ABSTRACT

Website reviews in support of technological products often assume a rational buying process and provide fact-based content consisting of expert reviews that emphasise technical specification. However, Narrative Paradigm Theory suggests that consumers think narratively rather than argumentatively. Therefore, it is likely that story-form content may result in stronger narrative believability and purchase intention and that this effect may be influenced by different degrees of objective product knowledge. To investigate these outcomes, fact-based and story-form website content is used in an experiment featuring smart TVs. Participants are allocated to treatment groups and complete an identical questionnaire that captures objective knowledge, narrative believability, and purchase intention. MANCOVA via multivariate generalized linear modelling is employed to determine the effect of the treatment on the investigated outcomes. We find that story-form content has a stronger impact on narrative believability and purchase intention when controlling for objective knowledge.

摘要

支持技术产品的网站评论通常假设一个合理的购买过程，并提供基于事实的内容，其中包括强调技术规格的专家评论。然而，叙事范式理论表明，消费者以叙事而非争论的方式思考。因此，故事形式的内容可能会导致更强的叙事可信度和购买意愿，并且这种效果可能受到不同程度的客观产品知识的影响。为了调查这些结果，基于事实和故事形式的网站内容被用于智能电视的实验中。参与者被分配到治疗组并完成一份相同的问卷，该问卷包含客观知识、叙述可信度和购买意图。采用多元广义线性模型的 MANCOVA 来确定治疗对研究结果的影响。我们发现，在控制客观知识时，故事形式的内容对叙事可信度和购买意愿的影响更大。