The impact of review valence and awareness of deceptive practices on consumers’ responses to online product ratings and reviews

Many online retailers and some manufacturers/service providers have recently been engaging in questionable practices, where product reviews are often fabricated and/or posted without sufficient clarity and objectivity. Across an exploratory study and two main studies, we empirically examine this phenomenon and observe a pattern of effects that suggests that review valence (i.e., the average number of rating-stars a product receives) influences product attitudes and intentions, but that these outcomes are significantly impacted by the extent to which consumers are aware of potentially deceptive online review practices. Awareness of deceptive practices was found to differentially influence attitudes and intentions, depending upon whether the star-ratings were perfect (5/5 stars), highly positive (4.9/5 stars), or generally positive (4.5/5 or 4.7/5 stars). Participants’ perceptions of the e-retailer’s manipulative intent were also shown to mediate these effects, with higher perceptions of perceived manipulative intent yielding less favorable product attitudes and reduced purchase intentions

THE MODERATING EFFECT OF MESSAGE-RESPONSE INVOLVEMENT ON THE PROCESSING OF COMPARATIVE AND NONCOMPARATIVE ADVERTISING

The purpose of this study was to determine whether comparative advertisements are processed differently than noncomparative ads, and to investigate the moderating role played by message-response involvement on these processing activities. Models of information processing tendencies were tested in a 2 (message format: comparative or noncomparative) x 2 (message-response involvement: high or low) factorial design by use of multiple regression procedures. A month after responding to items concerning their brand loyalty, product class knowledge, and attitude toward comparative and noncomparative advertising, student subjects were given one of two advertising portfolios (containing editorial material, filler ads, and an experimental ad for a fictitious brand of cassette player with headphones) to examine for a reasonable period of time in a classroom setting. Measures of cognitive response, attention, message relevance, brand beliefs, attitude toward the ad, and attitude toward the brand were then obtained. The findings provide evidence to support the notion that comparative ads are processed differently than noncomparative ads. In more-involving situations, predispositions toward comparative advertising have an influential role in processing of comparative ads, whereas product class knowledge is an influencing factor in the processing of noncomparative ads. For comparative and noncomparative advertising, attitudes toward the ad (resulting from message- and ad-related cognitive responses) and brand beliefs were both significant influencers of brand attitude in high involvement conditions. In less-involving situations, attitude toward the ad (influenced by valenced ad-related and other cognitive responses) impacted brand attitude in the comparative advertising condition. For noncomparative ads, attitude toward the ad (influenced by ad-related cognitive responses) shared its influence on brand attitude with brand beliefs (influenced by message-related cognitive responses). Though hypotheses concerning differences in strengths of relationships under different message exposure conditions were not supported, several differences between comparative and noncomparative ads (on measures of attitude toward the ad, attitude toward the brand, and level of message-response involvement) were observed

The Effects of Advertising Distinctiveness and Message Content Involvement on Cognitive and Affective Responses to Advertising

This paper examines how advertising distinctiveness influences cognitive and affective responses to advertising under varying levels of message content involvement. Major findings indicate facilitative effects of distinctive (versus nondistinctive) ad stimuli on net ad execution cognitive responses, net source cognitive responses, attitude-toward-the-ad, brand attitudes, and purchase intentions under low message content involvement. Unexpectedly, net product argument cognitive responses are greater for low message content involvement subjects under distinctive (versus nondistinctive) ad conditions. Under high message content involvement, however, cognitive and affective responses are not affected by distinctive ad conditions, as expected. Alternative explanations and implications for advertising research are discussed

Online Engagement with Memes and Comments about Climate Change

Social media posts, and memes in particular, offer important opportunities for social media users and organizations to disseminate information about climate change. However, as this topic remains controversial, memes often elicit comments that may oppose (rather than support) the existence of climate change. In three studies, we find that the position of the comments influences users’ engagement with the main post: when the user’s and the meme’s positions on climate change align, comments opposing the claim of the meme decrease users’ readiness to “like” the meme. We also examine social media users’ attitudes toward different comment moderating options, including disabling, deleting, hiding, or responding to comments

Online Engagement with Memes and Comments about Climate Change

Social media posts, and memes in particular, offer important opportunities for social media users and organizations to disseminate information about climate change. However, as this topic remains controversial, memes often elicit comments that may oppose (rather than support) the existence of climate change. In three studies, we find that the position of the comments influences users’ engagement with the main post: when the user’s and the meme’s positions on climate change align, comments opposing the claim of the meme decrease users’ readiness to “like” the meme. We also examine social media users’ attitudes toward different comment moderating options, including disabling, deleting, hiding, or responding to comments