consumer’s blog credibility and attitude toward blogger’s ... · experience goods,...

Consumer’s blog credibility and attitudetoward blogger’s recommended brand:

The effects of perceived blogger’sexpertise, trustworthiness, and product

type

Euna Park∗1 and Bora Kim2

1,2Department of Psychology, Daegu University,Jilyang,Gyeongsan, Gyeongbuk, 38453, Republic of Korea

[email protected]∗1

[email protected]

Abstract

Background/Objectives: Thecurrentstudy examinedthe effects of product type, blogger’s trustworthiness, andexpertise on consumer’s blog credibility, attitude toward therecommended brand and purchase intention.

Methods/Statistical analysis: This study used a prod-uct type (experience goods/ search goods) x trustworthiness(high/low) x expertise (high/low) experimental design anda total 371 college student samples (33% male, 67% female,mean age= 22.5) to examine consumer’s blog credibility,attitude toward the recommended product, and purchaseintention. Data analysis was conducted using the SPSS win-dow package 20.0 version and M-plus 6.02 version.

Findings: The results suggest sponsorship itself doesnot affect blog’s trustworthiness, and perceived expertiseand trustworthiness of the blog post affect to blog credi-bility.Although sponsored blog posts are often consideredto be ineffective because of low believability, the resultsof this study revealed that there is no significant differ-ence on trustworthiness between sponsored blog post and

International Journal of Pure and Applied MathematicsVolume 120 No. 6 2018, 5471-5486ISSN: 1314-3395 (on-line version)url: http://www.acadpubl.eu/hub/Special Issue http://www.acadpubl.eu/hub/

5471

non-sponsored blog post. Consumers are influenced not bysponsorship itself but by perception of the degree of trust-worthiness of the blog post. Also, for both product types,blog trustworthiness has a greater impact on blog credibil-ity than expertise does. This means that the genuinenessof the blog’s message is more important than expertise forconsumers to trust blogs.More importantly, trustworthinesshas more effect than expertise on blog credibility, attitudetoward recommended brand, and purchase intention in ex-perience goods than search goods.

Improvements/Applications:It is important for blog-gers to appeal that they are providing honest reviews andaccurate information about the products regardless of thesponsorship rather than hiding the fact about sponsorship.

Key Words : Blog marketing, Trustworthiness, Exper-tise, Blog credibility, Attitude toward recommended brand,Purchase intention.

1 Introduction

Along with the development of the internet, blogs havedevelopedas well.Because blogs have a strong electronic word of mouse (e-WOM) effect, blogs are now more than just a space for recordingand sharing personal interests and have further become an effectivemarketing toolfor companies.Since 2014,the South Korean govern-ment requiresthat blogs state its sponsorship by companies in theirposts. Some researchers have claimed that the sponsored blogs arenot as effective due to a doubt of their authenticity[1].In the view-point of persuasion theory, the persuasiveness of message is deter-mined by the credibilityof message source, and blogs sponsored bycompanies can be suspected of their credibility which is formedby perceived expertise and trustworthiness of the message source.Thus, the persuasion effect of sponsored blog posts is questionable[2].Once the authenticity of sponsored blogs which are given mon-etary or non-monetary reward from company can be doubted byconsumers, the persuasiveness of sponsored blogs is expected to bedetermined by the degrees ofexpertise.That is, the credibility of blogpost depends on the consumer’s perception of blogger’s trustworthi-ness and expertise. Blog credibility would influence the formation

International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics Special Issue

5472

of positive attitude toward the recommended brand and purchaseintention. In online shopping situation, there are already a lot ofstudies that ordinary consumers’ online review has a stronger per-suasion effect than a review provided by a company[3]. As factorsrelated to the effectiveness of the online reviews, the valence of thereview(positive/negative content), quantity of reviews, and morehave been studied [4]. If the persuasion effect of individual’s non-sponsored blogs is strongerthan the reviews provided by companiesbecause the individual’s blogposts are perceived as more truthfulby online users, thenthe persuasiveness of sponsored blog posts isexpected to be determined more by expertise than trustworthiness.However, the relative effect of trustworthiness and expertise on blogpost’s persuasiveness still remains untested. This study examinesthe effect of blog post’s perceived expertiseand trustworthiness onblog credibility and attitude toward the recommended brand. How-ever, blog’s persuasion effect is expected to vary depending on prod-uct type. Product type is a variable that affects online consumerbehavior, and consumers have more favorable attitude toward blogposts of search goods than experience goods [2]. So, we expect thatblog posts’ persuasion effect of expertise and trustworthiness willbe moderated by product type.

