Assessing the effect of narrative transportation, portrayed action, and photographic style on the likelihood to comment on posted selfies

Abstract

This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. action, or directed action). We also test for the boundary condition of the role of the photographic style (snapshot, professional, and "parody" selfie) on the likelihood to comment on consumer photos. Permanent repository linkFindings -Viewers are more likely to comment on photos displaying action. When these photos are selfies, the effect is exacerbated. The experience of narrative transportation-a feeling of entering a world evoked by the narrative-underlies this effect. However, if a snapshot style is used (primed or manipulated)-namely, the photographic style appears genuine, unconstructed, and natural-the superior effect of selfies disappears because of greater perceived silliness of the visualised narrative.Practical implications -Managers should try to motivate consumers to take selfies portraying action if their aim is to encourage eWOM.Social implications -Organisations can effectively use consumer photos portraying consumption for educational purpose (e.g. eating healthfully, reducing alcohol use).Originality/value -This research links consumer photos and eWOM and extends the marketing literature on visual narratives, which is mainly focused on company-rather than user-generated content.

How stories generate consumer engagement: An exploratory study

“…Further, it leads to behavioral reactions, such as a willingness to share with and recommend the content to friends or to participate in the story by performing the experiment portrayed in the ad. These results not only confirm the role of storytelling in stimulating behavioral intentions (Escalas, 2004;Van Laer et al, 2014) and E-WOM (Farace et al, 2017) but also expand previous research by showing how viewers directly endorse the branded story content by showing certain levels of support and sanctioning it.…”

“…In fact, while the consumers' experience of being carried away is a well-known storytelling cognitive consequence (Deighton et al, 1989;Green and Brock, 2000), these findings show how viewers may display an enduring and strong cognitive focus on the branded story content (Dessart et al, 2016(Dessart et al, , 2017 that materialize in the form of continued attention to and absorption with (Vivek et al, 2012) the engagement object. Emotional engagement in the story plot was then encouraged by the climax, which triggered various emotions, whereas the moral gist seems to lead to more behavioral responses, such as the willingness to endorse the video and share the 'lesson learned' with their online and offline networks (Farace et al, 2017;Pera & Viglia, 2016;Van Laer et al, 2014).…”

“…Endorsing is the act of sanctioning, showing support, and referring resources shared by the engagement object (Van Doorn et al, 2010). In this sense, e-word-of-mouth (Farace et al, 2017) may be considered a sub-section of CE.…”

Cutting through Content Clutter: How Speech and Image Acts Drive Consumer Sharing of Social Media Brand Messages

“…We study Facebook and Twitter, which are mainly text-based platforms. Although we consider both text and image elements, the implications of our framework might differ on social media channels such as Pinterest and Instagram, where the posts primarily involve pictures or videos (Farace et al 2017). The vast growth of unstructured image data, and corresponding analytics methods, is a field that will continue to expand, advancing marketing and consumer language research (similar to text mining in recent years).…”

What Happens in Vegas Stays on TripAdvisor? A Theory and Technique to Understand Narrativity in Consumer Reviews

“…They have a real (freshwater) iceburg [sic] and a large section of the boat." While spatial embedding does not offer a concrete, detailed camera-recorded view of space, as films (Gordon, Ciorciari, and van Laer 2018) or selfies do (Farace et al 2017), the descriptive, perceivable narrative content element does make the story plot more imaginable, transporting, and persuasive.…”