In this research, we investigate what people think and feel when marketing communication depicts a robot fall.

1. Robots Falling Flat
on Marketers’ Faces
Cite as:
Merdin-Uygur, E., and Ozturkcan, S., "Robots falling flat on the marketers’ faces," Unanticipated and Unintended Consequences of Service Robots in the Frontline - Online Workshop, 15 Sep 2022,
University of Surrey, the UK.
https://youtu.be/CJhneBJIfOk
Selcen Öztürkcan
selcen.ozturkcan@lnu.se
Linnaeus University, Sweden
Ezgi Merdin-Uygur
ezgi.uygur@khas.edu.tr
Kadir Has University, Turkey

2. At the heart of the discussions about artificial intelligence (AI) and the
robots’ presence in the economy and the job market (van der Zande et al.,
2018)
→ lie the service robots (SR)
motivation
Service robots are already being used for:
-elderly care (Kalogianni, 2015)
-café and restaurant services (Frey & Osborn, 2017)
-sexual pleasure (Krumins, 2017)
-disinfection & healthcare (Ozturkcan & Merdin-Uygur, 2021)
quick and broad deployment led to a number of problematic issues
(Honig & Oron-Gilad, 2018) i.e., failures

3. Several studies focused on how people reacted to failing algorithms (Srinivasan & Sarial-Abi, 2021)
Even fewer studies investigated how people react when robots fail (i.e., Leo & Huh, 2020; Choi et al., 2021)
Mostly, literature investigated why or how they fail (i.e., Honig & Oron-Gilad, 2021, p.4)
motivation
figure source: Honig, Shanee & Oron-Gilad, Tal. (2018). Understanding and Resolving Failures in Human-Robot Interaction: Literature Review and Model Development. Frontiers in Psychology. 9. 861. 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00861.

4. Prominent marketing strategies involved depicting resilient and well-engineered robots in
states of falling, failing, beat up, and aiming at evoking various feelings (i.e., empathy,
warmth, or comfort).
Despite it being a significant phenomenon, almost no previous research investigated how
consumers react to robots depicted as falling, failing, beaten up, or lost.
Table 1 lists some popular robot failures and falls:
motivation
MEDIA TYPE FAILED
FUNCTION
APPEARANCE CATEGORY BRAND/
NAME
Youtube Parkour fall Anthropomorphic/
Zoomorphic
Defense Boston Dynamics’
Atlas & Spot
Youtube / TV /
News
Conversation Anthropomorphic research, education,
entertainment
Hanson Robotics’
Sophia
News Conversation Anthropomorphic service Soft Bank’s Pepper
TV / News Fall Anthropomorphic service Akın Robotics’ Ada
Youtube Fall Anthropomorphic/
Zoomorphic
prototypes DARPA Robotics
Challenge
Youtube Hip dislocation Zoomorphic pet Sony’s Aibo
Unintended
consequences
of falling ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0Rc9CzVRuQ

5. Sample
• N=88
• 42 female and 46 male
• age 19-34 -- M= 23.09 and SD = 2.504
• undergraduates
• medium income
Exploratory study
Procedure
piece of news about a robot falling
few questions about participants evaluation of the robot and the news depiction +
control variables (involvement in robotics, anthropomorphism level for the robot, and demographics)
"The fall of one of a robotics company's robots at a trade show."
image source: https://t24.com.tr/haber/insansi-robot-mini-adanin-ureticisi-muzigin-ritmine-kapilarak-sahneden-dustu,767717

6. Findings so far … the three emerging themes
(1) seeing robots as the futuristic technological advancement of humans and getting upset with them falling;
(2) seeing robots as yet another simple machine and not minding much about them falling;
(3) in-between: having mixed feelings toward the robots' falling
falling robot
technological advancement
2
3
s
i
m
p
l
e
m
a
c
h
i
n
e
s
upset
mixed feelings
not
minding
“The sad part is that this shows that we are
behind in terms of technology”
“They can develop themselves and improve
their technology. Every success comes from
after failure.”
“It wasn’t just a falling robot; the ideas and
experiences fell, too.”
“I feel nothing about the robot’s fall”
“I have no emotion about the robot’s fall”
“Since it’s a machine, a fault could appear at
any time, which, on the other hand, shows
that we cannot rely on robots 100% and that
human interaction is gonna be always
needed.”
“This news is partly fun and partly sad”
“They’re exciting, but a little scary”
1
c
a
n
g
o
b
o
t
h
w
a
y
s

7. Findings so far …
falling robot
technological advancement
2
3
s
i
m
p
l
e
m
a
c
h
i
n
e
s
upset
mixed feelings
not
minding
● got depressed with the robot’s fall
● took it as a sign that the technological
advancement and efforts set forth for such
were wasted
● would like to understand what the key
learning was to make sure that desired
progress can be achieved in future
technologies
● did not take the robot’s fall as
something to be of importance
● it is yet another machine that
surrounds modern daily life
● still felt a bit disappointed that
humans were needed to
compensate for the robot's falls
● had mixed feelings
● reported confusion when they saw a robot fall
1
c
a
n
g
o
b
o
t
h
w
a
y
s

8. Conclusions
Consumers may experience unexpected and mixed emotions after witnessing robotic failures, and these
emotions may then influence their attitudes and related behavioral intentions.
polarity reflected in the verbatims → using robot fall strategies is a double-edged sword
- which emotions and mechanisms are in place for evaluating failing robots by the consumers??
- involved mechanisms need to be analyzed in-depth

9. questions
and
comments
Thank you !
Selcen Öztürkcan
selcen.ozturkcan@lnu.se
Linnaeus University, Sweden
Ezgi Merdin-Uygur
ezgi.uygur@khas.edu.tr
Kadir Has University, Turkey
https://youtu.be/CJhneBJIfOk