A Sign of Trust? The value of source attribution in accolade claims

Abstract

Organizations that have received an accolade or honor often share this information with current or prospective customers, either in a digital (i.e., on their website, social media, etc.) or physical (i.e., on-premise signs, outdoor signs, etc.) format. When publicizing their achievement, marketers must make decisions related to source attribution—that is, how much detail to provide and how prominently (if at all) to mention the thirdparty entity that bestowed the accolade upon them. This is an important question, particularly with respect to physical signs where informational complexity is often detrimental and visual clarity is paramount. In this research, I examine whether source attribution in signage materially affects consumer evaluations and behavioral intentions. Across three studies, I find converging evidence that source attribution in accolade claims does in fact bolster evaluations and behavioral intentions, even in the context of physical signage when consumers are likely to be engaged in heuristic processing. Furthermore, I provide evidence that these more positive judgments arise because attribution increases perceived credibility of the organization receiving the accolade.

Location, Location, Location

“…Previous research has identified a number of elements that affect the evaluation of signs (see Bullough, 2017;Stempler & Polger, 2013;Van Loock et al, 2010). Whereas this work has mainly focused on the message content of signs (e.g., Isaac, 2020;Wu et al 2020;Sundar et al, 2019), our research examines how an external factor such as the sign's location influences evaluations of billboards. In doing so, we introduce a novel construct, where perceived artistic value is a determinant of off-premise signage evaluation.…”

“…When investigating the communication effectiveness of signage, there are numerous consumer responses that merit consideration, including attention (Kellaris & Machleit, 2016;Knuth et al, 2020;Wu et al, 2020), affective reaction (Kellaris et al, 2020), and trust (Isaac, 2020). In our research, we focus specifically on consumers' self-reported evaluation of signage, which we operationalize as their liking of the billboard.…”

“…Prior work on signage documents a link between evaluations and behavioral responses such as purchase intentions (Kellaris & Machleit, 2016;Knuth et al, 2020) and compliance intentions (Kellaris et al, 2020). Furthermore, signage research has shown that consumers' evaluations of signs are influenced by their affective state (Kellaris et al, 2020), the ease of signage processing (Wu et al, 2020), and the credibility of the message on the sign (Isaac, 2020). Extending these findings, we delineate a novel process whereby aesthetic judgments can also affect the overall evaluation of a sign.…”