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International Journal of Electronic Business Management, Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 194-203 (2012)

AN INVESTIGATION OF FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE BLOG

ADVERTISING EFFECTIVENESS
Jen-Ruei Fu1* and Jessica H. F. Chen2
Department of Information Management
National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences
Kaohsiung (807), Taiwan
2
Department of Information Management
National Chi Nan University
Nantou County (54561), Taiwan
1

ABSTRACT
Since 2000, blogs have rapidly become a cyberspace phenomenon. The new medium has created
a growing trend: blog advertising. Blogs offer unique advantages over other types of advertising,
such as reader coverage and low cost. In addition, blogs generally contain customer comments,
which new customers can use to evaluate the advertised products. As a result, blog advertising is
very successful. A recent survey showed that 40% of the customers that read blog advertising
made a purchase. This study investigates factors that affect blog advertising effectiveness. A
laboratory experiment was designed to determine the effects of appeal strategies, quantity and
quality of negative comments, and customer involvement with the advertised product. The
experiment was designed to test informational and. emotional appeal strategies, high and low
proportions of negative comments, high and low qualities of negative comments, and high and
low levels of customer involvement with the advertised product. Study results show that
informational appeals match customer needs, for customers with high levels of customer
involvement. Study results show that emotional appeals match customer needs, for customers
with low levels of customer involvement. Study results show that proportion of negative
comments has an effect, for any type of customer. Study results show that high-quality negative
comments affect customer attitudes more than low-quality negative comments, for customers
with high levels of customer involvement. Study results extend theoretical and practical
knowledge concerning factors that effect blog advertising effectiveness.
Keywords: Blog Advertising, Elaboration Likelihood Model, Appeal Strategies, Negative
Customer Comments, Customer Attitude Formation, Customer Attitude Changes

1. INTRODUCTION
*

Since 2000, blogs have rapidly become a

cyberspace phenomenon. One of the top activities of
Internet users is reading blogs [25]. The new medium
has created a growing trend: blog advertising. Blog
advertising is the process of paying bloggers fees to
mention, review, promote, or sell products. Blogs
create groups that have similar interests and desires
[16]. Companies can use blogs to communicate with
customers, shape customers attitudes, and create high
levels of interaction and loyalty.
Blogs can be very influential, they can provide
high reader coverage, and they can create strong
persuasive impacts at relatively low costs, compared to
traditional advertising [25]. As a result, blogs can play
a significant role in the entire purchasing process, from
initial information search to considering choices and
*

Corresponding author: fred@cc.kuas.edu.tw

making final purchasing decisions. Prior studies show

that blogs are a powerful advertising medium that can
be used to reach a wide range of consumers.
Advertising is the process of informing and
persuading customers [22]. Marketing groups use
advertising to establish corporate images, create
positive attitudes toward targeted products, and
persuade consumers [15]. Positive attitudes are
predispositions to respond in a favorable manner to a
particular advertising stimulus [14]. Prior studies
show that advertising also provides important
diagnostic feedback [15].
Customer comments are an important part of
advertising. They can be used to provide product
information, express opinions, or describe experiences.
Reader comments are an important part of blogging.
They can be used to express opinions, describe
experiences, discuss issues, or exchange electronic
word-of-mouth (eWOM). Reader comments can also
be used for advertising. They can be used to help

