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 storyform 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.