Class discussion projects: topics, references, and structure

online consumer reviews from the consumer\'s perspective.

Online consumer reviews are often the first way that a consumer will learn about a new product or service. The pros of online consumer reviews include receiving potentially unbiased information about a product or service. The cons of online consumer reviews include their increasing lack of credibility as more companies are resorting to tactics like paying bloggers for positive product reviews, paying writers to write positive Amazon reviews, and the inability to genuinely decipher the difference between a trustworthy and untrustworthy review. Paid or compensated reviewers are becoming increasingly savvy in their presentation of material. By inserting a few objective or even critical comments amid a sea of positive information about the brand or specific product, the paid reviewer engenders trust and therefore creates an illusion of credibility. The ill informed consumer might be prone to trusting the paid reviewer because of the lack of ability to test the veracity of online consumer reviews.

In spite of the drawbacks of online reviews in terms of the potential for fakes, the benefits of online consumer reviews are tremendous from the customer\'s perspective. The customer perceives online reviews as they would a review by a trusted friend (Anderson, 2014). Edelman (2010) also notes, \"When consumers are pleased with a purchase, they\'ll advocate for it by word of mouth, creating fodder for the evaluations of others and invigorating a brand\'s potential.\" Interestingly, many consumers only begin to research their product after purchase (Edelman, 2010), meaning that some consumers are looking to verify their experiences with an online community of like-minded individual with the same purchasing interests. Consumer reviews allow for rapid differentiation between brands, so that the same product can be evaluated on different sites based on specific factors like customer service or convenience.

From a consumer\'s perspective, online reviews offer security. They help guide a decision or reinforce one that has already been made. A consumer review might sway a customer toward one brand and away from another, or it might introduce a customer to a new product or service that might have otherwise gone unaware. Therefore, the ability of reviewers to introduced new information in their copy or to provide comparison or outlinks is critical from the perspective of the brand manager. Bloggers and other professional product reviewers have the potential to steer consumer tastes in different directions. Consumer reviews also offer the consumer the opportunity to engage with infotainment, to use product reviews as a diversion even if purchasing is not actually the primary objective. Even when a consumer does not make a purchase, their impression of the brand changes because of positive consumer reviews. As a result, that individual is more likely to recommend the brand even thought they never actually made the purchase themselves -- only because they are spreading the word about something they read about online.

Sites that offer reviews only from verified buyers like Booking.com and now Amazon.com offer consumers an added sense of knowing that the information they read is trustworthy. Of course, brand managers can still manipulate product reviews by compensating reviewers and bloggers for their purchases. Relatively few consumers are going to be media savvy enough to distinguish between a credible and non-credible review, meaning that the majority of consumers will be swayed by a review either positive or negative. Whether or not the influence of a review ends up being meaningful for their purchasing decisions is irrelevant; consumers need to know what others are thinking about the products and services they are considering especially when those products are high investment options.

2. Discuss the use of online consumer reviews from the brand manager\'s perspective.

One study by Anderson (2014) shows that 88% of survey participants from the United States and Canada have read reviews to determine the quality of a local business. Almost all consumers (9 out of 10) use online reviews to determine the \"quality of a local business\" such as a restaurant, meaning that local brand managers need to pay even greater attention to the power of online reviews than large national or multinational companies. The numbers of consumers relying almost primarily on customer reviews has steadily risen too (Anderson, 2014). Therefore, any brand manager needs to understand how to capitalize on the power of online consumer reviews for boosting brand reputation and increasing brand awareness.

A brand manager needs to understand several issues before launching a brand management campaign that focuses on online consumer reviews. Online consumer reviews can be carefully crafted and manipulated by using paid or compensated reviewers, but this practice is frowned upon as \"killing consumer confidence,\" (Weinberg, 2016). According to some studies, \"Roughly 16% of restaurant reviews on Yelp are fake, according to a 2013 study. And up to 15% of all online reviews are fake,\" (Weinberg, 2016). Therefore, brand managers need to consider their online review strategy. Paying for positive online reviews by offering bloggers free products or services might seem like an attractive short-term solution for gaining brand reputation and awareness, but might backfire if the word gets out that the reviews are fake. At the same time, consumers can be sheep-like, and even fake online reviews can hold a lot of sway in the same way that inadmissible testimony once uttered in a courtroom can sway a jury.