Is Friendship Silent When Money Talks? How People Respond to Word-of-Mouth Marketing

Word of mouth is a powerful source of consumer influence. Therefore, marketers nowadays are interested in managing word of mouth. An often implemented strategy is stimulating customers to talk about a product by providing a (financial) reward for successful recommendations (‘buzz’). Previous research showed that rewards have a positive influence on recommendation likelihood. In this dissertation, it is investigated how people receiving these rewarded recommendations evaluate these recommendations and the recommending agent. It is argued that a reward leads to three important changes in the recommendation, and their impact is investigated in a series of experiments. First, a reward introduces a sales aspect in the interaction, and thereby transgresses boundaries that exist between sales and friendship norms. Second, the reward sheds doubts on the trustworthiness of the recommendation (agent). Third, rewarded recommendations are relatively often directed towards weak ties (i.e., acquaintances and less intimate friends). This dissertation shows that cues that hint at the presence of a financial reward (by increased salience of sales relationship norms, a disclosure of the reward, or by a slightly untrustworthy appearance) have a positive effect; people evaluate the recommending agent more positively than when these cues are lacking. The impact of these factors on product evaluations and recommendation compliance is mixed. To gain insight in weak tie recommendations, the impact of social categorization was examined. Recommendations from outgroup members can backfire and lead to contrasting evaluations of the target product. Ultimately, this dissertation provides in-depth insights into rewarded recommendations from a target point-of-view

Wat gebeurt er als je consumenten beloont voor mond tot mond reclame?

Mond tot mond communicatie heeft veel invloed op productkeuzes en aankoopbeslissingen van consumenten. Omdat dit zo veel invloed heeft, proberen marketeers deze communicatie te stimuleren, bijvoorbeeld door consumenten te belonen voor een aanbeveling. In dit onderzoek richten we ons op de vraag hoe de ontvanger van een beloonde aanbeveling hier op reageert. We argumenteren dat de introductie van een beloning als gevolg heeft dat een aanbeveling zowel aspecten krijgt van een vriendschapsrelatie als van een verkooprelatie. We tonen aan dat de relatieve saillantie van deze relaties zowel invloed heeft op de beoordeling van de aanbeveler als op de neiging om op de aanbeveling in te gaan. We laten ook zien dat dit een onbewust proces is. Tevens blijkt dat het onthullen van een !nanciële beloning in dergelijke interacties een positieve invloed heeft. Marketingimplicaties voor het belonen van aanbevelingen worden besproken

The Emotional Information Processing System is Risk Averse: Ego-Depletion and Investment Behavior

Two experiments show that a shortage of self-regulatory resources results in more risk aversion in mixed-gamble (gain/loss) situations. The findings support a dual process view that distinguishes between a rational and an affective information processing system, in which self-regulatory resources are the necessary fuel for the rational system. Depending on the expected values of risk seeking versus risk averse behavior, ego depletion can have negative (experiment 1) as well as positive (experiment 2) consequences for investment behavior

Do versus Don't: The Impact of Framing on Goal Level Setting

The consumer behavior literature extensively studied the impact of goal setting on behavior and performance. However, much less is known about the antecedents of goal level setting – consumers’ decision of whether to work out twice or three times per week. Consumers can decide how many goal-consistent activities to undertake (‘goal-consistent decision frame’; such as exercising two days per week) or to forego (‘goal-inconsistent decision frame’; such as not exercising five days per week). While objectively the same decision, we argue that these different frames impact consumers’ ambition. Making a decision to forego goal-consistent activities triggers negative, self-evaluative emotions and to compensate for these unfavorable self-evaluations, consumers set more ambitious goal levels. Across a variety of contexts, consumers are more ambitious when their focal decision is inconsistent with goal achievement. For instance, they decide to work out more often when they decide how many work-out sessions they would skip (versus attend). The impact of goal-inconsistent decision framing is mitigated when the activity is less instrumental towards goal achievement, and when negative self-evaluative em