What drives demand for content creator-generated product reviews, the product or the creator?

Abstract

Product reviews produced by content creators are popular on social media and constitute an important source of brand information for consumers. Understanding the consumption of such content is, therefore, important for marketing scholars and practitioners interested in how consumers learn about brands. This paper examines whether the demand for content creator-generated reviews is driven by the product reviewed, or by the content creator’s personality. In order to study the underlying drivers behind the demand for reviews, hierarchical regressions were estimated using longitudinal data on video reviews of personal smart devices posted on YouTube. The results show that both the product and the content creator are significant drivers of demand. Up to now, the literature has not offered evidence supporting either of these approaches. We discuss the implications of this finding and draw conclusions for managers.