When and why vivid description is effective: The role of message involvement and utilitarian attitude

With the prevalence of online shopping, product presentation tactics, especially text descriptions, are particularly significant in attracting consumers. Of current text description styles, pallid and vivid styles predominate. However, it is not entirely clear how these description styles affect consumer utilitarian attitude and purchase intention. Addressing this gap, two online experiments were conducted to support a moderated mediation model based on the elaboration likelihood model. The results reveal that the effect of text description style on utilitarian attitude is contingent upon message involvement and that utilitarian attitude in turn affects purchase intention. Compared to pallid text description, vivid text description has a more positive effect on consumer utilitarian attitude and subsequent purchase intention in low message involvement conditions. However, pallid description has a greater influence on consumer utilitarian attitude and subsequent purchase intention in high message involvement scenarios. Demonstrating the critical role of message involvement in the effectiveness of different text description styles, this study discusses both the theoretical and managerial applications of these results.