Self-Generated Advertisements: Testimonials and the Perils of Consumer Exaggeration

TLDR

Traditional and viral marketing campaigns often ask consumers to write personal testimonials about their brand experiences. The study investigates whether testimonial writing merely reflects existing attitudes or actively enhances brand evaluations, and whether exaggeration of testimonials undermines this effect. Researchers examined testimonial writing in three studies, measuring brand evaluations and assessing the impact of consumers’ tendency to exaggerate their statements. Testimonials generally bias consumers positively, but when consumers exaggerate their statements, the positive effect on brand evaluations diminishes.

Abstract

<h3>ABSTRACT</h3> Various forms of traditional promotions (e.g., free-standing inserts) as well as newer versions of viral marketing campaigns ask consumers to write personal testimonials about their brand-related experiences. In the present research we pose this question: does the act of testimonial writing simply record the consumer9s extant attitude toward the brand or does this act serve as a form of self-generated advertising with the power to positively impact that attitude? Results from three studies reveal that testimonials do in fact positively bias consumers9 evaluative judgments. However, testimonial promotions can be a double-edged sword: the positive effects induced by testimonial writing may be counteracted if testifiers feel obligated—due to the probabilistic prizes that motivate them to write testimonials—to exaggerate their testimonial statements. This research explores testimonial writing as a path to enhance brand evaluations and focuses on whether consumers9 natural tendencies to exaggerate their testimonials might mitigate these evaluations. We find that, indeed, brand evaluations suffer when consumers exaggerate their testimonial statements.