PERSONIFICATION OF THE CAR DEALER BRAND AS A MEANS OF EMOTIONAL CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT

Abstract

The article explores the personification of a car dealership brand as an important tool for emotional engagement of the client, which ensures the formation of stable communicative and psychological ties between the brand and the consumer. The thesis is substantiated that a personified brand goes beyond the traditional perception of a trademark as a purely functional element of the market offer and acquires the status of a symbolic subject of interaction that appeals to the emotions, values, and deep motivations of the client. The mechanisms of personification are revealed as a process based on a person's tendency to attribute human traits, intentions, and emotional characteristics to the brand, perceiving it as "another personality" capable of evoking trust, sympathy, and identification. It is shown that in the process of such interactions, not only rational loyalty is formed, but also emotional attachment, which passes into the plane of socio-psychological closeness between the consumer and the brand. It is shown that personification is a key condition for transforming a brand into a carrier of emotional meanings, capable of evoking a sense of involvement, sympathy and long-term loyalty. Using the example of the Audi brand and the functioning of a dealership in Odessa, the practical aspects of implementing a personified brand in the space of a car showroom are analyzed. It is proven that thoughtful visual style, spatial design, color, service atmosphere and tone of communication form a holistic image of the brand as a “living entity” with which the client enters into emotionally meaningful contact. Such interaction transforms the process of buying a car into a psychological experience of empathy, self-expression and projection of one’s own values onto the brand. It is summarized that the personification of the car showroom brand contributes to increasing the level of emotional engagement of the client, building trust, strengthening brand loyalty, and transitioning relationships into a long-term partnership, which has a significant impact on the competitiveness of enterprises in the premium market segment.