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Babes-Bolyai University

Faculty of Political, Administrative and Communicational Sciences

Product vlog-reviews influence consumers' buying decision more than product blogreviews

VLOG-REVIEWSINFLUENCE ON CONSUMERS BUYING


DECISION

Dania Bayrakdar
Adrian Chetan
Ana Cretiu
Irina Georgescu

2014

Abstract
It is known that online reviews have become more and more popular nowadays, but do
people really trust them? Do they prefer video or written reviews? We wanted to find out how
people relate to vlogs vs. blogs and if their buying decision was ever influenced by one or
another. And so, we used the sociological survey method and the focus group. Through the focus
group method the second hypothesis was in essence confirmed, people do really find product
review vlogs more trustworthy than written blogs. From the questionnaire we tried to validate the
first hypothesis: "Product review vlogs can influence consumers buying decision.. The two
hypotheses were validated. This paper is relevant, due to the lack of literature found on the
subject and the fact that vlogs are a growing phenomenon.

The ways consumers communicate with each other have been changing dramatically over
the last decade, and the same is true for how consumers gather and exchange information about
products.
Consumers today dedicate substantial time producing and consuming new multimedia
content, which includes video sharing platforms such as YouTube. A lot of what is going on in
these services has to do with brands and companies; consumers upload advertisements and their
own so-called spoofs and mash-ups.
A blog is a regularly updated website or web page, typically one run by an individual or
small group that is written in an informal or conversational style. As far as blogs and blog
reviews go, a study shows that 42% of respondents blog about brands they love or hate, while
34% say they never talk about brands on their blog. Among respondents who do blog about
brands, 48% say they post reviews on a weekly basis and 51% said they rarely review products,
services, brands, or companies. (Technorati State of the Blogosphere Report 2010)
By vlog we understand a blog in which the postings are primarily in video form. In the
developing process of vlogging, YouTubes success is undoubtedly one of the major milestones,
mainly because it created an incentive application platform that can provide a better user
experience around sharing video clips and publishing vlogs online. This shows us that the
spawning of incentive applications may be one important issue for future vlogging technology.
Some promising examples are vlog-based advertising (Gao, Tian; 2010)
As advertising constitutes the backbone of many brand relationships, marketers should be
interested in learning how new multimedia content affects the consumption of traditional media
such as TV. Studies show a reduction of TV viewing as a result of the consumption of YouTube
and other related sites, but also an increase in time spent on network websites (Waldfogel; 2009)
An interesting study case is represented by products such as toys, which are one of the
most popular yet most under-the-radar categories if you are not a parent. For example, DC Toys
Collector was the most popular YouTube channel in the month of October 2014 with 400m
views. (Dredge; 2014) Perhaps the most intriguing thing about toy channels on YouTube is their
emergence as an alternative to traditional TV advertising for toys, particularly in the run-up to
every year`s Christmas season.
Today, more than two-thirds of US economy is influenced by word-of-mouth (Mc Kinsey
& Company; 2000). Word-of-mouth marketing took the attention of many practitioners recently.
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Since viral marketing is a way of word-of-mouth marketing technique in which


