David Alexander, associate professor of marketing at the Opus College of Business, recently co-wrote an article for The Wall Street Journal, “When Positive Word-of-Mouth Can Have Negative Consequences.” In the piece, he does a deep dive into his recent research, homing in on social pressures surrounding consumerism.
From the article:
We found that it all comes down to social pressure.
In short, as adopters hear more positive word-of-mouth from others about a new product (“This app is awesome!!”), it makes them both more likely to buy and more likely to worry that they won’t be able to use the app as well as other people. Will they be able to experience its full awesomeness? Ironically, this worry and caution makes them less likely to fully explore and learn the app, making their experience with the app less positive overall.
What’s more, this phenomenon isn’t limited to technology products. For example, in one study we asked participants to imagine going to try a new and unusual type of cuisine after hearing lots of great things about the restaurant (or not). Again, we found that hearing more positive word-of-mouth ahead of time made participants worry about how their experience would be – and this made them order more cautiously.
So how can companies retain the benefits of positive word-of-mouth but avoid the downsides we observe?
One possible answer is to avoid emphasizing performance and competence in their advertising – and encouraging consumers spreading word-of-mouth to do the same.
