Leveraging User-Generated Content for Product Promotion: The Effects of Firm-Highlighted Reviews

This research investigates how firms can actively manage consumer-generated reviews in the form of highlighting authentic reviews on review platforms. While highlighting a positive review is expected to lead to positive product evaluation, this practice may elicit consumers’ skepticism when consumers are aware of the promotional intent of the firm. Our findings show that consumers often pay attention to a firm-highlighted review and anchor on it to process other reviews of the business; however, such an anchoring effect may not be favorable when consumers are skeptical about the highlighted review. When a business has highly varied ratings in an overall positive review context, or when a business has not established a strong reputation, it is useful for the business to alleviate consumers’ skepticism by highlighting a positive yet conservative review (i.e., a review with a 4-star rating out of 5). However, when all the reviews converge toward a positive or moderately positive assessment, or when the business has already established a good reputation, highlighting an extremely positive review may be an even more effective marketing strategy. User-generated content (UGC) is increasingly used in the marketing communication mix for promoting products. This research investigates how firms can actively manage consumer-generated reviews in the form of highlighting authentic reviews at firms’ discretion. Whereas highlighting a positive review is expected to lead to positive product evaluations, this practice may elicit consumers’ skepticism if consumers are explicitly informed of the promotional intent of the firm. In three studies, we examine the effect of presenting a firm-highlighted review on consumers’ consumption intention and behavior. Our findings confirm that highlighting a positive consumer review can effectively attract consumers’ attention to this review. However, the heightened attention does not always lead to higher consumption likelihood. In particular, the extremity of a highlighted review will interact with the variance of the review context as well as the reputation of the firm being reviewed to determine the effect of the firm-highlighting practice on consumers’ consumption behavior. When other reviews convey mixed opinions or when the firm has not established a strong reputation, highlighting a positive but less extreme review may effectively improve the likelihood of consumption, but highlighting a review that is extremely positive will not.