Strengthening consumer-brand relationships through avatars

Purpose: Avatars have become increasingly prevalent on brand websites, yet their impact on consumers’ use of these sites remains underexplored. The current study focuses on avatars, which are three-dimensional animated graphical web interfaces that verbally aid the brand stakeholders (e.g., customers, employees, and suppliers). Avatars provide administrative and technical information through the brand website. Drawing upon the stimuli-organism-response (S-O-R) paradigm, this research examines the impact of avatars as an information provision and interacting tool (vs. a traditional format) on consumers’ perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors toward a brand. It also investigates the roles of familiarity with avatar use and the language used by an avatar in shaping consumers’ responses.Design/methodology/approach: Across two laboratory experiments, the authors examined and confirmed causal relationships between the use of avatars (vs. a traditional format) on a website and attitudinal and behavioral constructs.Findings: We show that avatars (vs. written information) had a significant effect on controlling information. The users in our experiments had greater control over the information provided when it was presented as text on a website compared to the case of avatars “telling” the information. Different languages and familiarity with avatar use also affected the consumers’ hedonism in terms of website use.Originality: We advance understanding of avatar use in website design, particularly avatars’ verbal interaction, in shaping consumers’ cognitive, affective, attitudinal, and behavioral response and add important empirical evidence to the growing body of research and practices involving using avatars in interactive marketing.