Cuteness conquest: how cuteness type and brand impression affect consumers’ brand evaluation in social media

TL;DR

This study explores how different types of cuteness influence brand evaluation on social media, especially for people feeling socially excluded.

Contribution

The paper introduces a model distinguishing kindchenschema and whimsical cuteness and their effects on brand evaluation through parasocial interaction.

Findings

Matching cuteness types with brand warmth or competence enhances brand evaluation via parasocial interaction.

Socially excluded consumers show a stronger positive response to this matching effect.

The effect is weaker for socially included individuals.

Abstract

While cuteness has become a strategic tool for brands on social media, its effectiveness remains inconsistent. This ambiguity stems from an oversimplified conceptualization of cuteness and an incomplete understanding of the relational mechanisms of its operation. To fill this gap, we developed and tested a model based on consistency theory and stereotype content model (SCM). We distinguish kindchenschema and whimsical cuteness, and examine how their consistency with brand impression (warmth and competence) shapes brand evaluation by promoting parasocial interaction (PSI). The results of three experiments show that a match (e.g., warmth with the kindchenschema, competence with whimsical) promotes PSI, thereby enhancing brand evaluation. Crucially, we identify social exclusion as a key boundary condition: this matching effect is significantly amplified among socially excluded consumers, for whom it serves a compensatory role, but is attenuated among socially included individuals. By moving beyond assessment of the cuteness intensity, this research provides actionable insights for strategically deploying brand personification on social media.

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