of green consumers. Since then, numerous studies have been conducted, and several review papers have been published (e.g.,Iyer & Reczek, 2017; Narula & Desore, 2016;White, Habib, & Hardisty, 2019; Trudel, 2019).

A more recent stream of research focuses on factors influencing sustainable consumption. To date, various factors such as consumer characteristics (Goldsmith, Newman, & Dhar, 2016; Gupta & Ogden, 2009; Minton, Tan, Tambyah, & Liu, 2022; Reczek et al., 2018a; Reczek et al., 2018b; Yan, Keh, & Chen, 2021a; Yan, Keh, & Wang, 2021b), product characteristics (Gershoff & Frels, 2015; Sun, Bellezza, & Paharia, 2021), and decision contexts (Griskevicius, Tybur, Den, & Bergh, 2010; White, Simpson, & Argo, 2014) have been studied.

Another recent research stream has sought ways to increase consumers’ sustainable consumption. Previous studies examined the effects of benefit appeals (Goldsmith et al., 2016; Green & Peloza, 2014; White & Simpson, 2013; Yang, Lu, Zhu, & Su, 2015), message frames (White, Macdonnell, & Dahl, 2011), sustainability labels (Cho, Soster, & Burton, 2018), and traceability information (Lee, Bae, & Kim, 2020; Meise, Rudolph, Kenning, & Philipps, 2014). Others demonstrated that presenting environmental messages could be counterproductive for some consumers (Wang et al., 2017; Yakobovitch & Grinstein, 2016). These studies have augmented our understanding of how to lead consumers to be more involved in sustainable consumption; however, the knowledge remains limited. In reality, prompting consumers to engage in environmentally sustainable behaviors is a huge challenge, as consumers often resist engaging in sustainable consumption (White & Simpson, 2013). Additional studies are therefore necessary to explore better methods of promoting sustainable consumption. Hence, the present research extends this stream of work by proposing that anthropomorphism is one way to increase consumers’ evaluation of sustainable products. We presume that consumers are unlikely to display psychological resistance or reactance to anthropomorphism because it is not a recommendation or request aimed at consumers to engage in sustainable consumption.

Hypotheses

In consumer behavior research,Aggarwal and Mcgill (2007) were the first to examine the anthropomorphism effect, demonstrating that the perceived fit between product features and the activated human schema enhances consumers’ product evaluation. Subsequent studies investigated the anthropomorphism effect with respect to consumer characteristics (Chen, Wan, & Levy, 2017; Khenfer, Shepherd, & Trendel, 2018), product characteristics (Wan et al., 2017), consequences such as emotions and attributions of brand personality (Delbaere et al., 2011), and product replacement intention (Chandler & Schwarz, 2010). Overall, anthropomorphism elicits positive consumer responses (Aggarwal & Mcgill, 2007; Chandler & Schwarz, 2010; Delbaere et al., 2011; Wan et al., 2017).

Anthropomorphism has also been examined in sustainable consumption research. For example, (Cooremans & Geuens, 2019) demonstrated that anthropomorphism increased purchase intentions for abnormally shaped produce but not for normally shaped produce. The preference for anthropomorphized abnormally shaped produce was manifested through enhanced positive affect and taste perceptions. Conducting similar studies, Chen et al. (2021) reported that feelings of empathy toward produce mediated the effect of anthropomorphism on purchase intentions of abnormally shaped produce. Other than produce, Ketron and Naletelich (2019) demonstrated the impact of anthropomorphic cues. They showed that anthropomorphized images of a tree, earth, and a delivery box could enhance sustainable behavior, such as lowering the usage of soap and paper towels, increasing intentions to include more recycled fibers in customized backpacks, and choosing eco-friendly shipping. Han et al. (2019) focused on a reusable mug used in a coffee house. They demonstrated that featuring an anthropomorphized image of the mug in an advertisement improved mug use intentions and coffee purchases when the advertisement also explained why the mug should be used (desirability appeal) rather than how it is used (feasibility appeal).

Although these studies exhibited that anthropomorphism helps promote consumers’ sustainable consumption, they did not scrutinize their reactions to anthropomorphized sustainable products. They examined anthropomorphized cues, reusable tableware, produce, and shipping material. Contributing to the extant literature, we focus on products that have sustainability features.Chen et al. (2021) and Cooremans and Geuens (2019) probed actual products; however, their focus was the appearance of produce (i.e., normal vs. abnormal shapes), and this antecedent does not apply to our target products. Sustainable products face severe competition, making it difficult for them to capture consumers’ attention and stimulate their interest. Investigating whether and how anthropomorphizing sustainable products influences consumer evaluations is thus worthwhile.

In light of the evidence reported in previous studies, we argue that anthropomorphism helps increase consumer acceptance of sustainable products. Many consumers tend to view sustainable consumption as abstract, vague, and distant from the self because such activities involve putting aside immediate individual interests and providing long-term benefits to others and the natural world (Reczek et al., 2018b; White et al., 2019). Anthropomorphism can strengthen consumers’ emotional bonding with and connection to non-human entities (Chandler & Schwarz, 2010; Kim & Mcgill, 2011; Puzakova & Aggarwal, 2018). Thus, we expect that anthropomorphizing sustainable products can raise consumers’ interest in the products, leading to a more favorable product evaluation.

Furthermore, this study examines the underlying process of this effect by including potential mediators. One proposed mediator is perceived personal relevance. Previous research has argued that personal relevance is associated with product judgments (Meyers-Levy & Maheswaran, 2004), the strength of brand preference (Chernev, Hamilton, & Gal, 2011), and mental simulation (Ülkümen & Thomas, 2013). Anthropomorphism can motivate consumers to build social relationships with products (Chen et al., 2017). Hence, we expect that anthropomorphism can increase the perception of personal relevance. We hypothesize that anthropomorphizing sustainable products generates a more positive evaluation of the products through intensified perceived personal relevance toward the products.

Another potential mediator is package attractiveness.Wan et al. (2017) demonstrated that anthropomorphism increased consumers’ preferences for good-looking products. The result implies that anthropomorphized products lead consumers to focus more on product packaging. Accordingly, we expect consumers to evaluate anthropomorphized products more favorably as they are more attracted to their packages. Hence, we propose the following hypotheses:

H1: Product anthropomorphism positively influences consumers’ evaluation of a sustainable product.

H2: The effect of product anthropomorphism on consumers’ evaluation of the sustainable product is mediated by perceived personal relevance to the product.

H3: The effect of product anthropomorphism on consumers' evaluation of the sustainable product is mediated by package attractiveness.

The schematic representation of our proposed framework is depicted in Figure 1 .

Method

Results

General Discussion

This study aimed to investigate whether anthropomorphizing a sustainable product positively influenced consumers’ product evaluation. According to our findings, an anthropomorphized sustainable product enhances consumers’ product evaluation compared with a non-anthropomorphized sustainable product. Additionally, we identified two mediators that were activated in the process: perceived personal relevance and package attractiveness. We found that consumers favored the anthropomorphized product through a more substantial perceived personal relevance and a more potent perceived package attractiveness.

Conflict of interest

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding statement

This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers JP22K01768.