Mikyoung Kim

Peer or expert

To promote prosocial concerns and call attention to social problems, public service advertising practitioners are increasingly trying to involve laypeople in creating and delivering persuasive campaign messages. An emerging media channel for these efforts is websites that feature user-generated content (UGC), particularly the video-sharing website YouTube. However, despite this trend, little is known about the extent to which a public service announcement (PSA) video will be more effective depending on who produced it. Accordingly, this study empirically tests the degree to which the persuasive impact of a video differs depending on whether the producer is a layperson or an expert. We draw theoretical rationales from several areas to compare the impact of a perceivably similar producer and an expert producer on attitudes towards video, issue importance and behavioural intention. We also analyse how issue involvement moderates these producer effects. Implications for consumer educators, policy makers and marketers are discussed with specific reference to social media.

Psychological Characteristics of Internet Dating Service Users: The Effect of Self-Esteem, Involvement, and Sociability on the Use of Internet Dating Services

This study explores the three major consumer characteristics that underlie the use of Internet dating services: self-esteem, involvement in romantic relationships, and sociability. A significant three-way interaction effect among these factors emerged. Among sociable people, individuals with high self-esteem are more likely to use Internet dating services than are those with low self-esteem when they are highly involved in romantic relationships. The opposite pattern was revealed for sociable people, however, when they are less involved in romantic relationships. That is, individuals with low self-esteem used Internet dating services more often than did those with high self-esteem when romantic relationships were not important. The implications for academic researchers and practitioners are discussed.

Consumer reviews: reviewer avatar facial expression and review valence

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore how the facial expression of the reviewers avatar interacts with the valence of the consumer review to influence consumer purchase decisions.Design/methodology/approach – A 2 (facial expression of the reviewers avatar)× 2 (valence of the consumer review) between‐subjects online experimental design was used.Findings – It was found that when the consumer review was positive, participants exposed to the reviewers angry‐looking avatar were more likely to attribute the review to the products performance than those exposed to the happy‐looking avatar. The causal attribution toward product performance, in turn, influenced the strength of intention to purchase the brand positively. When the consumer review was negative, however, there were no differential effects between the happy‐looking and the angry‐looking avatars.Originality/value – This study contributes to the literature on consumer reviews by identifying an important source characteristic that consumer...

When Distant Others Matter More: Perceived Effectiveness for Self and Other in the Child Abuse PSA Context

Perceived effectiveness (PE) has been studied as an important antecedent of persuasion. But judgments of PE may vary its persuasive impact depending on whom people think about as message referents. This study explores PE judgment for both self and different others as well as their independent roles in the persuasion process. Theoretical rationales are drawn from the third-person effect and its contingent concepts regarding perceived media effects. A study was conducted among 355 participants who evaluated two child abuse prevention public service announcements (PSAs). They estimated that the average American parent judged the PSAs more favorably than their close peer or themselves. Structural equation models indicate that selfs and close-peers PE judgment led to persuasion for one PSA (“Wonders”), while the targets PE judgment affected persuasion for another PSA (“Awareness”). These results suggest a potential moderating role of message characteristics in self–other PE judgments and their consequences.

Mechanisms of Child Abuse Public Service Announcement Effectiveness: Roles of Emotional Response and Perceived Effectiveness

This study tests the processes through which child abuse public service announcements (PSAs) are effective. The proposed model builds upon the persuasion mediation model of Dillard and Peck (2000), which integrates emotional response and perceived effectiveness as antecedents of issue attitudes and behavioral intention. The model tested the mediating role of perceived effectiveness in the persuasion process. Multigroup structural equation modeling was performed for three different types of child abuse prevention PSAs shown on YouTube to 486 college students. The model was well fitted across all three child abuse PSAs. Emotional response seems to exert the largest influence on behavioral intention directly and indirectly through perceived effectiveness and issue attitudes. In addition, perceived effectiveness has both a direct and an indirect impact on behavioral intention.

Brand-related user-generated content on social media: the roles of source and sponsorship

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the source of brand-related user-generated content (UGC) (a close friend vs a celebrity) interacts with content sponsorship (organic UGC vs sponsored UGC) to influence consumer causal attributions, brand attitude, and intention to comply with the recommendation. Design/methodology/approach In all, 285 college students participated in a two (source: a close friend vs a celebrity) by two (content sponsorship: organic vs sponsored) between-subjects online experimental design. Findings Results showed that recommendation from a close friend generated more information-sharing attributions and less monetary-gain attributions than did recommendation from a celebrity when the brand-related UGC was organic. In contrast, source type did not influence causal attributions differently when the UGC was sponsored. Further, this study demonstrated that both information-sharing and monetary-gain attributions mediated the effects of source type and content sponsorship on brand attitude and intention to comply with the recommendation. Originality/value This study is one of the first to examine the effectiveness of celebrities as a source of brand-related UGC. Also, this research extends the existing knowledge about source effects by examining the relative effectiveness of two sources of product information, close friends and celebrities, who have both been found to be individually effective in the traditional marketing context. Additionally, the findings of this study that the relative effectiveness of source type depends on whether brand-related UGC is sponsored or not add a further insight into how source type influences the effectiveness of brand-related UGC.

Risk communication: The roles of message appeal and coping style

We examined the main effect of message appeal (emotional and logical) and coping style (monitors and blunters) and the interaction effect between the two on risk message processing outcomes. Participants were 74 U.S. undergraduate and graduate students who read news stories about tornadoes, then rated their risk message processing outcomes. Results showed that emotional appeals led to a higher risk perception, probability of risk occurrence, and more accurate recognition memory than did logical appeals. Further, we found significant interaction effects between message appeal and coping style on risk perception. When message appeals were emotional, monitors perceived a higher risk and probability of risk occurrence than did blunters; however, when message appeals were logical, this difference between monitors and blunters disappeared. The findings suggest that (a) emotional appeals should be included in risk communication and (b) coping styles should be considered in effective risk communication.