Source credibility can be defined as the degree of receiver’s ac-ceptance of a message affected by certain characteristics of themessage source [5,6].Factors that form source credibility are exper-tise and trustworthiness, and because the way consumers perceivesource credibility influences their attitude and behavioral intention,researchers have considered source credibility an important factor.Once consumers realize a message source is providing informationfor its beneficial gain, they begin to doubt the source’s trustworthi-ness. Thus, consumers are more likely to consider sponsored blogsless trustworthy and form low source credibility[7]. Because thetrustworthiness of sponsored blogs is already weakened for onlineconsumers, expertise of the blogs will have a relatively stronger ef-fect on blog credibility formation. As another factor influencingthe formation of blog credibility, it is important thatthe online con-sumers perceive blogger’s expertise. Source expertise can be definedas receiver’s judgment of how knowledgeable the message source is[8]. The higher the perceived source expertise, the higher is sourcecredibility, and so is the receiver’s acceptance of message. However,


5473

the anonymous nature of online context can make it hard to eval-uate a blogger’s expertise. Therefore, consumers will perceive thedegree of the blogger’s expertise by the blog contents.According tothe studies on online consumer reviews, which have similar market-ing effect as blog posts, the credibility of the online reviews increasesas consumers perceive the reviews to be more objective and expert,and this higher credibility increases marketing effect [2, 9, 10]. Asshown, online reviews and blog posts create e-WOM effects by pro-viding their personal usage experience to other consumers and af-fect consumer’s brand attitude and purchase intention[11, 12]. Ascompany’s blog marketing is becoming increasingly prevalent, thisstudy wants to further investigate whether consumers trust spon-sored blogs and whether trustworthiness or expertise of blog postshas a stronger effect on persuasiveness of the blog. Thus, we hy-pothesize the following:

H1. Consumers’ perception of the trustworthiness of blog postwill be different depending on the sponsorship. That is, spon-sored blog post has been perceived lower trustworthiness than non-sponsored blog post.

H2-1. Perceived trustworthiness of the blog will positively af-fect blog persuasiveness (blog credibility, attitude towards recom-mended brand, and purchase intention).

H2-2. Perceived expertise of the blog will positively affectblogpersuasiveness (blog credibility, attitude towards recommended brand,and purchase intention).

There are many study results that show product type affectspurchase decision when consumers shop online [2,13,14]. Generally,product type can be classified as either search goods or experi-ence goods depending on whether consumers can gather informa-tion about the product’s quality and attributes. For search goods,the information of product’s attribute is objective and easy to at-tain, so the evaluation of search goods is possible before purchase[13]. Camera, cellphone, and other electronic devices are good ex-amples of search goods. On the other hand, the information andobjective evaluation of experience goods are hard to attain untilpurchase and usage [14]. Clothing, perfume, and package tours aretypical examples of experience goods. Consumer’s online informa-


5474

tion search behavior differ greatly for search goods and experiencegoods.Based on previous studies, consumers rely more on onlinereviews and blog posts when searching for search goods informa-tion than for experience goods[2]. These study results demonstratethat because the features and characteristics of search goods aremore objective than those of experience goods, consumers assumethese online reviews and usage experience will be more objectiveand generalized. In addition, since the features of search goods aremore objective and consistent than experience goods, consumerswill perceive that the online blog posts of search goods can pro-vide more objective information than those of experience goods.Therefore, the more accurate information on the blog is, the higheris the degree of perceived expertise, and the more consumer willtrust the blog. However, for experience goods, message source’spersonal and subjective experience of the product can greatly in-fluence the evaluation of product. Therefore, how influential onlinereviews or blog posts are will depend on online consumers’ perceivedtrustworthiness of these reviews. Consumers need to rely on sub-jective evaluations of individual bloggers because they do not haveobjective information about the products. Therefore, not only con-sumers’ perceiving the expertise of blog posts, but also perceivedtrustworthiness of blog posts on product review will be crucial informing blog credibility especially for experience goods.Thus, wehypothesize the following:

