Interactive impact of EWOM message characteristics on online brand outcomes: Towards an integrative framework

Despite growing interest in the rising popularity of electronic word of mouth (EWOM), many unanswered questions remain about its effects on online brand outcomes. This paper explores the interactive impact of message characteristics (valence, credibility and format) on online brand evaluation and...

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Main Authors: Alqahtani, Abdulaziz, Sharma, Piyush, Kingshott, Russel
Format: Conference Paper
Published: 2023
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/93028
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author Alqahtani, Abdulaziz
Sharma, Piyush
Kingshott, Russel
author_facet Alqahtani, Abdulaziz
Sharma, Piyush
Kingshott, Russel
author_sort Alqahtani, Abdulaziz
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Despite growing interest in the rising popularity of electronic word of mouth (EWOM), many unanswered questions remain about its effects on online brand outcomes. This paper explores the interactive impact of message characteristics (valence, credibility and format) on online brand evaluation and engagement. We tested our hypotheses using a web-experiment with a fictitious airline brand as the research context to collect data from a sample of Facebook users (N=480) drawn from an online Australian consumer panel. All the participants were randomly assigned to one of 16 conditions in a 2 (EWOM message valence: negative vs. positive) x 2 (EWOM message credibility: low and high) x 4 (message format: text, picture, audio-visual and audio) between-subjects factorial design. We found a positive effect of message valence on online brand evaluation that is positively moderated (enhanced) by credibility. We also found significant differences in the impact of valence (but not credibility) on brand evaluation across different message formats. Finally, brand evaluation mediates the impact of message valence (but not credibility) on online brand engagement.
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format Conference Paper
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institution Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T11:39:14Z
publishDate 2023
recordtype eprints
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-930282023-11-07T03:23:14Z Interactive impact of EWOM message characteristics on online brand outcomes: Towards an integrative framework Alqahtani, Abdulaziz Sharma, Piyush Kingshott, Russel Despite growing interest in the rising popularity of electronic word of mouth (EWOM), many unanswered questions remain about its effects on online brand outcomes. This paper explores the interactive impact of message characteristics (valence, credibility and format) on online brand evaluation and engagement. We tested our hypotheses using a web-experiment with a fictitious airline brand as the research context to collect data from a sample of Facebook users (N=480) drawn from an online Australian consumer panel. All the participants were randomly assigned to one of 16 conditions in a 2 (EWOM message valence: negative vs. positive) x 2 (EWOM message credibility: low and high) x 4 (message format: text, picture, audio-visual and audio) between-subjects factorial design. We found a positive effect of message valence on online brand evaluation that is positively moderated (enhanced) by credibility. We also found significant differences in the impact of valence (but not credibility) on brand evaluation across different message formats. Finally, brand evaluation mediates the impact of message valence (but not credibility) on online brand engagement. 2023 Conference Paper http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/93028 fulltext
spellingShingle Alqahtani, Abdulaziz
Sharma, Piyush
Kingshott, Russel
Interactive impact of EWOM message characteristics on online brand outcomes: Towards an integrative framework
title Interactive impact of EWOM message characteristics on online brand outcomes: Towards an integrative framework
title_full Interactive impact of EWOM message characteristics on online brand outcomes: Towards an integrative framework
title_fullStr Interactive impact of EWOM message characteristics on online brand outcomes: Towards an integrative framework
title_full_unstemmed Interactive impact of EWOM message characteristics on online brand outcomes: Towards an integrative framework
title_short Interactive impact of EWOM message characteristics on online brand outcomes: Towards an integrative framework
title_sort interactive impact of ewom message characteristics on online brand outcomes: towards an integrative framework
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/93028