Positive Effects of Negative Publicity: When Negative Reviews Increase Sales

Jonah Berger (), Alan T. Sorensen () and Scott J. Rasmussen ()
Additional contact information
Jonah Berger: The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104
Alan T. Sorensen: Stanford Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305
Scott J. Rasmussen: Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305

Marketing Science, 2010, vol. 29, issue 5, 815-827

Abstract: Can negative information about a product increase sales, and if so, when? Although popular wisdom suggests that "any publicity is good publicity," prior research has demonstrated only downsides to negative press. Negative reviews or word of mouth, for example, have been found to hurt product evaluation and sales. Using a combination of econometric analysis and experimental methods, we unify these perspectives to delineate contexts under which negative publicity about a product will have positive versus negative effects. Specifically, we argue that negative publicity can increase purchase likelihood and sales by increasing product awareness. Consequently, negative publicity should have differential effects on established versus unknown products. Three studies support this perspective. Whereas a negative review in the New York Times hurt sales of books by well-known authors, for example, it increased sales of books that had lower prior awareness. The studies further underscore the importance of a gap between publicity and purchase occasion and the mediating role of increased awareness in these effects.

Keywords: negative publicity; awareness; word of mouth; product success (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (162)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mksc.1090.0557 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ormksc:v:29:y:2010:i:5:p:815-827

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Marketing Science from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().