marketing message is carried out through internet, its also called as e-word-of-mouth. This new
marketing technique has been getting more and more popular since its low cost and more
trustworthy than traditional marketing techniques/advertising. According to another research
performed by Nielsen Company in 2007, 78% of consumers rely on recommendations of other
consumers. Women are much more likely than men to say they would ask friends/ family/
colleagues for recommendations. While making their purchasing decisions, most of the
consumers frequently rely on other peoples decisions (like friends, family, acquaintances etc.).
They listen to their recommendations, suggestions, and personal advice. Word-of-mouth refers to
oral person to person communication between a receiver and a communicator which the receiver
perceives as a noncommercial message, regarding a brand, product, or service. (Arndt, 1967)
This includes consumers, subjective personal opinions and experiences with objective product
information. (Kalpaklioglu, Toros; 2011). Due to this empowerment of the consumer, everything
the marketers and advertisers used do to persuade them, will no longer work. Marketers are
particularly interested in better understanding of WOM because traditional forms of
communication appear to be losing effectiveness.(Trusov, Bucklin & Pauvels; 2009)
Consumers use new media for sharing comments and reviews about services and
products and the companies that produce them. EWOM is accessible to online and even offline
shoppers, as consumer can use mobile devices to reading restaurant reviews while out on the
town. Furthermore, EWOM can easily be forwarded to others and usually has no terminal
date. (Thurau, Malthouse, Friege; 2010)
EWOM has some advantages over traditional WOM (Yang, Yao, Ma & Chen; 2010): the
information can be easily stored in computers and the web; therefore digital word-of-mouth
marketing information exists everywhere on the internet and for a long time; most people can
take part in the word-of-mouth marketing process in their leisure time, so by nature it is a nonsynchronous spreading mode of advertisement; the anonymity feature enormously reduces the
limitation induced by personal identities thereby making mutual communications on the web
much easier than face-to-face in real life; digital word-of-mouth marketing through the internet
can spread more widely and much faster at a significantly lower cost as compared to most if not
all traditional methods.

These days, the Internet has significantly changed the sources of information delivery; as
a result, sellers no longer control the dissemination of product information. For instance, web 2.0
tools (such as blogs, virtual communities, and social networking sites) open new interactive
arenas which enable customers to share their opinions and experiences about goods or services,
and finally to influence the purchase decisions of other consumers. In the internet generation, in
addition to celebrity endorsement, we should note the importance of online customer reviews on
other consumers. (Wei, Lu; 2012)
Online customer reviews, which are one type of EWOM, have a dual role; they provide
product information and then make recommendations from a customers perspective (Lee, Park,
& Han; 2008). As informants, they provide user-oriented product information, including honest
evaluations of the advantages and weaknesses of a product. As recommenders, they share their
opinions and experiences to help other consumers judge the quality of a product.
A global survey from the Opinion Research Corporation revealed that online consumer
reviews play a major role in consumers decisions about whether or not to purchase products or
services. Nearly two-thirds of respondents reported consulting online reviews, blogs, and other
sources of online customer feedback before purchasing a new product or service (Harris, 2009).
Moreover, consumers say that word of mouth is still the number one influencer in their
electronics purchases (BIGresearch; 2008).
Bickart and Schindlers (2001) findings indicate that product information on online
forums has greater credibility, is easier to relate to, and is more likely to evoke empathy with
consumers than is the information on seller-designed websites. As a result, online customer
reviews play an increasingly significant role in consumers purchasing decisions.
In conclusion, this paper will define an online customer review as a type of product
information and evaluation created by users on the basis of their own experiences. The way
online reviews affect consumers decision-making is the first research topic of the article.
A special emphasis will be shown towards vlogs, since popular vloggers and YouTube
channels could be seen as opinion leaders, and they represent a powerful group in the
marketplace because they are able to influence consumers via word of mouth (Stokberger-Sauer
& Hoyer; 2009). Due to this on the rise popularity of vlogs, the paper`s second research topic
aims to see if people find product-review vlogs more trustworthy than product-review blogs.

To prove these hypotheses, people between the age of 18 and 24 were chosen to be the
target audience. The methodology considered in a social enquiry and one focus group.

