Facts or story? The impact of website content on narrative believability and purchase intention

ABSTRACT

Website reviews in support of technological products often assume a rational buying process and provide fact-based content consisting of expert reviews that emphasise technical specification. However, Narrative Paradigm Theory suggests that consumers think narratively rather than argumentatively. Therefore, it is likely that story-form content may result in stronger narrative believability and purchase intention and that this effect may be influenced by different degrees of objective product knowledge. To investigate these outcomes, fact-based and story-form website content is used in an experiment featuring smart TVs. Participants are allocated to treatment groups and complete an identical questionnaire that captures objective knowledge, narrative believability, and purchase intention. MANCOVA via multivariate generalized linear modelling is employed to determine the effect of the treatment on the investigated outcomes. We find that story-form content has a stronger impact on narrative believability and purchase intention when controlling for objective knowledge.

KEYWORDS:

• Fact-based content
• story-form content
• narrative believability
• purchase intention
• objective product knowledge

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mario L Cassar

Mario L Cassar studied at University of Malta and completed his PhD at the Luleå University of Technology, Sweden. Currently deputy director at the Marketing unit of the University of Malta and directly involved in mutiple research initiatives.

Albert Caruana

Albert Caruana is Professor of Marketing at the University of Malta, and at the University of Bologna, Italy. He obtained a Ph.D. in Marketing in 1994 from Henley Business School, UK; an MA in Marketing Management from the University of Lancaster, UK and a BA (Hons.) in Business Management from the University of Malta. He has undertaken post-doctoral research as Fulbright Fellow in the US during 2004; as Commonwealth Research Scholar in the UK in 2000 and on various post-doctoral research fellowships in Australia in the period 1996 to 2003. He continues to be actively involved in doctoral, master’s and staff development programmes and has lectured in Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, United Kingdom, France, United States, Australia, Singapore and China. He has also been an external examiner in awarding doctoral degrees in the UK and Australia and currently in Sweden. Professor Caruana’s research interests focus primarily on marketing communications and services marketing. His work includes papers published in the Journal of Advertising; Journal of Advertising Research; Journal of Business Research; Industrial Marketing Management; Journal of Marketing Education and European Journal of Marketing. A number of his papers have received awards. He is currently Associate Editor of the Journal of Advertising Research. Professor Caruana has served on the board of directors of a number of firms and institutions. Prior to joining academia in 1992, he spent several years in industry, first in banking and later as marketing manager for a wines and spirits firm. Professor Caruana is currently Head of the Department of Corporate Communication.

Jirka Konietzny

Jirka Konietzny is born and raised in Hannover, Germany. Went to study at NTNU in Trondheim, Norway, from 2008 until 2014, including a semester with Oslo University College (now know as Oslo and Akershus College of Applied Sciences) and Culture Studies in Hoi An, Vietnam, in 2011. June 2015 to November 2019 PhD student in industrial marketing at Luleå University of Technology, Sweden. Currently lecturer at University of Malta.