Abstract: In 2020, “Humblebragging” was popular on social networks and was selected as one of the top ten buzzwords.  However, the existing literature offers little implications of whether humblebragging is an effective brand marketing strategy.  Based on the perspective of the motives of self-presentation (the desire to be liked and respected) , this paper intends to examine the effect of humblebragging advertisement on consumers’ brand attitudes through three sets of experiments.  The results suggest that, there is an interaction effect between the type of product and the type of advertising rhetoric.  That is, when the functional product applies humblebragging advertisement, or the symbolic product applies normal advertisement, consumers' brand attitudes are more positive.  We further reveal that this interaction effect on consumers' brand attitudes is serially mediated by their sincerity perception, feeling of envy, bragging perception and feeling of disgust.  Further implications for designing advertisements are alse discussed.

Key words: humblebragging advertisement, self-presentation , advertising rhetoric, product type, brand attitude