The influence of marketers' and consumers' voices in the era of social media

This paper shows that consumers’ trust in online advertising (oAD-Trust) and customer reviews (eWOM-Trust) is a powerful segmentation base of online consumers. Therefore, the authors (i) introduce a psychometrically-sound measurement
instrument (the 22-item eWT-Scale) and (ii) apply it for developing an empirically-based consumer typology using a cluster analysis approach. By implementing the concept of trust to online communication, this research identifies and profiles
four segments. Findings show that one third of consumers are High trusters – a particularly valuable consumer group for marketers as they are receptive to oAD and trigger diffusion of marketing messages online and offline.