Abstract

The phenomenon of brands making sarcastic and sometimes rude comments regarding their competitors via social media is a relatively novel and unexplored behavior, and research in this area is scarce. How consumers perceive the use of humor in brand-to-brand dialogue may have meaningful managerial implications for companies and important theoretical implications for existing theory. Thus, to understand the dyadic relationship between two brands who engage with each other on social media, we explore two different types of humorous comments (low aggression and high aggression) and how the type of humor employed affects consumers’ perceptions of both the brand initiating the dialogue and the brand that responds. Interestingly, we find that the safest strategy for brands that elect to interact with other brands on social media is to refrain from either type of humor, thus avoiding perceptions of manipulative intent. However, for brands that elect to respond to other brands, the type of humor employed can vary based on the tone of the initiating brand’s comment.

摘要

品牌通过社交媒体对其竞争对手进行讽刺甚至粗鲁评论的现象是一种相对新颖且未经探索的行为，这方面的研究很少。消费者如何看待品牌对品牌对话中幽默的使用可能对公司具有重要的管理意义，并对现有理论具有重要的理论意义。因此，为了了解在社交媒体上相互互动的两个品牌之间的二元关系，我们探索了两种不同类型的幽默评论（低攻击性和高攻击性）以及所采用的幽默类型如何影响消费者对两个品牌发起者的看法对话和回应的品牌。有趣的是，我们发现，对于选择在社交媒体上与其他品牌互动的品牌来说，最安全的策略是避免任何一种幽默，从而避免产生操纵意图。然而，对于选择回应其他品牌的品牌，所采用的幽默类型可能因发起品牌评论的语气而异。