This article reviews recently published research about
consumers in digital and social media marketing settings. Five themes are
identified:
1. consumer digital culture,
2. responses to digital advertising,
3. effects of digital environments on
consumer behavior
4. mobile environments, and
5. online word of mouth (WOM).
Collectively these articles shed
light from many different angles on how consumers experience, influence, and
are influenced by the digital environments in which they are situated as part
of their daily lives. Much is still to be understood, and existing knowledge
tends to be disproportionately focused on WOM, which is only part of the
digital consumer experience. Several directions for future research are
advanced to encourage researchers to consider a broader range of phenomena.
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INTRODUCTION
Using the internet, social media, mobile apps,
and other digital communication technologies has become part of billions of
people’s daily lives. For instance, the current rate of internet use among
American adults is about 87% and is closer to 100% for demographic groups such
as college-educated and higher-income adults. Younger people—the next
generation of mass consumers—have similarly high levels . People also spend
increasing time online. For example, in the UK, over the last decade the number
of hours spent online by adults has more than doubled, and now averages 20.5
hours per week . Social media has fueled part of this growth: worldwide there
are now more than 2 billion people using social media , and Facebook alone now
has approximately 1 billion active users per day . Clearly, people are exposing
themselves to more and more digital and social media. This is for many
purposes, including in their roles as consumers as they search for information
about products, 1 purchase and consume them, and communicate with others about
their experiences. Marketers have responded to this fundamental shift by
increasing their use of digital marketing channels. In fact, by 2017
approximately one-third of global advertising spending is forecast to be in
digital channels. Thus, future consumer marketing will largely be carried out
in digital settings, particularly social media and mobile. It is therefore
necessary for consumer research to examine and understand consumer behavior in
digital environments. This has been happening over the last decade, with
increasing amounts of research focusing on digital consumer behavior issues.
The literature is still relatively nascent, however, and more research is of
course needed— particularly given the ever-changing nature of the
digital/social media/mobile environments in which consumers are situated and
interact with brands and each other. This article attempts to 1 For
convenience, I use the term “product” throughout this article to refer to any
kind of marketed offer from a firm. This can include specific products or
services, as well as brands (multiple products or services) as a whole. 4 take
stock of very recent developments on these issues in the consumer
behavior/psychology literature, and in doing so hopes to spur new, relevant
research. This review is based on articles published in between January 2013
and September 2015 in the four leading consumer research journals: Journal of
Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology Journal of Marketing and
Journal of Marketing Research. Articles related to digital marketing, social
media, and online word of mouth are featured in this review. In total, articles
were published on these topics in the consumer behavior literature in the last
few years, suggesting that this is an increasingly popular domain within
consumer research. In addition to these articles, there were three review articles
worth mentioning:
(!) Berger’s review of word-of-mouth and interpersonal communication
research.
(ii) You et al.’s meta-analysis of online
word-of-mouth effects. and
(iii) Yadav and
Pavlou’s review of marketing in computer-mediated environments.
RESEARCH THEMES AND
FINDINGS
Five distinct research themes emerge in recent consumer research on
digital marketing and social media. The five themes are
(i) consumer digital culture,
(ii) advertising,
(iii) impacts of
digital environments,
(iv) mobile, and
(v) online WOM and
reviews.
The most popular themes
are online WOM, which is covered by almost half of the articles, and
advertising, represented by slightly over one-quarter of the articles. I now
discuss each theme. Consumer Digital Culture Consumer digital culture research
considers, quite deeply, the digital environments in which consumers are
situated. A key aspect of this work has been understanding how 5 consumers’
identities and self-concepts extend into digital worlds, such as work by Belk
[10, 11]. Belk [10]
extended his prior work on the “extended self” to incorporate the digital
environments in which consumers now situate themselves, which is an important
piece of theory development because it considers concepts such as the ability
for consumers to have multiple selves due to possessing multiple online
“personas.” Belk also suggests many areas for future research. Other research
under this theme looked at more specific phenomena. McQuarrie et al.
[12] focused on fashion
blogging as a means of documenting the “megaphone effect,” which is the ability
for regular consumers to access large audiences through digital/social media.
