Anthropomorphic Communication and Product Evaluation-A Dipstick Conceptual Evaluation

Product design & marketing communication is an area where companies devote a substantial amount of time concerning technology, ergonomics and sometimes even human touch. Marketers have often launched products with induced human features within products or through packaging or, they market a product through a human spokesperson (Aggarwal & McGill, 2007). This is an intentional effort by a marketer to enhance the acceptability of their product and improve on product evaluation. The reason being that consumers often perceive objects as human beings, and as marketing literature points out that products are often designed to give this effect. The phenomenon of perceiving objects like humans or having human-like intentions and behavior is termed as Anthropomorphism (Epley, Waytz & Cacioppo, 2007). The idea of this paper to give a systematic understanding of Anthropomorphism as a Phenomenon, Psychological Framework, and propose a conceptual understanding based on the existing literature with a relationship model. This understanding will help marketers use this phenomenon as a tool to enhance likability and sales of proposed products.