I personally like it: Preference for minority endorsement in the early stage of the consumer decision journey

Abstract

AbstractConsumers engage in word‐of‐mouth pervasively, and strategies such as different endorsement types are commonly used to facilitate word‐of‐mouth diffusion. Prior work on endorsement has highlighted the advantage of the majority (e.g., everyone likes it) in persuasion so that companies usually use it to shape consumers' preference, but is the majority endorsement more effective than the minority endorsement (e.g., I personally like it)? This research demonstrates that the persuasiveness of majority or minority endorsement depends on the stages of the consumer decision journey. Minority endorsement can be more influential than majority endorsement in the early stage of the consumer decision journey. This paper theorizes and demonstrates that this effect occurs because minority endorsement emphasizes differentiation from the group and does not have any conformity pressure, which could satisfy consumers' pronounced need for decision autonomy in the early stage. In contrast, majority endorsement is more effective in the late stage because consumers regard it as social proof and can better meet consumers' salient need for decision control. These findings identify psychological needs in the consumer decision journey, contribute to the research on social influence, and provide managerial insights for marketers on when and how to adopt different strategies to influence consumers.