Exploring the Impact of Negative Comparative Word-of-Mouth on Marketing Communications

Abstract

Along with advances in network and communication technologies, consumers actively post their opinions about products and increasingly rely on other consumers product reviews on social networking sites. Their product reviews should contain different types of information content and information format since they often evaluate products based on different types of product benefits and compare different brands within the same product class to get the best value for their money. However, previous studies only examined negative WOM communications by using a general product statement.This dissertation study argued that WOM communications should encompass cognitive and affective information content, and comparative and noncomparative information format. Through integrated analysis of information content and information format, this dissertation attempts to reveal the impact of different types of negative WOM communications on consumer attitudes, and the moderating effect of advertising communications on the relationship between negative WOM communication and consumer attitude.Two experiments were conducted to test the proposed research models empirically. The study found that cognitive advertising communication moderates the relationship between negative cognitive WOM communication and consumer attitude; affective advertising communication moderates the relationship between negative affective WOM communication and consumer attitude.%%%%Ph.D., Marketing – Drexel University, 2013