Online Persuasion:How the Written Word Drives WOMEvidence from Consumer-Generated Product Reviews(Mar,2011)

Jin LiLingjing Zhan

Introduction & Background

• Importance of word of mouth in marketing

• Development of Word of mouth on Internet

• To examine how the language style, organizational structure, and other content features of consumer-generated, online product reviews affect review adoption.

PURPOSE

Studies

• Study 1 : the authors analyzed a data set of online product reviews regarding a consumer electronic device and identified the content features that positively or negatively influenced review adoption.

• Study 2 : used an experimental approach to probe the boundary conditions under which some effects observed in study 1 may or may not have occurred.

Study 1

Methodology• STEP 1 Determine the platform and product

that can apply the research

PLATFORM Product

WHY AMAZON?

• Each reviewer can provided an overall evaluation using a 1- to 5-star scale and a qualitative product review. Readers also could evaluate the helpfulness of a review on a dichotomous scale (“Yes” or “No”), and they could post comments after the review as well

Review usefulness

Review content

Why kindle?

•People are more likely to consult other buyers’ views when they consider purchasing high involved product(Riegner, 2007).

•Kindle is a brand new product

STEP 2 SAMPLEING

• Sampling

They use the review on Amazon. But only the reviews that had been

evaluated by at least 50 readers (i.e., in the statement “m of n people found the following review helpful,” n ≥ 50) were selected, for a total of 737 reviews for analysis.

Methodology

• The distribution of early product ratings The distribution of early product ratings was fairly balanced. Of the 737 reviews studied by the authors, 217 rated the Kindle with “five stars,” 67 with “four stars,” 78 with “three stars,” 100 with “two stars,” and 275 with “one star.”

217 67 78 100 275

Methodology•STEP 3 determine Theoretical Framework of wording

ELM MODEL(Petty and Cacioppo,1986)

Ease of

comprehension

Evidence Presence

Opposing Viewpoints

Comprehens-iveness

ARGUMENT QUALITY

Perceived

review

helpfulness

ELM MODEL

Product Usage

Language Intensity

SOURCE CREDIBILITY

Ease of comprehension

Evidence presence

Study 1：論點品質的衡量

– Average paragraph length– Average sentence length– Point format used (yes or no)

Evidence presence (yes or no)

ARGUMENT QUALITY

Opposing viewpoints

Balance

UnbalancePositive

Negative

Opposing viewpoints ( D1 , D2 )

Positive ( 1 , 0 )

Negative ( 0 , 1 )

Balance ( 0 , 0 )

ARGUMENT QUALITY

Comprehensiveness

Study 1：論點品質的衡量ARGUMENT QUALITY

• Review length expressed in number ofwords

• Number of product features discussedin the review

Ease of

comprehension

Evidence Presence

Opposing Viewpoints

Comprehens-iveness

ARGUMENT QUALITY

Perceived

review

helpfulness

Product Usage

Language Intensity

SOURCE CREDIBILITY

Product Usage

Language Intensity

Study 1：來源可信度的衡量

Whether use kindle or not

• Exclaim icon usage

• Positive attitude

• Negative attitude

SOURCE CREDIBILITY

Develop experiment

Independent variable

• Argument quality

• Source credibility

Dependent variable

• Review helpfulness

STEP 4 ENCODING the reviewMethodology

•WHY?Have to determine whether the independent variable appeared or not(like emotion, evidence appeared, opposing view point)

•HOW?Two native-English speakers were recruited as independent judges.

STEP 5 determine statistic model

j

k

kikjijii xβxβxββη0

110 )1...(...

The independent variables are written as (i = 1, …, 737 ，j = 1, …, 13)jix

)2...(737,...,1),,(~ ipabinomialya iiii

yi：Number of readers

iy

ai：Percentage of helpfulness

ia

)3....(1 i

i

η

η

ie

ep

Linear Predictor

Distribution Assumption)

Link Function

Decide product&

platform

Sampling the product review

Encoding product

review into theoraticalframework

Run statistic

OVERVIEW OF THE WHOLE RESEARCH

RESULT

Ease of comprehension

Independent variables parameter

Average paragraph length –0.244***

Average sentence length –0.212

Point format used 0.120

Evidence presence

Independent variables parameter

Evidence presence 0.992**

Means significant

Opposing Viewpoints

Independent variables parameter

Positive 1.118***

Negative –0.107

Comprehensiveness

Independent variables parameter

Review length 0.677***

Product feature 0.280**

Means significant

Product Usage

Independent variables parameter

Product Usage 1.038***

Language Intensity

Independent variables parameter

Exclaim icon usage –0.381***

Positive attitude 0.545**

Negative attitude –0.358***

Means significant

FINALIZED THE RESULT

The results indicate that helpful reviews exhibit five discernable characteristics:

• They were comprehensive and easy to read.• They were provided by reviewers who have usage experience with

the product.• They presented supporting evidence for arguments.• They provided positive information about the product.• They may have contained strong positive emotions but not strong

negative emotions.

Conclusion

ADVANTAGE of the research method

1. Happened in a totally natural situation

DISADVANTAGE of the research method

1.Sample not drawn from the regular population

2.Encoding subjectively

3.Inability theoretical framework

4.Argument quality and source credibility are not observable from online reviews

5. Ethic issue(?)

Marketing implication• Companies can increase the usefulness of message on their

Web sites

• Companies can identifying the most influential voices in the community.

• Help to create a good testimonial ads

• Use short sentences• Offer evidence for claims• Provide information on as many important

features as possible• Avoid the use of exclamation marks.

What should a good

Thank for your you attention!