This is an important effect and they discussed how bloggers go about building
audiences and accumulating social (or cultural) capital through demonstrations
of “good taste.” In a social media setting this essentially means that a
blogger (or “influencer”) makes recommendations that signal her expertise to
others. This is in a specific setting, but has implications for understanding
consumers’ content-generation behaviors on social media more generally, since
signaling positive personal attributes is likely a common motivation for
posting certain things on sites like Facebook. Together, these articles make an
important conceptual contribution around how we see consumers in a digital
world, particularly by implying an expanded conception of what it is to be a
consumer in today’s digital world. Advertising Digital advertising is a major
topic in the marketing literature and, with respect to consumer behavior,
considers how consumers respond to various aspects of digital ads. A number of
recent articles considered behavioral aspects of digital advertising from
various perspectives. One interesting perspective taken in a few articles was based
around how 6 to overcome (assumed) psychological reactance due to
personalization of digital ad targeting. Schumann et al. considered how
negative reactions to personalization could be overcome with normative
reciprocity appeals (instead of utility appeals). Lambrecht and Tucker studied ad retargeting, which is when personalized recommendations based on
prior webbrowsing history are made when a consumer returns to a website.
Negative responses to retargeting are found, but this is mitigated when
consumers’ preferences have become more precise. Tucker found that
personalized website ads are more favorably received when consumers have a
higher perception of being in control of the personal/private information used
for personalization, which directly corresponds to literature on psychological
reactance and suggests a theoretical way forward for research into consumer
digital privacy, which is lacking. Other articles have considered a variety of
digital ad response aspects
[16-20]. Luo et al. looked at drivers of popularity for group-buying ads (i.e., Groupon-like
“daily deals”), finding social influence social proof due to others
buying a deal to be a major driver of deal popularity. Jerath et al. studied responses to search engine advertising, finding that when consumers
search for less-popular keywords their searches are more effortful. Puccinelli
et al. examined digital video ads (e.g., that run on sites like Hulu and
YouTube), focusing on how TV show emotion interacted with ads’ energy levels to
affect consumers’ responses. They find that affective matching between show and
ad matters such that when consumers experience “deactivating” emotions (e.g.,
sadness) it is harder to view energetic ads. Dinner et al. considered how
digital display and search ads drive online and offline purchasing for a
retailer, finding that digital ads are more effective than offline ads in
driving online behavior. Finally, Goldstein et al.
[20] studied “annoying”
(e.g., obtrusive, low quality) website ads and showed how they create economic
costs for advertisers and cognitive costs for consumers. 7
Impacts of Digital Environments A still-emerging theme in recent years is how
digital/social media environments impact consumer behavior.
The
consequences can be thought of as environment-integral digital environments
influence behavior in those environments or environment-incidental digital
environments influence behavior in other, unrelated environments. It is
interesting to see how the various informational and social characteristics of
digital/social environments, such as being exposed to other consumers’ opinions
or choices or even just to friends’ lives through social media, can impact
subsequent behaviors. For instance, with respect to environment-integral
consequences, Lamberton et al. and Norton et al. considered learning from
strangers in digital environments. They find that consumers in competitive
online settings infer interpersonal dissimilarity and act aggressively against
ambiguous others (strangers) and find that seeing online that others made the
same choices as oneself can reduce, not increase, confidence in one’s choices
if others’ justifications in online reviews are dissimilarAdopting a different
perspective, Wilcox and Stephen examined an environment-incidental response
with respect to how using Facebook affected self-control. They found that when
exposed to closer friends on Facebook, consumers subsequently exhibited lower
self-control in choices related to, for example, healthy behaviors choosing a
cookie instead of a healthier granola bar). Mobile Consumer behavior in mobile
settings is also increasingly important, as consumers use mobile devices more
frequently. This is particularly interesting in shopping contexts
[24] studied how
consumers respond to mobile coupons in 8 physical stores, finding in a field
experiment that mobile offers requiring consumers to deviate from their planned
shopping paths can increase unplanned spending. In an online shopping setting,
Brasel and Gips
[25] focused on
shopping on mobile devices and specifically on how touching products can
increase feelings of psychological ownership and endowment. This is an
interesting contribution because work on how consumers physically interface
with mobile devices and how that influences decision making is scant but, as
this article showed, important. Unrelated to shopping is work by Bart et al.
[26] that considered
how mobile display ads—which are very small and carry very little
information—influence consumers’ brand attitudes and purchase intentions. They
found that in many product categories mobile display ads have no effect, but
that they do lift attitudes and intentions for high-involvement, utilitarian
products. Online WOM and Reviews WOM is the most-represented topic in digital
and social marketing research, which is unsurprising given the reliance
consumers seem to have on socially sourced online information. A number of
sub-themes were covered recently. First, an interesting set of articles
considered linguistic properties of online WOM and/or reviews
[27-33], generally
showing how perceptions of reviews and how influential they are can depend on
subtle language-based properties. For instance, Kronrod and Danziger
[27] showed that
figurative. language in online reviews positively affected consumer attitudes
and choice for hedonic goods. Moore
[28] considered
explanatory language in online reviews, finding that whether consumers
explained actions or reactions affected perceived review helpfulness. Hamilton
et al.