H3. The effect of the blog’s expertise and trustworthiness onblog credibility will be different by the product type. That is, forexperience goods, blogger’s trustworthiness will affect the blog cred-ibility more than blogger’s expertise. But, for search goods, theblog credibility will be more influenced by blogger’s expertise thantrustworthiness.

Recent studies on e-WOM argue that source credibility is a ma-jor determinant of persuasion effect[3, 13, 15]. Source credibilityis the degree to which consumers accept the message while believ-ing that the source is providing unbiased and truthful informationand opinions [16]. Because the internet is open to any uncertainand untrustworthy information, source credibility is considered es-pecially important in online context.Consumers perceived that blog


5475

post was credible, which plays an important role in consumer’s at-titude towards the recommended brandand purchase intention. Inonline shopping context, as the antecedent factor of brand attitudeformation, the credibility of the social media is the mediating vari-able to brand attitude and purchase intention.For online shopping,consumer’s attitude toward blog post has an effect on the attitudetoward a recommended brand and purchase intention[9,17].Thus,we hypothesize:

H4. Blog credibility will mediate the relationship of blog’sexpertise, trustworthiness, and attitude toward the recommendedbrand, and thus affect attitude towards the recommended brandand purchase intention.

2 Materials and Methods

2.1 Materials & Experiment Design

2.1.1 Stimulus Materials

Based on pretest (n=50), search good was selected as smart phone,and experience good was selected as sunscreen. Blog’s trustwor-thiness is manipulated by the recommendation post’s sponsorship,and blog posts’ expertise is manipulated by the contents of recom-mendation message.

2.1.2 Experimental Design

This study used a product type (experience goods/ search goods)× trustworthiness (high/low) × expertise (high/low) experimentaldesign and a total 371 college student samples (33% male, 67%female, mean age= 22.5) to examine consumer’s blog credibility,attitude toward the recommendedbrand, and purchase intention.Participants characteristics can be seen in Table 1.


5476

2.2 Measurement & Analysis

2.2.1 Measurement

The construct of blog post’s expertise was measured using 3-itemscales made by authors based on previous study [18]. Blog post’strustworthiness was measured using 3-item scales, blog credibil-ity wasalso measured using 3-item scales[19,20]. Attitude towardrecommended brand and purchase intention were measured with3-item scales [21]. Product involvement, as covariate variable, wasmeasured by 5-items of Personal Involvement Inventory [22]. Allmeasurements used 7 point likert scale. All measurements itemsandrelated statistics were presented in table 2.

2.2.2 Analysis

Data analysis was conducted using the SPSS window package 20.0version and M-plus 6.02 version.

3 Results and Discussion

3.1 Manipulation Check

To check the manipulation of the levels of the respondents’ percep-tion of expertise, three items were used with 7-point likert scale. Re-sults from the t-test revelaed that the group exposed high expertiseblog posts rated the expertise higher than the group exposed to lowexpertise blog posts (Mhigh =4.34, Mlow =3.09, t=9.74, p<.001).Also, to check the manipulation of the respondents’ recognition ofblog sponsorship, one item was used with 7-point likert scale. Thequestion was “Did you notice that this post had been written afterusing the product received from a company?” in case of sponsoredblog. In case of non-sponsored blog, the question item was “Did


5477

you notice that this post had been written after using the productpersonally purchased by the blogger? Results from the one samplet-test showed that the sponsored group recognized that blog hadbeen sponsored (Mspon =5.34, t(1, 186)=7.925, p<.001) and thatthe non-sponsored group recognized that blog had not sponsored(Mnon−spon=4.97, t(1,183)=6.293, p<.001). These results suggestthat the expertise manipulation and sponsorship manipulation weresuccessful. Also, to control the levels of product involvement ofeach group, five items were used with semantic differential scale.Results from the ANOVA showed that the eight groups did notdiffer in their involvement level (F(1, 362)=3.33, p>.05).

