Exploring brand humanisation on SNSs: brand personality and its influence on brand partner quality, brand attitude and consumer behavioural engagement

This study explored whether consumers interacting with brands on SNSs attribute human-like personalities to brands and further examined the relationships between personality dimensions and brand performance measures. Responses from 922 research participants (530 brand followers and 392 brand non-followers on SNSs) were analysed. Brand followers and brand non-followers attributed some of the same personality dimensions (sophistication, sincerity and competence) while there were differences between the two groups: excitement only among brand non-followers and agreeableness and unpleasantness only among brand followers. The personality dimension sincerity had a strong, positive influence on brand performance measures. Implications are discussed.