Abstract
The study examines the process by which consumers integrate and compare others' opinions from different third-party endorsements into their product evaluations and purchase decisions. Consumers assimilate multiple opinions into their product evaluation process and purchase decisions based on the perceived risk and trustworthiness of the information sources. A content-dependent model proposes that consumer response to an information source depends on whether a third-party endorsement for a product is a news-like presentation or not. The findings suggest that consumers evaluated the third-party endorsements by focusing on the perceived risk and trust toward the news clip and customer testimonial to draw a conclusion for their purchase intentions. Consumers exhibited a tendency to prefer the news clip for high trust or decreased perceived risk. In other words, the news clip was clearly a better determinant of building trust and decreasing perceived risk. Implications for advertisers and the direction of future research are also presented.