J. R. Fu and J. H.F. Chen: An Investigation of Factors that Influence Blog Advertising Effectiveness

195

customers make purchasing decisions based upon the

experiences of other customers [5].
Previous studies showed that, in word-of-mouth
communication, negative information has a much
greater influence than positive information [11].
Marketing groups dont like to post negative
information from dissatisfied customers [2]. However,
previous studies have still investigated the effects of
positive and negative word-of-mouth on customer
attitudes toward products and customer intent to
purchase [13]. Previous studies have not investigated
the effects of word-of-mouth in blogs.
Previous studies developed theories, with
empirical support, concerning the effects of customer
involvement on customer attitudes toward products,
for example customer perceptions about product
relevance [24]. Previous studies also showed that
customer involvement has a moderating effect on
information processing in advertising and advertising
effectiveness [23]. According to the Elaboration
Likelihood Model (ELM), customers use either central
routes or peripheral routs to process information, based
upon their involvement with an advertised product.
An increasing number of Internet users use blog
information to shape their attitudes toward products
and make purchasing decisions [10]. As a result, the
influence of blog advertising has become increasingly
important for both companies and advertising
practitioners. However, very little research has been
done on the effects of blog advertising on customer
attitudes toward products. Previous studies have also
focused on bloggers, such as their motivation for
writing blogs [10]. Very little research has been done
on blog readers.
This study is to investigate factors that influence
blog advertising effectiveness. The study focuses on
eWOM factors that influence blog advertising
effectiveness. The study identifies affective responses
to blog advertising. The study shows that blog
advertising can be used to create positive attitudes
toward targeted products. The study shows that blog
advertising and readers comments can be used to form
or change attitudes toward targeted products.
The goal of the study is to show that different
factors can be used to help customers form or change
their attitudes toward products. Given that blogs can be
used to advertise a wide range of products and reach a
wide range of customers, the goal of this study is to
determine the best ways to present different types of
products to different types of customers.

upon the levels of involvement that customers have

with products and the levels effort that customers exert
when considering persuasive appeals. According the
the ELM, there is a continuum of theoretical
persuasion processes composed of central and
peripheral persuasion routes [1].
According to the ELM, customers that are highly
involved with a product use central routes to process
product information. They use more cognitive
resources to process and judge persuasive information.
Customers that are less involved with a product use
peripheral routes to process product information. They
consider peripheral attributes, such as product color or
background music [23] Thus, according to the ELM,
customer involvement is a motivational factor that can
influence blog advertising effectiveness.

2. THEORETICAL MODEL

H1. Customer involvement moderates the effect of

appeal strategy on blog advertising effectiveness.
Informational appeal strategies have a greater
positive effect on attitudes toward products for
customers that have high levels of involvement
with products than for customers that have low
levels of involvement with products. Emotional

2.1 The Elaboration Likelihood Model

Understanding consumer behavior depends upon
identifying factors that affect persuasion. According to
the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), different
mechanisms cause customer attitude changes, based

2.2 Appeal Strategy

The appeal strategies used in ads have a critical
impact on customers when they are forming attitudes
toward products. The appeal strategies are related to
both product attributes and the way the ads are
presented [6,19]. Two different appeal strategies are
used: utilitarian (informational) appeal strategies and
value-expressive (emotional) appeal strategies [17].
Although not every ad can be categorized easily as
informational or emotional, the categories are useful to
researchers and practitioners [8,23]. The categories can
be used to distinguish ads by the degree to which they
rely on one type of appeal strategy or the other.
Customers also tend to make inferences about
how informational or emotional an ad is [23].
Informational ads are fact-based. They contain logical,
objectively verifiable descriptions of product features.
Emotional ads are feeling-based. They contain
subjectively experienced descriptions of product
features. Informational ads create cognitive responses
because they create better memory retrieval cues [7].
According to the ELM, informational ads are
more persuasive to customers that have high levels of
customer involvement. On the other hand, emotional
ads evoke empathic identification with the characters
and situations in the ad. Emotional ads try to link
purchasing decisions to the psychological needs of
customers. Emotional ads are more effective with
customers that process information emotionally rather
than cognitively [4].
The first hypothesis of this study is that customer
involvement moderates the relationship effect of ad
appeal strategy on blog ad effectiveness:

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International Journal of Electronic Business Management, Vol. 10, No. 3 (2012)

appeal has a greater positive effect on attitude
toward products for consumers with low levels of
involvement with products than for customers
with high levels of involvement with products.

