The Influence of Emoticons on New Product Evaluation

Abstract

Emoticons are widely used to compensate for the lack of nonverbal elements in the communication process. Extant literature focuses on the benefits of using emoticons in a computer-mediated communication (CMC) context, whereas this research aimed to investigate the influence of emoticons on a new product evaluation and explore a potential boundary condition of emoticon use. A user guide for a new product was designed to examine the effect of emoticons in the knowledge acquisition context. The results showed that emoticons influence product attitude mediated by fluency elicited by emoticons, which in turn affects a product’ s perceived competency. Furthermore, the need for cognition (NFC) moderated the sequential multiple mediations; as NFC increased, perceived fluency decreased, implying that the goal of the information search is a potential boundary condition. Specifically, when the purpose of the information search was to acquire knowledge, using emoticons reduced fluency experience, resulting in low perceived product competency and a less favorable product attitude.