The Internet of Things and interaction style: the effect of smart interaction on brand attachment

ABSTRACT With the rising popularity of the Internet of Things (IoT), increasingly more customers are enjoying personalised, autonomous, and optimised services provided by smart and connected objects. Drawing on the stereotype content model and brand attachment literature, we examine the effect of interaction style (e.g. friend-like and engineer-like communication) on consumers’ brand perception using two laboratory experiments. The results indicate that a friend-like interaction style (1) produces more positive brand warmth than the engineer-like style, (2) enhances brand competence as much as the engineer-like style does, and (3) has a positive effect on users’ brand attachment, which (4) is mediated by brand warmth and brand competence. Furthermore, (5) the style of smart interaction and brand positioning have interaction effects on brand warmth, brand competence, and ultimately brand attachment.

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