2.3 Customer Comments

The quality of online customer comments affects
customer information processing [18]. Many research
studies related to the quality of customer comments in
marketing literature focus on comment content.
High-quality customer comments are more logical and
persuasive. They support product evaluations with
reasons that are based upon facts about the products.
On the contrary, low-quality customer comments are
emotional, subjective, and vague. They do not contain
factual information. Instead, they make suggestions.
Customers use customer comments to gain
supplementary word-of-mouth information about
products. Customer comments that contain objective
understandable information, reasons, and suggestions
are more persuasive than customer comments that only
contain feelings and suggestions without reasons [18].
The second hypothesis of this study is that the
quality of negative customer comments affects the
degree that customer attitudes toward products change:
H2. The quality of negative customer comments affects
the degree that customer attitudes toward
products change.
The number of customer comments also affects
advertising effectiveness [20]. A large number of
negative customer comments increases pressure to
conform and perceived product risk. Pressure to
conform is based upon the influence of interpersonal
information, particularly when a customer accepts
information from others as evidence about the true
qualities of a product [12]. Individuals are influenced
by majorities in groups [9]. The greater the number of
people with the same opinion, the greater the level of
conformity to the majority opinion [13].
A high number of negative customer comments
implies that many customers are not satisfied with a
product. A high proportion of negative customer
comments in a blog can be an important factor that
affects customer attitudes toward products. Attitude
changes occur when a person associates an attitude
issue or object with positive or negative cues or makes
a simple inference about the merits of the advocated
position based on various simple cues in a persuasion
context [20]. A high proportion of negative customer
comments in the blog increases perceived product risk
and decreases perceived product quality.
The third hypothesis of this study is that a high
proportion of negative customer comments in a blog is
more likely to induce changes in attitudes toward
products:

H3. A high proportion of negative customer comments

in a blog affects the degree of attitude changes
toward products.
According to the ELM, when customers perceive
high product relevance, they are willing to engage in
the considerable cognitive work needed to evaluate
customer comments and they tend to follow a central
route to a persuasive conclusion. As a result, high
quality customer comments are more persuasive when
customer involvement is high [20]. On the contrary,
peripheral cues are more persuasive when customer
involvement is low. Customers that have low
involvement with products are less willing to expend
the effort needed to evaluate customer comments. They
rely more heavily on emotional cues to form or change
their attitudes toward products.
The fourth hypothesis of this study is that quality
of negative customer comments has a stronger effect
on the degree that customer attitudes toward products
change for customers with high levels of customer
involvement with products:
H4. The quality of negative comments has a stronger
effect on the degree that customer attitude
changes for customers that have high levels of
involvement with products.
If people are unmotivated or unable to read or
evaluate customer comments, the number of negative
customer comments can still affect the degree that
customer attitude changes [21]. Customers that have
low levels of involvement with products may follow a
simple but reasonable decision to just follow the
crowd. They may change their attitudes about
products without reading or evaluating the customer
comments.
The perception that there is a high number of
negative customer comments may reduce motivation
to read and evaluate the customer comments for
customers that have low levels of involvement with
products. On the contrary, the perception that there is a
high number of negative customer comments may not
effect motivation to read and evaluate the customer
comments for customers that have high levels of
involvement with products. Customer that have high
levels of involvement with products make attitude
changes based upon their perceptions of the quality of
the comments.
The fifth hypothesis of this study is that a high
number of negative customer comments has a greater
effect on degree of attitude change for customers that
have high levels of involvement with products:
H5. A high number of negative customer comments has
a greater effect on degree of attitude changes for
customers that have high levels of involvement
with products.