[29] considered
negative WOM, finding that using softening language when conveying negative
opinions I don’t want to be negative, but increases perceived reviewer
credibility and likability. Tang et al.
[30] considered two
kinds of neutral language, mixed (positive and negative) versus indifferent.
They show that mixed neutral indifferent WOM amplifies effects of WOM on
purchasing. Ludwig et al.
[31] studied affective
language in reviews and examined how a review with linguistic style that is consistent
with the typical linguistic style used for that product group influenced sales,
finding that positive affect increases conversions (but at a diminishing rate),
negative affect decreases conversions, and congruent linguistic styles are
beneficial. Chen and Lurie
[32] examined temporal
contiguity language in online reviews finding that consumers discount positive
reviewer opinions less if the experience was seemingly recent. Another
important topic recently examined is differences between online and offline
WOM. Lovett et al. [33] found that online WOM is driven by social and
functional brand characteristics whereas offline WOM is driven by emotional
brand characteristics. Eisingerich et al.
[34] studied
differences between transmitting WOM in social media versus offline. showing
that consumers are less inclined to transmit WOM in social media because of a
higher perceived social risk. Finally, other recent articles considered
additional online WOM-related issues. For instance, He and Bond
[35] considered when
online reviews provide good versus bad forecasts of consumer brand enjoyment,
finding that the forecast error/discpreancy depends on the degree to which a
reviewer’s and consumer’s preferences are similar. Cascio et al.
[36] identified neural
correlates of susceptibility to others’ opinions in online WOM settings, with
susceptibility to social influence being related to brain regions involved with
shifting personal preferences and considering others. He and Bond
[37] focused on sets of
online reviews and 10 considered how
consumers interpret opinion dispersion and whether it is attributed to the
product or to reviewers’ tastes being heterogeneous. Anderson and Simester
[38] documented the
prevalence of deceptive reviews posted by people who have not purchased a
product, suggesting that the practice is not limited to competitors but
includes existing customers with no financial incentive to bias online ratings.
Finally, Barasch and Berger
[39] examined social
transmission behavior when consumers broadcast versus narrowcast finding that
people share information that makes themselves not look bad when
broadcasting but share information that
will be helpful to receivers when narrowcasting.
The digital/social media
consumer behavior literature is fast-growing and largely focuses on phenomena
that are practically relevant and theoretically interesting. Researchers have
mostly considered how consumers use information available to them in
digital/social media environments. Future research should continue this
approach, although in a more expanded fashion. Consumers’ behaviors other than
those related to online WOM/reviews should be considered, and other types of
information found in online environments should be considered. For example, it
would be interesting to consider the complex interplay between transmitter,
receiver, linguistic/content, and context factors when it comes to antecedents
and consequences of online WOM. Another high-potential direction for future research
is to consider how various kinds of digital environments including social media
and mobile impact a wide variety of consumer outcomes, including psychological
and economic constructs. Few articles have done this, though 11 it is likely
that a multitude of consumer outcomes are influenced by the digital
environments in which they are increasingly situated. It is also possible that
some adverse consequences may be detected, similar to Wilcox and Stephen’s
finding linking Facebook use to lower self control. In addition to this, the
ways that consumers physically interact with digital environments needs deeper
exploration, given what Brasel and Gips
Found in terms of
feelings of endowment when using touch-based interfaces to shop. In studying
the impacts of digital environments on consumers, it will also be necessary to
consider longer-term responses because these effects may be subtle but
cumulatively important. Thus, one-shot experimental studies should be
complemented by longitudinal experiments and archival data capturing consumers’
digital exposures, online social interactions, and behaviors over time.
Finally, researchers should consider emerging important topics, particularly
consumer privacy issues in the context of digital marketing and social media.
Tucker considered this to an extent, though a comprehensive understanding of
how consumers think about their privacy, what they want to do to protect it,
and how they value or devalue digital media services that protect privacy is
still needed. In conclusion, there has been much recent activity in the
consumer behavior/psychology literature related to digital and social media
marketing, and many important contributions to knowledge have been made. To
move this literature forward, particularly given the fast-moving nature of
digital settings, research that attempts to broaden our understandings of key
phenomena, examines brand-new phenomena, and develops theories in an area that
lacks an established theoretical base will be most valuable.
