Purpose

This study aims to explore how brands use brand personification techniques in real-time marketing on social media, particularly Twitter, and examine how these techniques impact consumer engagement, moderated by brand-event congruence levels.

Design/methodology/approach

Data included 464 tweets posted by 95 brands around three large events in 2019. The types of brand personification techniques and the level of brand-event congruence applied by the tweets were content-analyzed, and regression analyses were conducted to examine their linkages to consumer engagement metrics.

Findings

Results confirmed the use of diverse personification techniques in brands’ real-time marketing tweets as in the previous literature. The study also revealed a new personification technique, tacit expression, not reported in previous literature. The study also showed that the overall effectiveness of multimedia-based (vs caption-based) personification techniques in increasing consumer engagement on social media was greater, but their relative effectiveness varied depending on whether or not the event was functionally congruent with the brand.

Practical implications

The findings offer valuable suggestions to brand managers regarding prioritizing brand personification techniques and aligning brands’ social media marketing with real-time events to maximize the effectiveness of real-time marketing in boosting consumer engagement.

Originality/value

This research offers insights into the dynamic effects of different brand personification techniques in the new context of real-time marketing, extending the scope of literature on brand personification and anthropomorphism. The revelation of a new type of brand personification not captured in the extant literature is also a significant contribution.

中文翻译：

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品牌谈论活动？实时营销推文中的品牌拟人化可推动消费者参与

目的

本研究旨在探讨品牌如何在社交媒体（尤其是 Twitter）上的实时营销中使用品牌拟人化技术，并研究这些技术如何影响消费者参与度（由品牌事件一致性水平调节）。

设计/方法论/途径

数据包括 95 个品牌围绕 2019 年三场大型活动发布的 464 条推文。对推文所应用的品牌拟人化技术的类型和品牌与活动的一致性水平进行了内容分析，并进行了回归分析，以检验它们与消费者参与度的联系指标。

发现

结果证实了与之前的文献一样，在品牌的实时营销推文中使用了多种拟人化技术。该研究还揭示了一种新的拟人化技术——默契表达，这是之前文献中没有报道过的。研究还表明，基于多媒体（相对于基于字幕）的拟人化技术在提高消费者在社交媒体上的参与度方面的整体效果更大，但其相对效果因活动在功能上是否与品牌一致而异。

实际影响

研究结果为品牌经理提供了宝贵的建议，即优先考虑品牌拟人化技术，并将品牌的社交媒体营销与实时事件结合起来，以最大限度地提高实时营销在提高消费者参与度方面的有效性。

原创性/价值

这项研究深入探讨了实时营销新背景下不同品牌拟人化技术的动态影响，扩展了品牌拟人化和拟人化的文献范围。现有文献中未提及的新型品牌拟人化的揭示也是一项重大贡献。