Asymmetric Effects of Online Consumer

Question: Discuss about the Asymmetric Effects of Online Consumer. Answer: Introduction: Marketers nowadays tend to change the business trend of advertising their products. Online reviews are responsible for affecting the mindset of the consumers while purchasing a product. Consumers nowadays believe in online reviews, ratings, and word of mouth more than the company advertising does. For instance, it can be said that more than 88% of the consumers trust on online ratings and reviews like that of recommendations of closed ones in case of purchase decisions. It can be said that more than half of the consumers i.e. approximately 53% of the consumers search for local businesses at least once in a month for online reviews regarding a product. Research has also illustrated the fact that 64% of the consumers are supposed to write online reviews of the product they have bought. Approximately 63% of the consumers use different search engines for online reviews. Apart from the advertising part, the star rating of a business is more important nowadays for a consumer to trust a com pany. Over a few decades, the explosion of consumer generated media and social networks has been responsible for creating a significant impact on the decision making process apart from the word of mouth promotion. Many advertising report has found the fact that consumers has selected online customer reviews as the second most trusted aspect about purchasing products and trusting a brand. 92% of the consumers have trusted online media reviews like that of the word of mouth promotion. When it comes to traditional media 47% of the consumers trust television, 47% of them trust magazine. The percentage has declined over 25% from the year 2011. 42% of the consumers trust on radio advertisement and 40% of them trust in TV program product placement. One third of the total global consumers trusts on display advertisement like banner advertisements and video advertisements over mobile advertisement. The mobile phones advertisement popularity declined compared to traditional advertisement. It is seen that the user generated content like reviews, blogs and comments are considered as the digital interaction with the customer of the brand. Companies are increasingly include content marketing as the part of their marketing plan. It can be seen that 70% of the consumers trust reviews over user-generated content, over sales spiel of the companies in order to purchase goods. However, it can be said that the word of mouth promotion is also considered as a vital promotion for the engagement of different types of products and services. The companies are focusing on the engagement of the followers in different social media websites and different types of other local portals that contains user reviews and ratings regarding a product. The companies offer various types of promotional activities in digital media where the customers can avail them. On the other hand, the companies are not engaging any type of promotional activities with the customers. Online reviews nowadays are considered as the most important source of collecting information for the consumers. The article illustrates the fact that most of the travelling website of the world runs with the popularity of the online ratings and reviews of the customers. Nowadays hardly any consumers are addicted to TV especially to the television advertisement. Most of the viewers of the television usually ignore the television advertisement that runs on the TV. Apart from that, the research data points out the fact that the different types of consumers across the world prefer online reviews for selecting traveller website for booking trips and tours across the world. The importance of the consumer reviews consists of two categories i.e. provider reviews and the user reviews. Some factors are present in the online advertisement but are not present in the traditional advertisement of the companies. The factors are expertise, identity disclosure, reputation, readability reviews, etc. that influences the product sales and consumer decision making process. In this article, it is described that traditional advertising is responsible for maintaining one-way communication between the consumers and the companies. On the other hand, online consumer reviews are responsible for changing the completely marketing pattern for the companies across the world. The multinational channels use mass communication channels like brand endorsement strategies. However, viewers do not rely fully on the advertisement. To confirm the message conveyed by the brand in the advertisement, consumers ask for help or feedback of the products to their closed ones. Secondly, they opt for online reviews in order to watch movies, purchasing products, joining sports club, etc. There is a chance of misguidance of the viewers of a website by reading the reviews of the company related to the product. The customer reviews in many cases can cause the damage of the brand reputation in the market. Recommendations from others act as a more powerful marketing tool than the actual advertising messages of the company portrayed in the traditional media. Reference List Turton, S. (2017).Reviews, tweets, Instagram posts: why customers are the new marketers. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/2015/sep/17/reviews-tweets-instagram-customers-marketers [Accessed 19 Apr. 2017]. Park, S. and Nicolau, J.L., 2015. Asymmetric effects of online consumer reviews.Annals of Tourism Research,50, pp.67-83. Maslowska, E., Malthouse, E.C. and Bernritter, S.F., 2017. Too good to be true: the role of online reviews features in probability to buy.International Journal of Advertising,36(1), pp.142-163. Zhang, K.Z., Cheung, C.M. and Lee, M.K., 2014. Examining the moderating effect of inconsistent reviews and its gender differences on consumers online shopping decision.International Journal of Information Management,34(2), pp.89-98. Rijk, J. (2017). [online] Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/8-10-consumers-trust-online-reviews-much-more-than-half-joop-rijk [Accessed 19 Apr. 2017]. Maslowska, E., Malthouse, E.C. and Bernritter, S.F., 2017. Too good to be true: the role of online reviews features in probability to buy.International Journal of Advertising,36(1), pp.142-163. Park, S. and Nicolau, J.L., 2015. Asymmetric effects of online consumer reviews.Annals of Tourism Research,50, pp.67-83. Rijk, J. (2017). [online] Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/8-10-consumers-trust-online-reviews-much-more-than-half-joop-rijk [Accessed 19 Apr. 2017]. Turton, S. (2017).Reviews, tweets, Instagram posts: why customers are the new marketers. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/2015/sep/17/reviews-tweets-instagram-customers-marketers [Accessed 19 Apr. 2017]. Zhang, K.Z., Cheung, C.M. and Lee, M.K., 2014. Examining the moderating effect of inconsistent reviews and its gender differences on consumers online shopping decision.International Journal of Information Management,34(2), pp.89-98.