“It’s so cute I’m going to die!”: An exploration of the concept of cute and its relevance as an advertising appeal

Cute culture is progressively growing into a major worldwide consumer phenomenon. Once considered a minor aesthetic category, cuteness was represented and marketed in limited contexts such as merchandise and media content for children, or brand mascots (Morreall, 1991). Cuteness is increasingly being used for marketing in a wide range of commercial contexts: from toys, movies, cartoons and merchandise for children, to products, games, media content and merchandise for adults. It is widespread not just in sites of leisure and pleasure such as theme parks or in the department store, but in places of business and work. Cuteness has crept into corporate logos, architecture, office spaces and furniture. It has transcended the banal context of the home and its domestic ornaments, fridge magnets, mobile phone covers, stationery and pet products, to find a celebrated place in high culture contexts such as prestigious art galleries and haute couture fashion. Cuteness has become a popular and in some contexts dominant aesthetic in marketing and promotions today. This is evident in logo design, mascots, merchandise and promotions across a range of different areas of consumption. Of particular interest here is the growing use of cuteness as an advertising appeal. Evolving from its historical roots in Japanese popular culture, cute appeals are no longer confined to media and advertising produced to connect with women and children (Locher, 2002). Cuteness is a pervasive and popular advertising appeal: e.g. the Kleenex ads that use puppies to sell toilet paper; the Mitre 10 hardware store ad depicting children with power tools, or the Extra ad which has cute personified doughnuts selling gum. Although cute appeals are used frequently in the Western world of commerce, cuteness as a concept and as a type of advertising appeal lacks sufficient scholarly consideration. This research seeks to bridge this gap and to provide an understanding of the concept of cute within Western consumer culture. Hence this study aims to explore a) the different ways in which consumers perceive the concept of cute, particularly in relation to cute advertising appeals and b), the impact that cute advertising appeals have on consumer attitudes towards brands. The study develops a typology of cuteness and presents an exploratory investigation into consumer attitudes toward cute advertising appeals. An interpretive qualitative study has been adopted, and a grounded-theory methodology has been used to guide the collection and analysis of data. Data were collected through 30 semi-structured consumer interviews with Western consumers aged between 18 - 55 years old. Results from the study suggested that consumers conceptualise cuteness in three ways; 1) ‘cuteness based on appearance’, 2) ‘cuteness based on actions’ and 3) ‘cuteness based on nostalgia’. Each form of cuteness can be differentiated from one another by their level of ‘implicitness’ and ‘subjectivity’. Findings from the study also indicate that consumer attitudes toward cute advertising appeals are dependent on the existence of ‘fit’ between the appeal itself and 1) the consumer, 2) the product and 3) the brand. These findings provide important insights to both marketing scholars and practitioners alike