3.2 Hypothesis Testing

T-test, correlation analysis, and M-plus structural equation modelwere used to test the proposed hypotheses. T-test was perforemedto test H1, which predicted that sponsored blog post will be per-ceived to have lower trustworthiness than non-sponsored blog post.


5478

There is no statistically significant difference in respondents’ per-ception of the blog’s trustworthiness depending on between two con-ditions of sponsorship (t(1, 369)=1.869, p>.05). It means that therespondents didn’t perceive of the blog’s trustworthiness as higheron non-sponsored blog posts (M=3.64) than sponsored blog posts(M=3.43) regardless of product type. Thus, H1 is rejected.

H2 proposed that the perceived trustworthiness and expertiseof the blog will positively correlate with blog persuasiveness. Table3 presents the correlation result and shows that the trustworthi-ness and expertise of blog correlate with blog credibility, attitudetowards the recommended brand, and purchase intention. This re-sult supports H2-1 and H2-2.

H3 predicted that the effect of the blog’s expertise and trust-worthiness on blog credibility will be different by the product type.M-plus structural equation model result shown in Table 4 demon-strates that the blog trustworthiness and expertise would affectconsumers’ blog credibility. For each structural equation models ofexperience goods and search goods, the theoretical model fit was ac-ceptable as seen in table 4. The result of structural equation modelin experience goods, the ratio of chi square to degrees of freedom(x2/df) was 1.64, RMSEA was .059, CFI was .979, SRMR was .049.The result of search goods, the ratio of chi square to degrees of free-dom (x2/df) was 2.32, RMSEA was .084, CFI was .959, SRMR was.051.A good data-model fit in the structural equation is requiredto meet at least two of the following four criteria: goodness-of-fitindex (GFI) >.90, comparative fit index (CFI) >.90, root meansquare error of approximation (RMSEA) <.05, and ration of chisquare to degrees of freedom (x2/df) < 2.0 [23]. RMSEA < .05indicates a good fit, between .05 and .08 indicates a relatively goodfit, and between .08 and .10 indicates an ordinary fit [24]. Resultsfrom structural equation model in this study were met these cri-


5479

teria, so these two structural equation model of experience goodsand search goods are acceptable. As it can be seen in Figure 1and Figure 2, for experience goods, the effect of trustworthiness(r = .720, p < .001) on blog credibility is higher than the effect ofexpertise (r = .321, p < .001) on blog credibility. Also, for searchgoods, the effect of trustworthiness (r = .560, p < .001) on blogcredibility is higher than the effect of expertise (r = .371, p < .001)on blog credibility. Accordingly, H3 is partially supported by theresults of this study.

H4 expected that blog credibility will mediate the relationshipof the blog’s expertise, trustworthiness, and recommended product,and thus also affect attitude towards the product and its purchaseintention. Table 5 shows that the effects of blog trustworthiness andexpertise on attitude towards recommended brand are mediated byblog credibility. As shown in figure 1 and 2, in the case of bothexperience and search goodsthe relative effect of trustworthiness onblog credibility is higher (beta = .433, p < .0001; beta = .327, p <.0001) than the effect of expertise (beta = .204, p < .001; beta =.179, p < .001). Another important result is that the paths tothe brand attitude and purchase intention without passing throughblog credibility are not significant. The results of this study confirmthat attitude towards recommended brand is formed favorably, andpurchase intention is formed by blog credibility. Accordingly, H4 issupported.

4 Conclusion

In order to examine the persuasion effect of blog post, this researchinvestigated whether the trustworthiness of sponsored blog post is


5480

Figure 1: Structural Model and Corresponding path Coeffi-cients(Experience Goods)

Figure 2: Structural Model and Corresponding path Coeffi-cients(Search Goods)

perceived more negatively than that of non-sponsored blog post. Inaddition, we investigated the relative effect of perceived trustwor-thiness and expertise on blog credibility and also how the relativeeffect differs depending on product type.