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data from a field experiment. Personalized ads did not perform well. However, when
the website gave users more control over their personal information,
personalized ads performed better. This finding is consistent with the idea
that reactance-type responses can be mitigated by giving consumers a sense of
(perceived) control or freedom of choice.
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Response to Commercials: When the Energy Level in the Commercial Conflicts with
the Media Context,” Journal of Marketing. The authors report six studies
looking at the interplay between focal media content TV show or a movie and
digital video ads that come after viewing that content. They show that after
watching content that evokes a deactivating emotion, consumers view energetic
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deactivating emotion.
[19] Dinner, Isaac M., Van Heerde, Harald J., and Neslin, Scott A.
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[21] Lamberton, Cait Poynor, Naylor, Rebecca Walker, and Haws, Kelly L.
“Same destination, different paths: When and how does observing others' choices
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[22] Norton, David A., Lamberton, Cait Poynor, and Naylor, Rebecca Walker
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Competitive Contexts,” Journal of Consumer Research.
[23] Wilcox, Keith, and Stephen, Andrew T. “Are Close Friends the Enemy?
Online Social Networks, Self-Esteem, and Self-Control,” Journal of Consumer
Research. The authors show that using Facebook, even for just five minutes, can
potentially lower subsequent self-control in unrelated tasks persistence with a
mentally challenging task, healthy food choices. This effect occurs when
consumers’ Facebook “friends” are mostly strong ties more close friends than
acquaintances, and, perversely, occurs because time on Facebook being exposed
to the lives of one’s reasonably close friends boosts self-esteem which in turn
lowers self-control.
[24] Hui, Sam K., Inman, J. Jeffrey, Huang, Yanliu, and Suher, Jacob “The
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Promotion Strategies,” Journal of Marketing.
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touchpads: How varying touch interfaces trigger psychological ownership and
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interfaces—e.g., iPhones, iPads—impact online shopping behavior by enhancing
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perceptions of psychological ownership for products when browsing online. This
effect is stronger for products with high haptic importance products where
touching/feeling them is important in the evaluation.
[26] Bart, Yakov, Stephen, Andrew
T., and Sarvary, Miklos “Which Products Are Best Suited to Mobile Advertising?
A Field Study of Mobile Display Advertising Effects on Consumer Attitudes and
Intentions,” Journal of Marketing Research. A study of 54 mobile display ad
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mobile display ads only positively affect brand favorability and purchase
intention for products that are both utilitarian and high involvement financial
services. The authors explain that this could be because these types of
products trigger more deliberate “central route” processing following the
elaboration likelihood model that leads to greater persuasive effectiveness.
[27] Kronrod, Ann, and Danziger,
Shai “Wii Will Rock You! The Use and Effect of Figurative Language in Consumer
Reviews of Hedonic and Utilitarian Consumption.
[28] Moore, Sarah G. “Attitude
Predictability and Helpfulness in Online Reviews: The Role of Explained Actions
and Reactions,” Journal of Consumer Research. The author examines one type of
linguistic property of online reviews, the use of explanations by review
authors. Explanations can be about actions such as why a consumer decided to
buy the brand, or reactions such as why they feel the way they do about the
brand. It is found that reviews for utilitarian products have more action
explanations, whereas for hedonic products it is the opposite more reaction
explanations. When utilitarian products reviews have action reaction explanations,
they lead to higher review helpfulness perceptions, predictability of product
attitudes, and, ultimately, product choice.
[29] Hamilton, Ryan, Vohs, Kathleen D., and McGill “We'll Be Honest, This
Won't Be the Best Article You'll Ever Read: The Use of Dispreferred Markers in
Word-ofMouth Communication.
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C., Wetzels, Martin, and Pfann, Gerard “More Than Words: The Influence of
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[32] Chen, Zoey, and Lurie,
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Word of Mouth,” Journal of Marketing Research. The authors used a dataset
featuring both online and offline WOM for approximately 600 brands, which were
characterized on 13 different dimensions. These were grouped into social,
emotional, and functional drivers of WOM. They found that the most important
driver of offline WOM is emotional brand characteristics. Social and functional
characteristics, however, were found to be the most important drivers of online
WOM.
[34] Eisingerich, Andreas B., Chun, HaeEun, Liu, Yeyi, Jia, He, and Bell,
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How Audience Size Affects What People Share.