SOCIAL ENQUIRY
As a primary method of research, we used the statistical survey and we applied an online
questionnaire as the instrument. This method was adequate for this study because it is a very
quick way to reach the target audience, furthermore, the anonymity of the respondents granted
them the confidence to be sincere. Moreover, the respondents of a questionnaire sent online are
most certainly accustomed with diverse digital media, so the probability of the survey to reach
people unfamiliar with online videos is much reduced.
Our questionnaire was applied online and we obtained the answers of 135 individuals (59
men and 76 women). The results can be seen as follows:
Firstly, we asked our respondents how frequent they are watching video-blogs. This
question was made so we could have a general view on how much time people allocate viewing
this sort of videos. Forty-nine (translated to 36 %) people said they watch vlogs Moderately,
followed by 23% Rarely. The extremes are also relevant considering the fact there are more
people watching vlogs Very Often (8,9 %) than Not at all 9 (5,2%). By observing all the
answers, we can conclude that the tendency to watch video-blogs somehow regularly is higher
than the tendency to watch them seldom or not to watch them at all.
By the second question, we aimed to find out whether respondents have ever watched a
vlog review or not. A majority of 90,4% answered this question positively which is a relevant
fact for the representativeness.
We also wanted to know something about the categories of products reviewed in vlogs.
We asked the respondents about their review preferences from a list of product types. The most
chosen response option was the reviews of Gadgets (laptops, smartphones etc.) with 24,8%
followed by Movies (17,3 %) and Video games (11,6%). Other notable responses are
Books and Make-up/Styling products with a balanced amount of choices (10,1% and
10,3%).

Has a review ever had an impact in the personal choice of buying a product? was the
most important question of the survey. The results showed us that 6.6 in 10 people felt like vlog
reviews had a certain contribution in the decision process while 2.2 in 10 thought that those
videos had no influence on them. However, about 1 in 10 people didnt know whether vlog
reviews had ever influenced them or not. (FIG. 1)

FIG. 1
The following question is similar to the precedent, but tried to find if those reviews
influenced people in NOT buying a certain product. Eighty-four people (62,2%) answered
Yes (so they were influenced not to buy it) and 35 (25,9%) No, while I dont know was
chosen the same amount of times as in the previous question (about 1 in 10).
At the same time, we asked if a popular vlogger (number of subscribers, likes, views etc.)
is more trustworthy than a less-known one. A majority of 43% said they have the same amount
of trust in both cases while 37,8% thought that a more popular youtuber is more reliable.
When asked about written content, 1 in 3 respondents (33,3%) read blogs Moderately
and 25,9% answered with Seldom. Although at the first sight the tendency tells us that our
respondents arent reading blogs too regularly, we have a summed percent of 20,7% people that
read them Often or Very often. The next question got more specific, by asking people if they

ever read a review blog-post or not. A high amount of people read those kinds of posts, as the
results suggest. (80,7%)
Another important question in the survey helped us measure peoples preference in
matters of online reviews. About 4.5 in 10 people said that they prefer both vlog-reviews and
blog-reviews followed by 34,8% that prefer vlog-reviews detrimental to the blog versions. (FIG.
2)

FIG. 2
This was followed by a secondary question which was an open one. We asked them to
motivate the choice regarding the review-preferences. People that chose Vlog-review
explained it by saying that video-reviews are more warm, trustworthy or comfortable to watch.
They also mentioned the recorded visuals (video and audio) which they considered a great perk
if they would compare it with blog reviews, and not having to read something, just to watch and
listen.
The Blog-review choice was praised by exposing characteristics like the possibility of
searching specific text content with no effort and the ease of comparing a written review with
others.
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Through the final question in the survey, we aimed for finding out the level of trust
people manifest in different types of influences. We had 4 categories: Blog-reviews, Vlogreviews, Classic word-of-mouth and Advertising. Speaking of vlog-reviews, the tendency was
positive, 40% thinking that those kind of reviews are Somehow trustworthy, 31,2%
Trustworthy and 8,8% Very trustworthy. Blog-reviews were mainly seen as Somehow
trustworthy, advertising as Not trustworthy, while Classic word-of-mouth had the highest
level of trust with 42,8% of the respondents choosing Trustworthy and 28,8% Very
trustworthy. (FIG.3, FIG.4)

