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Management response to consumer comments has become a widely adopted marketing strategy to address the undesirable effects caused by negative remarks. Yet, when and what management response is more effective and under what circumstances remains under-researched. This study aims to fill this gap.

In three experiments using five different products, the authors manipulate psychological construal level (psychological distance: distant vs proximal) and management response (response of primary vs secondary features) and thereafter assess their bearings on consumer psychological and behavioral reaction toward products of two distinctive natures (hedonic vs utilitarian).

At a psychological distance, consumers show a preferable reaction to management response of primary over secondary features. In contrast, when the psychological distance is proximal, consumers react more positively to management response of secondary than primary features. In addition, these effects vary as a function of product nature, hedonic vs utilitarian.

The findings of this research bring a significant contribution to marketing communication literature and extend the construal level theory.

A better understanding of the relative effectiveness of distinct types of management response to negative consumer comments is essential for more targeted and effective marketing strategies.

Little research has documented the effects of distinct types of management response. How psychological distance might underpin these effects has not been explored. In addition, whether the interaction effect of management response and psychological distance varies with differences in product nature, namely, hedonic and utilitarian, remains unanswered until this research.

Online reviews have shown important information that affects consumers’ online shopping behavior. However, little research has examined how they may influence consumers’ online impulse buying behavior. The purpose of this paper is to bring theoretical and empirical connections between them.

The framework of this study was tested on three popular online group shopping websites in China (ju.taobao.com, dianping.com, and meituan.com). An online survey with 315 participants who had experience using these websites was recruited to verify the effects of consumers’ perceived value from reading online reviews on urge to buy impulsively and impulse buying behavior.

The empirical findings show that consumers’ perceived utilitarian and hedonic value from reading online reviews enhance their browsing behavior. Browsing positively affects consumers’ urge to buy impulsively and finally affects their impulse buying behavior. Further, this study finds that consumers with high impulsiveness focus more on hedonic value of online reviews, whereas consumers with low impulsiveness put more emphasis on utilitarian value. Browsing demonstrates a stronger effect on urge to buy impulsively for consumers with high impulsiveness.

This study is one of the early studies to investigate the relationship between social influence (e.g. influence of online reviews) and impulse buying. It draws upon the perspectives of browsing and consumer’s perceived value from the literature. This research also considers consumer differences regarding the level of impulsiveness.

Marketing literature views word-of-mouth (WOM) as unidirectional communication in which consumers transmit either positive or negative messages based on their consumption experiences. Becoming visible in online forums, however, are consumers who engage in WOM as part of interactions with other consumers. This article aims to investigate a phenomenon frequently occurring in these interactions: consumers who defend companies and brands against others' negative WOM.

The authors investigated the online defense phenomenon in its natural setting using an online ethnography, known as a netnography.

This study provides empirical evidence for the existence of six different defense styles, as well as details of the identified factors underlying consumers' choices of defense styles. Moreover, the authors' analysis highlights the different outcomes of various company- and brand-defending behaviors and illustrates that this consumer phenomenon can be effective in preventing the spread of negative WOM or in mitigating its impact.

Future research could benefit from further testing the effectiveness of the various defense styles as well as investigating how to stimulate this important buffer against negative WOM.

Companies are increasingly allocating resources to the monitoring of online conversations so as to be able to respond to criticisms in social media. The authors' findings indicate that other consumers frequently respond to these complaints before the companies do. These company and brand defenders could replace some of the resources companies currently devote to social media.

The present study identifies company and brand defending as a new WOM activity, thus extending the concept of WOM beyond praising and complaining. In addition, this study suggests that consumers who counter negative messages are not necessarily loyal, as previously assumed, but rather motivated by a sense of justice or a need for self-enhancement.

This paper analyses the interrelationships between emotions, the cognitive information cues of online reviews and intention to follow the advice obtained from digital platforms, paying special attention to the moderating effect of the sequencing of review valence.

The data were collected from 830 Spanish Tripadvisor users. In a two-step approach, a measurement model was estimated and a structural model analysed to test the proposed hypotheses. SmartPLS 3.0 software was used. The moderating effect of sequencing of reviews is tested.

The data analysis showed a bias effect of review sequence on the impact of online information cues and emotions on intention to follow advice obtained from Tripadvisor. When the online reviews of a restaurant begin with positive commentaries, their perceived persuasiveness is a stronger driver of the pleasure and arousal elicited by online reviews than when they begin with negative reviews. On the other hand, the perceived helpfulness of online reviews only triggers arousal when the user reads negative, followed by positive, comments. The impact of pleasure on intention to follow the advice provided in an online travel community is higher with positive-negative than with negative-positive sequences.

While researchers have demonstrated the benefits of customer reviews on company sales, a largely uninvestigated issue is the interplay between emotions and cognitive information cues in the processing of online reviews. This is one of the first studies to examine the moderating effect of conflicting reviews on the impact of emotions and cognitive information cues on consumer intention to follow the advice obtained from digital services.

This study aims to compare the effects of YouTube information sources (influencer vs word of mouse) on the consumer purchase decision. This paper extends the information adoption model (IAM) to include information language as a central cue and skepticism toward online information as a moderating factor.

A between-subjects experiment, 2 (influencer vs word of mouse) × 2 (positive vs negative information), was designed to test hypotheses. A total of 171 consumers participated in the experiment and multigroup structural equations modeling (AMOS 21) was applied.

The results indicate that consumers perceive argument quality to be more useful when the information comes from word of mouse (WOMS). While information language was deemed more useful when the information source was a YouTube influencer and the information type was positive. The study also found that skepticism toward online information reduced the overall effects, particularly for influencers and positive information.

