Sales and Sincerity: The Role of Relational Framing in Word-of-Mouth Marketing

In the current research, we study relationship norms in a word-of-mouth marketing context. The presence of a financial incentive for a recommendation implies that the word-of-mouth behavior may be driven by ulterior motives. This setting triggers both friendship (Equality Matching; EM) and sales (Market Pricing; MP) relationship norms. However, the evaluation of the recommendation depends crucially on the relationship norm activated during the interaction. We show that, compared to MP relationship norms, activating EM norms leads to less sincere agent evaluations, but at the same time to higher intentions to comply with the target offer. We show that these norms can be activated outside awareness and influence our evaluations of interaction partners in a cognitively efficient manner. A second study shows that disclosing the financial motive has a positive effect on agent evaluations, but only when the recommendation target can devote full attention to the interaction.relationship norms;word-of-mouth;disclosure of ulterior motive;rewarded recommendations

Interpersonal Relationships Moderate the Effect of Faces on Person Judgments

Previous research suggests that people form impressions of others based on their facial appearance in a very fast and automatic manner, and this especially holds for trustworthiness. However, as yet, this process has been investigated mostly in a social vacuum without taking interpersonal factors into account. In the current research, we demonstrate that both the relationship context that is salient at the moment of an interaction and the performed behavior, are important moderators of the impact of facial cues on impression formation. It is shown that, when the behavior of a person we encounter is ambiguous in terms of trustworthiness, the relationship most salient at that moment is of crucial impact on whether and how we incorporate facial cues communicating (un)trustworthiness in our final evaluations. Ironically, this can result in less positive evaluations of interaction partners with a trustworthy face compared to interaction partners with an untrustworthy face. Implications for research on facial characteristics, trust, and relationship theories are discussed.trust;facial characteristics;person perception;relationship norms;word-of-mouth

The Effect of Members' Satisfaction with a Virtual Community on Member Participation

The authors develop a four-dimensional scale to measure members'satisfaction with virtual communities. The dimensions consist ofmembers' satisfaction with member-member interactions,organizer-member interactions, organizer-community interactions, andthe community's site. Using a sample of 3605 members of a virtualcommunity the authors investigate the effect of each satisfactiondimension on member participation and the moderating effect ofmembership length on the links between the satisfaction dimensions andmember particip ation. The results reveal that satisfaction withmember-member interactions, organizer-member interactions and thecommunity's site have positive effects on member participation.Satisfaction with organizer-community interactions has no effect onmember participation. The findings also show that the linkages betweenthe satisfaction dimensions and member participation are moderated bymembership length.satisfaction;internet;virtual community;consumers;relationship age

RANGE AND NUMBER-OF-LEVELS EFFECTS IN DERIVED AND STATED MEASURES OF ATTRIBUTE IMPORTANCE

We study how the range of variation and the number of attribute levels affect five measures of attribute importance: full profile conjoint estimates, ranges in attribute level attractiveness ratings, regression coefficients, graded paired comparisons, and self-reported ratings. We find that all importance measures are affected by the range manipulation. The number of attribute levels affects only two measures. The results allow us to benchmark the magnitude of the number-of-levels effect against the range effect: conjoint importance estimates were approximately equally affected by a threefold increase in the range of attribute variation and by the insertion of two intermediate attribute levels. Our findings show that the number-of-levels effect is most likely due to respondents’ tendencies to distribute their mental stimulus representations and their responses uniformly over the corresponding continua.attribute importance, context effects, conjoint analysis, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

Cognitive and Affective Consequences of Two Types of Incongruent Advertising

In this study, Heckler & Childers' (1992) two-dimensional conceptualization of incongruity is employed and related to the different schemas that consumers use in ad processing. Consumers can relate advertising to expectations about ads for the product concerned from the ad schema or to brand-related expectations from the brand schema. If an ad is incongruent with the brand schema, consumer responses to incongruity do not only reflect expectancy of the ad, but also involve determining relevancy to the brand, consistent with the two-dimensional conceptualization of incongruity. However, if an ad is incongruent with the ad schema consumers will only react to the expectancy dimension of incongruity. Therefore, these two types of incongruity have different consequences in terms of consumer evaluation, processing and categorization. We find that incongruity with the ad schema mainly has affective consequences. Ads that are incongruent with the ad schema lead to more arousal and consequently more favorable ad evaluations than ads that are congruent with the ad schema. Incongruity with the brand schema has predominantly cognitive consequences. Ads that are incongruent with the brand schema lead to more extensive processing than ads that are congruent with the brand schema. Brand beliefs and categorization change as a result of incongruent advertising information

When organic products are tasty:Taste inferences from an Organic = Healthy Association

Previous research has consistently demonstrated that organic food is typically seen as healthier. The aim of the present study is to investigate how these health inferences influence taste perceptions of organic food. In Study 1, we show that a neutral food product with an organic label is perceived as more healthy than the same product without such a label. This higher level of perceived healthiness is paired with an improved perceived taste. In Study 2 and 3, we obtain evidence in Dutch and US samples that an organic label increases perceived taste and attractiveness of healthy (but not unhealthy) food. Whereas previous studies have shown general health halo effects of organic labels, this perspective cannot explain the specific pattern of our results, which speaks towards an ‘organic = healthy = tasty’ intuition

Receiver responses to rewarded referrals: the motive inferences framework

Referral reward programs have been shown in past research to stimulate referrals and also to contribute positively to customer lifetime value and firms’ profitability. In this paper we examine whether, how, and under what conditions providing a reward for a referral affects receivers’ responses to the referral. Based on a multiple motives inference framework, we propose that rewards adversely affect responses because they lead receiving consumers to infer ulterior motives for the referral. Using experiments and a survey, we find support for this hypothesis and show that this effect is stronger for unsolicited and weak tie referrals. We also demonstrate that rewarding both the referral provider and receiver or providing symbolic rewards can eliminate the negative effect of rewarded referrals. The paper makes conceptual contributions to the literature on referral reward programs, word-of-mouth, and motive inferences. The work has implications for managers considering ways to construct referral programs and design marketing activities to increase referrals

The rewards of corporate giving

When conducted through a well-designed programme, corporate community involvement, such as employee volunteering, will benefit both the company and volunteers. In particular, these programmes can be useful to marketing and human resource managers

When and Why Do Consumers Share Product Harm Information?

This paper aims to understand when and why consumers share product harm information. Across five studies, we showed that product harm information with higher self-relevance reduced sharing under independent self-construal. Under interdependent self-construal, negative effect of self-relevance on sharing was attenuated. Further, we demonstrated the underlying processes that shape sharing