FIG.3

FIG. 4
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FOCUS GROUP
For our second method we decided to conduct a focus group on the matter of vlogs versus
written blogs. For this we gathered five people, of which, three male and two female.
This report examines qualitative research into the stronger influence of video reviews
over written blogs.The aim of this research was to explore publics views on vloggers and video
product reviews.
We picked two categories, tech and movies, more specifically the IPhone 6 and the movie
"Life of Pi". One day prior to the focus group, we decided upon a video review aka vlog and a
written blog for each of the categories.
We began by initiating a conversation about vlogs/vloggers and blogs/bloggers, to see
how much the participants knew and how interested they were in these. The subjects were quite
well informed and interested in the matter, they also confirmed the fact that they do look up
reviews online regarding products they intend to buy. We also addressed some questions
beforehand to see how much they already knew about the product/movie before seeing the
material and how much they memorized after.
The opinions on the IPhone 6 were rather negative, things they heard from their friends or
social media: "The phone is quite expensive and not worth it", "...it bends", "it's not really that
special". After this brief discussion, the subjects were shown a video review of the IPhone 6,
made by a youtuber.
Female participants
After viewing the video review, the participants were asked a few questions to test how
much information they assimilated. As it was expected they knew much more about the product,
aspects regarding design, software, technical aspects and shortcomingsas well as positive
aspects. The video was considered informative and useful. One of the subjects was unaffected by
the review while the other had a more negative perspective over the phone. They both thought
that the video was subjective, an aspect they appreciated.( "I prefer a more subjective view, I like
to know the customer's personal experience with the product")

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The participants were also asked to read a written blog review of the same product, after
which we applied them some questions. As it turns out they've gathered even more
informationfrom the blog, although the overall opinion on the product is even worse now (the
blog wasn't particularly negativetowards the phone). They considered the YouTube video more
trustworthy, and even though you can select the information better from a blog, it is easier to
watch a video than to read a written review. Both of the participants said that they firstly look up
a written review rather than youtube-ing the product first, when intending to purchase.
A discussion about sponsorships and free products(bloggers/vloggers getting sent free
products to review and/or monetary rewards) was initiated. Subjects said they don't mind if the
reviewer is being paid or sent the product for free, on the contrary, that shows that he or she is a
"good and popular vlogger or blogger" therefore they inspire trust. Especially in vlogs, it is
preferred to be a more popular person because the large amount of likes and comments is
regarded as having a positive influence. The more known/popular the person, the better.
The second category was movies. The subjects were shown, again, a video and written
review of the movie "Life of Pi". There was little known about the movie, they have heard of it
but they haven't watched it. It was regarded as "uninteresting" but they did remember the poster
of the movie.
We started by giving them the blog review. Information was assimilated, but the interest
was very slightly peeked, not enough to actually buy/watch the movie. There was a certain
preconception about the movie that the blog could not change. It was considered subjective,
which was a positive aspect. One of the subjects had a more positive view after reading the blog
while the others view was not changed. Also, the information provided was not satisfactory, so
they would search for alternative reviews.
From the vlog, they gathered even more information. However, it did not make them
more interested in the movie. They would have preferred a more objective view("the vlog was
too subjective, it was her own opinion", "she was obsessed with the movie"), also shorter and
more technical ("Too long and boring"). When it comes to movies it is preferred a written review
to a video review.

