Do products branded with handwritten scripts suffer more amid product-harm crises?

Purpose: This paper aims to explore whether products branded with handwritten scripts suffer more from the effects of product-harm crises than other brands. Most studies on handwritten scripts focus on their positive effects, such as humanizing a product or creating an emotional tie with consumers. However, seldom have researchers investigated the negative effects of handwritten scripts. This paper goes some way to filling this gap. Design/methodology/approach: Five experimental studies were conducted to test three hypotheses. These experiments provide evidence of the negative effects of handwritten scripts. In addition, they reveal the mechanisms that lead to these outcomes and outline the boundary conditions of the negative effects. Findings: Framed by attribution theory, three conclusions can be drawn from the experiments: when a product-harm crisis occurs, consumers react with greater negativity toward the brand using handwritten scripts than to those using machine typefaces. The negative effect is explained by a serial mediation process that follows the pattern: typeface → perceived humanization → brand responsibility → brand attitude. The negative effect decreases when the crisis is perceived to be an accident. Originality/value: This paper enriches the theory of marketing in terms of both handwritten scripts and product-harm crises, providing valuable guidance for enterprises that use handwritten scripts in their marketing activities.