I Don’t Like What I See: When UGC Distorts the Brand Image: An Abstract

Abstract

Many online shoppers rely heavily on user-generated content throughout their decision-making journeys. User-generated visual content in the form of images has become increasingly prevalent over the last decade (You, 2016). User-generated images are images created by consumers that expose the brand or product to the final users. The research examines UGIs in product reviews. The research asks, how do UGIs influence consumers’ brand image perceptions? Do consumers consider source credibility as a deciding factor? Are UGIs more effective than written forms of user-generated content? Product reviews that contain images depicting reviewers using the products play a vital role in demonstrating how the product might feel or look once a customer buys it. The way in which the product is depicted may distort or enhance the brand image perceptions of consumers browsing the product reviews. Aside from images, source credibility has also been consistently identified as an important cue in the informational influence process (Chaiken & Maheswaran, 1994; Sussman & Siegal, 2003). Users who post an image online act as the source, and their credibility can be evaluated by factors such as expert knowledge of the product, reviewer verification and disclosure of the image creator’s identity. We predict that source credibility will moderate the influence of user-generated images on brand image, where the negative effect of a repulsive image on brand image will be enhanced when the credibility of the user is high. Lastly, positive brand image should increase both purchase intention and eWOM. To test the proposed relationships, the authors will implement a 2 × 2 factorial design with two levels of user-generated image quality and two levels of user credibility. The authors will create a fictitious product review for each treatment. The review will be for a fictitious meal kit provider called Mealcopter. The brand image scale, adapted from Ansary and Hashim (2017), comprises six seven-point items. Source credibility will be measured using five dimensions— namely, accuracy, believability, bias, completeness and trustworthiness—in a scale adapted from Flanagin and Metzger (2000). The purchase intention scale comprises three seven-point items adapted from Hung et al. (2011), and the electronic word of mouth scale, adapted from Goyette (2010), comprises six seven-points items. The research aims to fill a gap in the literature on the effects of UGI on consumer brand image perception and shed light on the influence of source credibility on the effectiveness of UGIs. Managerially, the research addresses the extent to which managers should control the amount and type of user-generated images in product reviews.