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Male participants
First, the participants got to read a personal blog review, and then they were asked a few
questions to check how much information they remembered. They did remember more details
about the phone, but they found the review subjective, presenting only the good aspects and a bit
unprofessional at first sight. However, when looking for a new gadget, oursubjects said they
woulddo further research, comparing different reviews found on the internet.
They claimed that a user review is more trustworthy than a companys device description.
Although they find the information useful, a very few of them said they would return with a
feedback on the sites after purchasing a product.
Afterwards, the participants were asked to watch a video review of the same product.
None of them had favorite vloggers, although they have more trust in those who they already
know. Everybody agreed that a video review is better because you can see the product from
every angle. Also, they preferred the video, because they found it objective, exposing both
positive and negative parts.
Although they find the video a better option to form an idea of the product, they first look
for a written review from people who already bought it.
After that, we showed the participants the Life of Pi review. They found it very partial
and claimed that it didn't convince them to go and see the film. To make it more tempting, they
suggested adding movie sequences in order to catch their attention.
Besides, we presented a blog review of the same movie. Our subjects concluded that the
written article offered more information, including details, comments about the script and the
way it was filmed. This time they said that they were convinced to go and see the movie. On a
regular basis, the subjects are looking for written reviews on the internet before going to see
movie. In case of vlogs, they don't follow them in this particular situation, choosing a trailer
instead.
At the end, we had a short general discussion on the matter of online reviews. About 60%
of the participants mentioned that they do not feel the need, nor do they ever go back to a review
to give their input on products they actually purchased, while the other 40% said they do
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sometimes return to leave a comment. They also mentioned the fact that they look up multiple
reviews rather than relying on only one persons opinion.
Conclusions of the focus group
After analyzing the results of the focus group, we discovered that people look up reviews
before purchasing a product. They consider a written review technical and they prefer video
reviews when it comes to gadgets and mobile devices and written reviews when it comes to
books, movies etc.
The subjects also confirmed that they trust independent vloggers and bloggers opinion
more than producer descriptions and advertisements.
The study didn't present many differences of opinion between male and female
participants. Sometimes women prefer blogs over vlogs due to the fact that they are more
technical and it is easier to select strictly the information they need.

DISSCUSIONS
After conducting this study, we were able to confirm the two initial hypotheses. Vlogreviews hadindeed an influence on the decision to purchase a product and have a greater impact
than blogs do, although written content benefits are also obvious. However, according to the
questionnaire, the influence vlogs manifest rankedonly 2nd place, the first place on the podium
being occupied by the classic word-of-mouth because it provides more trust and interactivity.
Also, we cannot deny that a future study done on a larger scale (more respondents, more
methods of research, more blogs and vlogs analyzed) would have a greater representativeness.
What is certain is that online media is in constant change, and with its development, its
influence will change and people's perception about it will evolve, whether we talk about
product-reviews or social-media.

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REFERENCES:

Arndt, J. (1967). Role of Product Related Conversations in the Diffusion of a


New Product. Journal of Marketing Research, 4 (3), 291-295

Bickart, B., & Schindler, R. M. (2001). Internet forums as influential sources of


consumer information. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 15, 3140.

BIGresearch, LLC. (2008). Shoppers say word of mouth is biggest influence on


purchase

of

electronics,

apparel

items.

www.bigresearch.com/news/bignrf112108viewed in 5.12.2014

Dellarocas, C., Zhang, X. M., & Awad, N. F. (2007). Exploring the value of
online product reviews in forecasting sales: The case of motion pictures. Journal
of Interactive Marketing, 21, 2345

Dredge, Stuart - This woman's thumbs are the biggest YouTube stars you've never
heard of, www.theguardian.com 26 November 2014

Gao,
Wenhttp://dl.acm.org/inst_page.cfm?id=60014966&CFID=606396196&CFTOK
EN=15842405 Tian, Yonghong; Huang, Tiejun; Yang, Qiang; Vlogging: A
Survey of Videoblogging Technology on the Web; ACM Computing Surveys;
Volume 42 Issue 4, June 2010 Article No. 5

Harris, C. & Werbler, C., Online consumer reviews significantly impact consumer
purchasing decisions, new opinion research corporation survey finds.
www.opinionresearch.com/fileSave/Online_Feedback_PR_Final_6202008.pdfvie
wed in 7.12.2014

Kalpaklioglu, N; Toros, N; Viral Marketing Techniques Within Online Social


Network, Journal of Yasar University 2011 24(6) 4112-4129

Lee, J., Park, D. H., & Han, I. (2008). The effect of negative online consumer
reviews on product attitude: An information processing view. Electronic
Commerce Research and Applications, 7, 341352

