Forget stars and numeric ratings: a review's language offers better clues to a product's quality and likely success
Ever had a great meal at a restaurant rated four out of five stars, but then had a lackluster meal at another restaurant with the exact same rating?
If so, you might have fallen victim to what Kellogg School researchers have dubbed “the positivity problem”: the vast majority of online reviews are positive, but those favorable reviews don’t always translate to real-world quality. “You can have two products with four-and-a-half stars, but they’re not equally good, nor are they equally successful in the marketplace,” explains Derek Rucker, a professor of marketing at Kellogg.
[This article has been republished, with permission, from Kellogg Insight, the faculty research & ideas magazine of Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University]