J. R. Fu and J. H.F. Chen: An Investigation of Factors that Influence Blog Advertising Effectiveness

3. METHOD
A laboratory experiment was used to confirm the
study hypotheses because laboratory experiments are
good for theory development and hypothesis
confirmation. They give researchers control over study
conditions, they have high internal validities, and they
provide precise measurements and convincing support
for causal hypotheses.
A between-subjects experiment design was used.
The experiment design was a fully crossed 2 x 2 x 2
independent groups design, with appeal strategy,
\negative comment quality, and number of negative
customer comments as independent variables and
informational vs. emotional appeal strategy, high vs.
low quality negative comments, and high vs. low
number of negative customer comments as
independent variable levels.
Customer involvement was the fourth
independent variable. Since the experiment was related
to enduring customer involvement with the advertised
product, customer involvement was measured but not
altered in the experiment. Attitude formation and
change were the primary dependent variables. The
dependent variables were measured both before and
after subjects were given customer comments.
3.2 Pretests
Three pretests were used to create the experiment
design. The first pretest was used to choose a product
for which customer involvement was not too high or
low for most of the experiment customers. The product
had to appeal to the experiment customers, who were
all students. The product also had to be familiar and
understandable to most of the experiment customers.
The pretest customers were presented with a list
of five products: a mobile phone, a printer, an MP3
player, a webcam, and a digital photo frame. The
experiment customers, thirty undergraduate university
students, used a 10-item, 5-point semantic differential
scale survey, which was based upon the Personal
Involvement Inventory (PII) by Zaichkowsky [24], to
rate the products.
Survey results showed that the webcam was the
product that had the most balanced number of students
with high levels of involvement with the product and
low levels of involvement with the product. Therefore,
the webcam was chosen as the product for the
experiment. To eliminate brand effects, the brand name
was not revealed.
The second pretest was used to choose
informational and emotional appeals. The pretest
customers, thirty graduate students, used a survey to
evaluate forty appeals (20 informational appeals and
20 emotional appeals). The survey results used to
choose the 10 informational appeals and the 10
emotional appeals with the highest weighted scores.

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The third pretest was used to determine the

quality and total number of negative comments for the
experiment. High quality comments were supported by
reliable factual evidence. High quality comments
provided reliable product-related information, which
was understandable, with reasons. Low quality
comments provided irrelevant or less credible
information, such as the opinions of a friends brother
who is a computer novice.
A focus group interview was used to determine
the total number of customer comments for the
experiment. A similar approach was used by Lee et al.
[13]. The focus group customers, thirty undergraduate
students, were asked to state how many online
consumer comments they considered to be a small
number and a large number of online customer
comments. The focus group customers were also asked
to read blogs. When reading blogs, the focus group
customers generally read eight to ten customer
comments, which contained three or four lines each.
Focus group results showed that ten customer
comments was an appropriate number customer
comments for the experiment. The proportion of
negative customer comments was defined to be the
ratio of the number of negative customer comments to
the total number of customer comments.
A high proportion of negative comments was
defined to be 50% (five negative customer comments
and five positive customer comments). A low
proportion of negative customer comments was
defined to be 30% (three negative customer comments,
five positive customer comments, and two neutral
customer comments).
New blogs were created so that the experiment
customers would have no prior contact with the blogs,
New blogs were also used so that other factors could be
controlled. The blogs contained a picture of the product.
The product brand name was hidden to eliminate any
brand effects.
3.2 Experiment Subjects and Procedures
One hundred and seventy-six undergraduate
university students from an introductory class in MIS
served as experiment customers. The students received
course credit for participating in the experiment. In
addition, the students were told that their names would
be entered into a drawing for a gift. The students were
randomly assigned to one of the eight experimental
conditions in the factorial design.
The students were seated at a personal computer
and then instructed to complete the first experiment
task by following all of instructions that came up on the
computer screen. The students spent on average 20
minutes to complete the first experiment task. They
learned how to navigate through the experiment
website. They were then randomly directed to one of 8
experiment computers.

J. R. Fu and J. H.F. Chen: An Investigation of Factors that Influence Blog Advertising Effectiveness

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*fred@cc.kuas.edu.tw

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