Eighteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

The 2018 Nielsen report on the future of beauty finds that the increasing use of online purchasing necessitates a change in building and sustaining brand loyalty. This explains why many companies are increasing expenditure on social media advertising because of “the high level of trust consumers place in friends’ recommendations and online opinions.” (Nielsen 2012:3). The study found that there are cultural differences in the degree of trust in both friends’ recommendations and online opinions with the Asia Pacific region trusting such recommendations the most. The study also found that ads in magazines were trusted the least. The PWC Total Retail Global Report for 2016 showed that “reviews in many of the European nations are significantly less influential – Denmark (22%), Belgium (23%), France (25%), UK (33%), Switzerland (34%) and Germany (37%) – when compared to several Asian markets - Malaysia (69%), India (66%) and China (63%)”. This paper is based on focus groups with female participants from Ukraine, China, France, Germany, Spain and Japan to ascertain cultural differences in the degree of trust in Electronic Word of Mouth (e-wom) for beauty products. Preliminary results show that Ukrainian participants trust their friends’ and family recommendations most and do not engage readily with online recommendations. Anticipated results for the other nationalities include a hypothesis that Chinese participants will be the most likely to engage with beauty products via online recommendations (Nielsen 2019). The paper is of importance to beauty product marketers operating in different cultures who are engaging in e-wom.