This study contributes to the theory by identifying and investigating the existing gaps in knowledge. For practitioners, findings speak to the synergetic power of YouTube influencers and WOMS as an effective marketing strategy.

This paper is one of the first to compare the effects of YouTube influencers and consumer comments by using the IAM. It also extends IAM with the inclusion of information language as a central cue and skepticism toward online information as a moderating factor.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse how consumer emotions towards innovation change over online discussions.

This is an empirical study based on substantial data collected from 22 discussion forums, of which the ten longest discussions on heart-rate monitors were chosen for further qualitative analysis.

The results show that a variety of consumer emotions can be detected in online discussions. Negative emotions clearly seem to dominate and be generally stronger than those that are positive. The results also show how product, company and behaviour enabled by the product (in this case, training) evoke different emotions in customers.

The study focuses only on emotional expressions presented by consumers online. However, the analysis of consumers’ basic emotions, their evolution and grounds can be transferred to other settings in which interaction among customers is studied; for example, in focus group interviews.

Results show how negative emotions felt towards a product rapidly tend to extend to anger and frustration targeted at the respective firm. This highlights the importance of company intervention.

By analysing the change of emotions longitudinally, the authors are able to show the increase of anger over online discussions. The authors show how the target of emotion changes and how emotions spread from customer to customer.

This study aims to examine the influence of homophily in an online community and the effect of electronic word of mouth (eWOM) consensus on young consumers’ attitudes.

This study implemented an experimental research design using a two (low/high homophily) × two (low/high eWOM consensus) mixed factorial design. This study explores young consumers’ changes in brand attitude after encountering negative eWOM.

The results indicate that a high consensus of negative eWOM among online community members leads to significant changes in attitude, while a low consensus of negative eWOM does not produce such an effect. Negative eWOM from either high or low homophilous sources produces significant changes in attitude. There are significant attitude changes when a strong consensus of negative eWOM is received from a source with a high level of homophily.

Service failures in offline service settings lead to the dissemination of negative eWOM on social media. To handle and prevent social media crises, researchers should understand online crises antecedents relating to information characteristics i.e. eWOM consensus and characteristics of online community members to evaluate the crises impact. Brands should monitor tone and dialogue of online community member on social media to remedy and diminish any damage done to their brand image from negative eWOM.

This study contributes to the application of social network theory by understanding the role of nodes on negative eWOM effect in social media.

The purpose of this study is to examine how the usage of mobile devices influences text-posting behavior in the online review-generation process. This study attempts to improve the understanding of the negative impacts of mobile channels on the quality of online reviews.

The authors develop a series of hypotheses to investigate the text-posting behaviors with mobile device usage. To examine the authors' hypotheses, the authors collect online reviews posted in London hotels on Booking.com. The authors first use a logistic regression model to examine the relationship between the usage of mobile devices and text-posting behavior. Then, the authors explored the characteristics of textual content in mobile reviews compared to reviews written via traditional devices.

The authors' finding shows that the use of mobile devices negatively influences text-posting behavior. Compared to traditional devices, consumers are less likely to post texts in their reviews with mobile devices. Although consumers decide to post text comments in consumers' reviews, the quality of textual content is relatively low – short in length, with limited analytical thinking and less authenticity.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, no study has attempted to explore text generation in review-posting behaviors in the context of mobile channels. Also, the authors' findings show the negative effects of using mobile channels on the value of generated information, which is counterintuitive to previous research.

Considering the ongoing discourse on diversity, equity and inclusion, brands aim to develop marketing campaigns that demonstrate respect for all individuals. Despite these intentions, many advertisements still provoke strong negative reactions from consumers due to brand transgressions in social media marketing campaigns that violate these values. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the repercussions that such social media marketing campaigns have on brands, categorizing these campaigns as brand transgressions in social media advertising.

This research uses a mixed-method design that includes semi-structured interviews (Study 1), a content analysis (Study 2) and an online experiment (Study 3).

This paper clarifies the elements that qualify as brand transgressions in advertising within the diversity, equity and inclusion discourse. The negative electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM) associated with brand transgressions in advertising comprises negative emotions (e.g. anger, contempt, disgust and hate) and behavioural intentions to penalize the brand (e.g. negative word-of-mouth, brand avoidance and protest behaviours). The negative e-WOM stemming from these transgressions amplifies the adverse consequences for consumer–brand relationships by negatively influencing other consumers through sympathy towards the offended parties.

This paper offers brand managers guidelines for preventing and managing negative consumer reactions towards brands based on their responses to marketing campaigns that contradict the principles of diversity, equity and inclusion.

This paper contributes to the literature on brand transgressions related to diversity, equity and inclusion values by exploring their impact on consumer–brand relationships and highlighting the pivotal role of sympathy in perpetuating negative consequences.

To examine the relationship between online comments, merchant replies and online sales of tourism products and focus on the moderating role of tourist destination.

This article uses crawler technology and regression analysis methods.

The researchers found the following: (1) The number of pictures uploaded with online comments, the number of merchant replies and the length of merchant replies have a significant positive effect on sales of tourism products, while the length of comments and the similarity of merchant replies negatively affect sales of tourism products. The emotional scores of the reviews do not significantly affect sales of tourism products. (2) Tourist destination moderates the relationship between user comments and sales of tourism products. The length of comments has a greater negative effect on sales of domestic tourism products, while the number of comments has a greater positive effect on sales of overseas tourism products. (3) Tourist destination moderates the relationship between merchant replies and sales of tourism products. Consumers who choose domestic tourism products pay more attention to the interactivity reflected by merchant replies (e.g. number and length of merchant replies), while consumers who choose overseas tourism products hope to receive replies that are more useful, such as reply similarity.

The research conclusions enrich the relevant research in the field of online review research and has practical significance for how companies increase sales of tourism products.