First, Previous studies have claimed that sponsored blogs are in-effective because they are perceived as untrustworthy by consumers.However, the results of this study revealed that there is no signifi-cant difference in perceived trustworthiness between sponsored blogpost and non-sponsored blog post. That is, previous researcheshaveconceptualized company’s sponsorship of blogs as immediateloss of authenticity, but it seems that consumers separately per-ceive the trustworthiness of blogs from the fact that blogs receivedsponsorship. Because sponsored blogsstate that they have receivedsome monetary or non-monetary reward from a company in their-blog contents, consumers do not always perceive the sponsored blog


5481

asuntruthful. It means that consumers are influenced not by spon-sorship itself but by theperceived degree of trustworthiness of theblog post.

Second, perceived trustworthiness and expertise of blog postshave a positive effect on blog credibility. Also, for both producttypes, blog trustworthiness has a greater impact on blog credibil-ity than expertise does. This means that the genuineness of theblog’s message is more important than expertise for consumers totrust blogs. Furthermore, the influence of expertise and trustwor-thiness on blog credibility varied according to the product type.Specifically, for experience goods, trustworthiness (beta= .720) hasmore effect than expertise (beta= .321) on blog credibility, attitudetoward recommended brand, and purchase intention. For searchgoods, the difference of persuasion effect between trustworthiness(beta= .560) and expertise (beta= .371) is lower than experiencegoods. These results suggest that the effect of trustworthiness isless influential for search goods in comparison to experience goodsbecause the performance of search goods can be judged more ob-jectively. Unlike search goods, experience goods can be difficult toassess objectively, so the blogger’s subjective experience and eval-uation of the product vary. Thus, the trustworthiness of its reviewseems to affect blog credibility more.

Third, for both experience goods and search goods, the directeffects of expertise and trustworthiness on forming an attitude to-wards the recommended brand were not significant, but only indi-rect effects through blog credibility were significant. That is, it isvery important to ensure blog credibility in order to build a pur-chase intention with a positive attitude toward the recommendedbrand. According to these results, it is important for blog marketersand personal bloggersto appeal that they are providing honest re-views and accurate information about the products regardless ofthe sponsorship rather than hiding the fact about sponsorship.

5 Acknowledgment

This research was supported by the Daegu University ResearchGrant, 2015.


5482

References

[1] Zhu, J. Y.,& Tan, B. C. (2007). Effectiveness of blog advertis-ing: Impact of communicator expertise, advertising interest,and product involvement. Proceedings of 28th annual in-ternational conference on information systems, Mon-treal, Canada, p.121

[2] Lu, Long-Chuan,Chang, Wen-Pin, &Chang, Hsiu-Hua(2014).Consumer attitudes toward blogger’s sponsored recommenda-tions and purchase intention: The effect of sponsorship type,product type, and brand awareness. Computers in HumanBehavior, 34, 258-266.doi :10.1016/j.chb.2014.02.007.

[3] Dou, X., Walden, J. A., Lee, S., & Lee, J. Y. (2012). Doessource matter? Examining source effects in online product re-view. Computers in Human Behavior, 28, 1555-1563.doi:10.1016/j.chb.2012.03.015.

[4] Duan, W., Gu, B., & Whinstone, A. B. (2008). The dynamicsof online word-of-mouth and product sales: An empirical in-vestigation of the movie industry. Journal of Retailing, 84,233-242.doi :10.1016/j.jretai.2008.04.005.

[5] Hovland, C. I., & Weiss, W. (1951). The influence of sourcecredibility on communication effectiveness. Public OpinionQuarterly, 15(4), 635-650.doi :10.1086/266350.

[6] Ohanian, R. (1991). The impact of celebrity spokespersons’perceived image on consumers’ intention to purchase. Journalof Advertising Research, 31(1), 46-54.

[7] Rifon, N. J., Chio, S. M., Trimble, C. S., &Li , H. (2004).Congruence effects in sponsorship: The Mediating Role ofSponsor Credibility and Consumer Attributions of Spon-sor Motive. Journal of Advertising, 33(1), 29-42.doi:10.1080/00913367.2004.10639151.

