Positive effects of negative reviews: an eye-tracking perspective
ISSN: 1066-2243
Article publication date: 31 May 2021
Issue publication date: 18 January 2022
Abstract
Purpose
A counterintuitive finding of existing research is that negative reviews can produce positive effects; for example, they can increase purchase likelihood and sales by increasing product awareness. It is important to continue highlighting this fact and to develop further insights into this positive effect, as a more thorough analysis can provide online retailers with a more comprehensive understanding of how to effectively manage and use negative reviews. Thus, by using an eye-tracking method, this paper attempts to provide a further thorough analysis of positive effects of negative reviews from a cognitive perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
An eye-tracking experiment with two tests over a time delay was performed to examine whether negative reviews have some positive effects. Review valence (positive vs. negative), brand popularity (popular vs. unpopular) and advertising exposure (no repetition vs. repetition) were considered in the experiment.
Findings
The results show that a cognitive process of attention allocation happens when consumers deal with brand popularity cues and that arousal evoking and attention allocation occur when handling review valence. Allocation of more attention to unpopular brands helps improve brand awareness and enhance brand memory, and larger arousal from negative reviews narrows attention and leads to a better memory of products and brands. However, with the passage of time, the memory of review valence can dissociate and fade, and the remaining awareness of and familiarity with unpopular brands with negative reviews contribute to a positive reversion, which leads to the production of positive effects from negative reviews.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the literature on online reviews by examining the visual processing of review valence and brand popularity with an eye-tracking method and by revealing the cognitive mechanism of positive effects of negative reviews from a visual attention perspective.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This study is based on the authors' conference paper “How product signals of brand and review influence consumers: A cognitive perspective” presented at 23rd Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems (PACIS).
This work has been supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [No. 71802079, No. 71901017], the Humanities and Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education of China (19YJC630081).
Citation
Luan, J., Xiao, J., Tang, P. and Li, M. (2022), "Positive effects of negative reviews: an eye-tracking perspective", Internet Research, Vol. 32 No. 1, pp. 197-218. https://doi.org/10.1108/INTR-12-2019-0517
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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