THE GOLDEN AGE OF ELECTRONIC WORD OF MOUTH: The Power of Negative E-WOM – Reasons & Consequences

Electronic Word of Mouth (e-WOM) is relatively a new phenomenon and there are vast areas still to explore in this topic. Previous studies focused on the positive e-WOM impacts and recommendations and did not include the negative e-WOM and its implications, which could be more important to study; after all, when something good happen to you, you’ll take about it to approximately three people, but when something bad happens, you’ll be telling at least ten! And online, with one click you could tell thousands and even millions. And since WOM, in general, is far more credible than any other type of advertising, then negative e-WOM can be quite perilous for a company. This paper’s aim is to research the reasons for brands to fear negative e-WOM and the possible consequences.


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