[8] Erdogan, B. Z. (1999). Celebrity endorsement: A literaturereview. Journal of Marketing Management, 15(3), 291-314.doi :10.1362/026725799784870379.


5483

[9] Lee, K. T., & Koo, D. M. (2012). Effects of attributeand valence of e-WOM on message adoption: Moderat-ing roles of subjective knowledge and regulatory focus.Computers in Human Behavior, 28, 1974-1984. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2012.05.018.

[10] Amos, C., Holmes, G., &Strutton, D. (2008). Celebrity en-dorser source effects and effectiveness in advertising: A quanti-tatively synthesis. International Journal of Advertising,27, 209-234.doi :10.1080/02650487.2008.11073052.

[11] Chen, Y., &Xie, J. (2008). Online customer review:Word-of-mouth as a new element of marketing communi-cation mix. Management Science, 54(3), 477-491.doi:10.1287/mnsc.1070.0810.

[12] Wei, P. S., & Lu, H.P. (2013). An examination of the celebrityendorsements and online customer reviews influence femaleconsumers’ shopping behavior. Computers in Human Be-havior, 29, 193-201. doi :10.1016/j.chb.2012.08.005.

[13] Mudambi, S. M,.&Schuff, D. (2010). What makes a helpfulonline review? A study of customer reviews on Amazon.com.MIS Quarterly, 34(1), 185-200.doi :10.2307/20721420.

[14] Weathers, D., Sharma, S.,& Woods, S.L. (2007). Ef-fects of online communication practices on consumer per-ceptions of performance uncertainty for search and ex-perience goods. Journal of Retailing, 83(4), 393-401. doi:10.1016/j.jretai.2007.03.007.

[15] Cheung, M. Y., Lou, C., Sia, C. L., & Chen, H. (2009). Cred-ibility of electronic word of mouth: Informational and nor-mative determinants of online customer recommendations. In-ternational Journal of Electronic Commerce, 13(4), 9-38.doi:10.2753/ject1086-4415130402.

[16] Haas, R. G. (1981). Effects of source characteristics on cog-nitive responses and persuasion. R. E. Petty, T. M. Ostrorm,&T.C. Brock (eds.) Cognitive Responses in Persuasion. Hills-dale, NJ: Lawrence Erbaum Associates.


5484

[17] Bouhlel, O., Mzoughi.,Ghachem, M. S., & Negra, A.(2010).Online purchase intention: Understanding the blogsphere ef-fect. International Journal of e-business Management,4(2), 37-51.doi :10.3316/IJEBM0402037.

[18] Ohanian, R. (1990). Construction and validation of a scaleto measure celebrity endorser’s perceived expertise, trustwor-thiness, and attractiveness. Journal of Advertising, 19(3),39-52.doi :10.1080/00913367.1990.10673191.

[19] Freeman, K. S., & Jan H. Spyridakis (2004). An Examinationof factors that affect the credibility of online health informa-tion. Technical Communication, 51(2), 239-263.

[20] Levin, Daniel Z., & Rob Cross (2004). The strength of weakties you can trust: The mediating role of trust in effectiveknowledge transfer. Management Science, 50(11), 1477-1490.doi :10.1287/mnsc.1030.0136.

[21] Holbrook, Morris B., & R. Batra (1987). Assessing the role ofemotions as mediators of consumer responses to advertising.The Journal of Consumer Research, 14(3), 404-420.doi:10.1086/209123.

[22] Zaichkowsky, J. L. (1988). Involvement and the price cue. Ad-vances in Consumer Research, 15, 323-327.

[23] Steiger, J. H. (1989). EzPATH: A supplementary modulefor SYSTAT and SYGRAPH. Evanston, IL.: SYSTAT.doi:10.2307/2233803.

[24] Browne, M. W., &Mels, G. (1990). RAMONA PC user’s guide.Report: Department of Statistics. Pretoria, South Africa: Hu-man Science Research Council.


5485

consumer’s blog credibility and attitude toward blogger’s ... · experience goods,...

Documents