Orazi Davide Christian, Ranjan Bhoomija, Cheng Yimin
Monash Business School, 26 Sir John Monash Drive, VIC 3145, Melbourne, Australia.
J Acad Mark Sci. 2023;51(3):570-597. doi: 10.1007/s11747-022-00917-z. Epub 2023 Jan 20.
Non-face (NF) emojis are increasingly used to complement or substitute words in digital marketing messages, yet the effects, mechanisms, and contingencies of this communication strategy remain underexplored. In a large-scale longitudinal study of Airbnb listings, we show that NF emojis (vs. simple text) lead to an increase in eWOM volume, an effect we replicate experimentally. This effect is qualified by important boundary conditions whose underlying mechanisms are investigated in two additional experimental studies. At the message level, using multiple substitutive (vs. complementary) NF emojis reduces message evaluations and eWOM volume due to reduced processing fluency. At the source level, seller quality further moderates the interaction between emoji function and emoji number: for premium sellers, using multiple NF emojis reduces message evaluations and eWOM volume irrespective of their function due to reduced perceptions of competence. We distill these findings into detailed managerial guidelines for using NF emojis in digital marketing.
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11747-022-00917-z.
非面部（NF）表情符号在数字营销信息中越来越多地被用于补充或替代文字，但这种沟通策略的效果、机制和影响因素仍未得到充分探索。在一项针对爱彼迎房源的大规模纵向研究中，我们发现NF表情符号（与简单文本相比）会导致电子口碑数量增加，这一效果我们通过实验进行了复制。这一效果受到重要边界条件的限制，其潜在机制在另外两项实验研究中进行了探讨。在信息层面，使用多个替代（而非补充）NF表情符号会因处理流畅性降低而减少信息评价和电子口碑数量。在来源层面，卖家质量进一步调节了表情符号功能与表情符号数量之间的相互作用：对于优质卖家，使用多个NF表情符号会因能力感知降低而减少信息评价和电子口碑数量，无论其功能如何。我们将这些发现提炼成在数字营销中使用NF表情符号的详细管理指南。
在线版本包含可在10.1007/s11747-022-00917-z获取的补充材料。
