The Advertising Effectiveness Of Anthropomorphic Spokes Characters Versus Spokespeople In A Collaborative Consumption Service

This thesis explores the comparison of the advertising effectiveness of an anthropomorphic spokes character versus a spokesperson in a collaborative consumption service. Understanding the relationship between spokes characters and spokespersons in advertising as well as the effect this relationship has in a collaborative consumption service setting is of great relevance in marketing. In addition to ad processing outcomes such as attitude towards the ad (A!") attitude towards the brand (A#), attitude towards the spokes characters/person (A$%&'($), Behavioral/purchase intentions (P)), a recently developed Process Fluency scale, is used. Three pretests were conducted in order to develop a final experimental design. Multiple hypotheses are tested through a 1 (home sharing) x 2 (spokesperson versus anthropomorphic spoke character) factorial between-subjects experimental design. The stimuli used was created by the author promoting the services of a new home sharing brand Ädventyr. To test the hypotheses, independent sample t-tests were used comparing the means of the experimental stimuli treatments. Results were mixed with most hypotheses being unsupported. The results contrast extant research on anthropomorphic spokes characters showing that surprisingly, respondents generally responded more negatively to the anthropomorphic spokes character compared to the spokesperson. Results show, decreasing advertising effectiveness of the ad featuring the spokes character. There are strong implications for future researchers and marketers.