Self-relevance diminishes the effectiveness of importance and trustworthiness cues in consumer response to online product-related messages
Streszczenie
The existing literature suggests that people rely less on norms and
conventions when the context is more relevant to them. On that account, the paper
proposes that the self-relevance of response to an online product offering
diminishes the effectiveness of message-related cues regarding the importance of
presented product attributes and the source trustworthiness. Three experiments
(Study 1: N = 222, Study 2: N = 174, Study 3: N = 79) manipulated self-relevance by
asking participants to imagine that they buy products for themselves (vs. the
participants merely evaluated products) (Studies 1–2) and exposing participants to
a product-related narrative (Study 3). Additionally, message-related cues were
presented to the participants (attribute-importance cues in Studies 1–2, source trustworthiness
cues in Study 3). Product preferences (Studies 1–2) and perceived
message trustworthiness (Study 3) were measured. The results indicate that in the high self-relevance condition, the effect of attribute = importance cues on consumer
product preference is weaker (Studies 1–2), and the effect of source-trustworthiness
cues on perceived trustworthiness (Study 3). The paper presents a novel perspective
linking the concept of consumer self-relevance with the effectiveness of message-related
cues in product offerings. The results suggest to online marketers when to
communicate cues regarding attribute importance and source trustworthiness and
provide valuable guidelines for policymakers and consumers about how to resist
those cues.