The impact of word-of-mouth communication on attribute evaluation

Wright and Lynch (1995) propose that the medium that best communicates the type of attributes is the one most congruent with that type of information. This paper extends on this media congruence hypothesis by examining the impact of word-of-mouth (WOM) communication on the WOM recipient's ratin...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of business research 2011, Vol.64 (1), p.18-23
Main Authors: Lim, Boon C., Chung, Cindy M.Y.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attribute evaluation
Brand equity
Brands
Communication
Consumer behavior
Consumer behaviour
Credence attributes
Customer services
Experiments
Impact analysis
Information
Marketing
Media
Media congruence hypothesis
Rumours
Search attributes
Services
Studies
Utilities
Word of mouth advertising
Word-of-mouth communication
Word-of-mouth communication Search attributes Credence attributes Services Attribute evaluation Media congruence hypothesis
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Summary:Wright and Lynch (1995) propose that the medium that best communicates the type of attributes is the one most congruent with that type of information. This paper extends on this media congruence hypothesis by examining the impact of word-of-mouth (WOM) communication on the WOM recipient's ratings of search and credence attributes in two different service contexts. Results from two experiments suggest that negative WOM (but not positive WOM) is more effective in changing the evaluation of credence attributes than that of search attributes for unfamiliar brands. This finding implies that marketers of such unfamiliar brands need to have different approaches to deal with the impact of negative WOM on different attribute types.
ISSN:0148-2963
1873-7978
DOI:10.1016/j.jbusres.2009.09.014