Is a Picture Always Worth a Thousand Words? Attention to Structural Elements of eWOM for Consumer Brands within Social Media

Consumer attention has long been known to influence evaluations of, and responses to, advertising stimuli in meaningful ways (e.g., Krugman, 1971; Morrison & Dainoff, 1972). Indeed, behavioral eye-tracking studies have been utilized for quite some time to link attention to outcomes of interest such as product recognition (Kroeber-Riel & Barton, 1980), recall (Krugman, Fox, Fletcher, Fischer, & Rojas, 1994; Rosbergen, Pieters, & Wedel, 1997), and product sales (Treistman & Gregg, 1979). Although tremendous insights have been gained from this work, the context of consumer attention has changed dramatically in at least two ways that necessitate novel exploration. First, the emergence of social media (e.g., Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest) has created a context where massive amounts of image and text-based messages compete for consumer attention like never before. According to a recent report (Bennett, 2012), consumers share more than 600,000 pieces of content and create over 25,000 social media posts every sixty seconds. In such an over-saturated environment, text and image elements must compete to get noticed at all. This is significant because in order for message elements to have an impact on consumers (i.e., make a difference), they must first be noticed. Yet, attention is typically studied in offline contexts, such as print (e.g., Lohse, 1997; Pieters & Wedel, 2004), where the number of visual and textual stimuli competing to get noticed is substantially more limited. Second, the growing influence of consumer-generated electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) has given consumers an unprecedented stake in product advertising (Chu & Kim, 2011; Riegner, 2007; Zhang & Daugherty, 2009; Henning-Thurau, Gwinner, Walsh, & Gremle, 2004). In general, word-of-mouth (WOM) is a critical component of marketing (Brown & Reigen, 1987; Buttle, 1998) with user-generated reviews perceived as more credible and less biased than company-generated advertising (Dellarocas, 2003; Ha, 2006; Keller, 2007; Phelps, Lewis, Mobilio, Perry, & Ramman, 2004). In fact, new customer acquisition (Doyle, 1998), increased sales (Chevalier & Mayzlin, 2006), and product-use decisions (Foster & Rosenzweig, 1995; Godes & Mayzlin, 2004) have all been directly linked to WOM communication. Marketers now have the opportunity to initiate and influence WOM unlike ever before on a large scale quickly and efficiently. Subsequently, interest has grown regarding the conditions that dictate whether or not consumers pay attention to WOM (Daugherty and Hoffman in press). One area of consumer attention that is broadly affected by these changes pertains to structural differences in message presentation, including the strategic use of image versus text-based elements. In traditional offline contexts, where advertising is driven by corporate marketing, image-based elements have been shown to capture attention more than text (e.g., Pieters & Wedel, 2004). However, this may not always be the case in social media contexts where product reviews are consumer-driven, creating an element of uncertainty regarding message valence. In particular, the emergence of negative word-of-mouth (NWOM) introduces the possibility of product reviews being harmful as opposed to promotional. To further explore these dynamics, we first review the existing literature regarding consumer attention to structural elements of eWOM. We then provide a theoretical rationale for presuming that a more complex relationship unfolds in a social media environment where product information is consumer-generated. A series of testable hypotheses are presented, and an eye-tracking study is undertaken to better understand how visual elements, message valence and brand type interact to influence consumer attention within social media. Implications and managerial recommendations are then discussed on the basis of our findings.