Mc Kinsey & Company, The Buzz on Buzz, Harvard Business Review,


Nov./Dec. 2000

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Stokburger-Sauer, N.; Hoyer, W.; Consumer advisors revisited: What drives


those with market mavenism and opinion leadership tendencies and why?
Journal of Consumer Behaviour; Volume 8, Issue 2-3,pages 100115, March June 2009

Technorati State of the Blogosphere Report 2010, http://technorati.com/state-ofthe-blogosphere-2010viewed in 12.08.2014

Thurau, Thorsten; Malthouse, Edward; Friege, Christian; Gensler, Sonja;


Lobschat, Lara; Rangaswamy, Arvind; Skiera, Bernd, The Impact of New Media
on Customer Relationships, Journal of Service Research nr. 13 11 august 2010
pages 311-330

Truson, M., Bucklin, R. E. & Pauwels, K.( 2009). Effects of Word-of-Mouth


Versus Traditional Marketing: Findings from an Internet Social Network Site,
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Waldfogel, Joel (2009), Lost on the Web: Does Web Distribution Stimulate or
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Wei, P.; Lu H.; An examination of the celebrity endorsements and online


customer reviews influence female consumers shopping behavior; 2012;
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Yang, J., Yao, C., Ma, W. & Chen, G. (2010). A Study of the Spreading Scheme
for Viral Marketing Based on a Complex Network Model, Physica A, 389, 859870.

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ATTACHMENTS
Attachment 1

The survey
1. How frequent do you watch vlogs (video-blogs) on YouTube?
a) Very often
b) Often
c) Moderately
d) Seldom
e) Very seldom
f) Not at all
2. Have you ever watched a vlog-review of a certain product?
a) Yes
b) No
3. What kinds of reviews are the most interesting to you?
-Gadgets (Smartphones, laptops, consoles etc.)
-Make-up/Styling products
-Accessories/Clothes
-Movies
-Music albums
-Books
-Toys/Board-games
-Video-games
-Food/Drinks
-Others
4. Has a review ever had an impact in the personal choice of buying a product?
a) Yes
b) No
c) I dont know
5. Has a review ever had an impact in the personal choice of NOT buying a product?
a) Yes
b) No
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c) I dont know
6.

How often do you read blogs?


a)
b)
c)
d)
e)
f)

7.

Very often
Often
Moderately
Seldom
Very seldom
Not at all

Have you ever watched a blog-review of a certain product?


a) Yes
b) No

8.

What kind of review do you prefer, blog-review or vlog-review?


a) Blog-review
b) Vlog-review
c) Both equally

9.

For what reason?

10.

When buying a product, how trustworthy do you think the following are?

-Vlog-reviews Very trustworthy Trustworthy Somehow trustworthy Very little


trustworthy- Not trustworthy
-Blog-reviews Very trustworthy Trustworthy Somehow trustworthy Very little
trustworthy- Not trustworthy
-Classic word-of-mouthVery trustworthy Trustworthy Somehow trustworthy Very little
trustworthy- Not trustworthy
-AdvertisingVery trustworthy Trustworthy Somehow trustworthy Very little trustworthyNot trustworthy

11.

Is a popular vlogger (subscribers, likes, views) more trustworthy than a less known one?
a) Yes, its more trustworthy

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b) Both are equally trustworthy


b) No, I have less trust in popular vloggers
c) I dont know
12. Age
13. Sex
a) Male
b) Female

Attachment 2

Focus group themes of discussion


What do you know about the product?
What new information have you memorized from the blog/vlog?
How has your opinion about the product changed after viewing/reading the review?
Do you now want to buy the product?
Was the review objective or subjective, would you prefer one or the other?
If you want to buy a product and you are looking for a review, what would be your first choice, a
blog or a vlog?
Does the popularity of the blogger/vlogger matter in any way?
If the reviewer was sent the product for free or if he/she was sponsored by the company, do you
find it less reliable?
After purchasing the product, do you return to the review to leave a comment?

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