The Effects of Online Review Message Appeal and Online Review Source Across Two Product Types on Review Credibility, Product Attitude, and Purchase Intention

摘要

The study reported in this paper investigated the effects of online review message appeal and online review source type on review credibility perception, product attitude, and purchase intention across two types of products, namely technical and non-technical. A between-respondent 2 (message appeal: rational vs emotional) x 2 (online review source: experts vs consumers) experiment was implemented with 294 online consumers from Java, Indonesia. Results of analyses indicate that message appeal has a main effect on review credibility (for both technical and non-technical products) and product attitude (for a technical product). However, review source type has no significant effects on all dependent variables. Furthermore, the use of a rational appeal by expert reviewers resulted in higher review credibility perception than the use of a rational appeal by consumers as reviewers; while expert reviews with emotional appeals are regarded less credible than consumer-based reviews with emotional appeals. This interaction effect, however, is present in the non-technical product context only.