A Preliminary Test of the Resonance Marketing Hypothesis: Guidance for Future Research Assessing Multi-Attribute Preferences in Horizontal Competition

Abstract

The Resonance Marketing hypothesis suggests that in an era of nearly perfect online information consumers will be able to know everything about products that interest them, including their exact descriptions, the best available sellers, and prices throughout the market. Consumers will then purchase those products that offer the greatest consumer surplus, which may not be the products with lowest prices in areas where individual consumers have the strongest preferences. We divide the Resonance Marketing hypothesis into three testable subordinate hypotheses. We test one of the three, Verifiability: Consumers will not be deceived by false or manipulated content, and will be able to assess products and their reviews and be able to make rational purchase decisions. Preliminary data suggest that testing Verifiability will be difficult and will require complex experimental design. The paper ends with insights into how one would more completely test the Verifiability Hypothesis and suggestions for future research.