Negative news positive effect: the change of consumers’ cognition process

ABSTRACT

Development of live shopping has introduced a new form of celebrity endorsement. This study examines the impact of negative news related to streamers on viewers’ purchasing behaviour during live streaming, considering different types of negative news. Drawing on research related to celebrity endorsement and information dissemination, this study presents the results from one natural experiment and four lab experiments. The findings suggest that negative news about streamers, as well as their responses to such news, positively influence viewers’ purchasing behaviour during live streaming, which is mediated by their visit to the live streaming. Furthermore, the study reveals that negative news related to streamers’ personal behaviour has a more positive impact than negative news related to the product they are selling. The positive effect of response to negative news is weakened when the response seems to protect the wrongdoers. This study contributes to the development of endorsement theory, retests the model of the endorser effect, and expands the literature about celebrity scandals. Additionally, the findings provide practical suggestions for retailers and streamers who are dealing with negative news.

KEYWORDS:

• Negative news
• live streaming
• streamers
• celebrity endorsement
• viewers’ purchasing behaviour

Acknowledgment

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article

Data availability statement

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical approval

This article does not contain any studies with human beings and animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

Notes

1 《2022 China's e-commerce live white paper 》National Academy of Economic Strategy, CASS https://files.alicdn.com/tpsservice/aacad50e2b470efb1e5c29ab1992b89a.pdf?spm=a1zmmc.index.0.0.f1b7719d1FC4qS&file=aacad50e2b470efb1e5c29ab1992b89a.pdf

2 Introduction for Zhang Dayi https://baike.baidu.com/link?url=OLhM0DS03uErgWnug0dyR5jbXRU7mZe7IaFRvNdoekSCaqk1ycPSTZAReWKMESwNaskdh3anUA7UBCDTPI0BX_AXo4_8SmTj3Nc0zwV3BFB-wU64TDC2uVw5prGkqiai Negative news about Zhang Dayi https://www.163.com/dy/article/FAJ7S7190517AJMK.html

3 https://dy.huitun.com/app/#/app/dashboard

4 It is the largest professional online questionnaire survey platform, whose sample library has more than 6.2 million members covering various career and age. It has successfully completed over 200 million investigation and research.

5 An online shopping carnival in China. It is conducted in June every year. And during this period, consumers online could enjoy lower price of products.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China: [grant no 71831005; 72272045].