Introduction

Social media exhibits a broad penetration with over 71% of Internet users all around the world staying connected with the help of social networking websites (eMarketer, 2017a). Moreover, 60% of the worldwide social network users can be reached just via Facebook (eMarketer, 2017b). Therefore, it is not surprising that manufacturers and retailers are increasingly using some form of social media marketing to promote their services or products (Baum et al., 2013; Davis et al., 2014; Kacker and Perrigot, 2016; Yadav et al., 2013; Yahia et al., 2018). According to Kaplan and Haenlein (2010), social media refers to online applications which enable Internet users to create and exchange content. Especially in the case of the market launch of new products, the implementation of social media campaigns may be beneficial for firms due to several advantages that these campaigns provide: first, more people can be reached in a shorter period of time (Cruz and Fill, 2008). Thus, many consumers may be reached due to social media’s broad penetration and thus receive information about the firm’s (new) product (Hu et al., 2018). Second, the spread of positive word-of-mouth via social networks may influence potential customers’ decision making and possibly increase their purchase intentions (Jansen et al., 2009). One special form of such social media campaigns that try to foster the impact of positive word-of-mouth are tryvertising campaigns. Tryvertising campaigns are an experience-based advertising approach where some product testers are motivated and incentivized to share their positive product experiences online (Oberhofer et al., 2014). In this case, firms have recognized that first-hand experiences from consumers that already tried the (new) product have been shown to have a higher impact on potential consumers than information stemming from the firm (Willemsen et al., 2011). Taken together, these advantages are beneficial for a successful new product launch and extensive previous research already investigated the impact of online word-of-mouth on product success (Chevalier and Mayzlin, 2006; Marchand et al., 2017; Zhu and Zhang, 2010). Therefore, the focus of this paper is to analyze the impact of a social media tryvertising campaign which is one special form of social media campaigns, on the success of a new product introduction. In particular, this paper addresses the following research questions: i) what is the impact of a social media tryvertising campaign on consumers’ attitude toward a new product?, ii) what is the impact of a social media tryvertising campaign on consumers’ purchase intention?, iii) what is the impact of a social media tryvertising campaign on consumers’ recommendation behavior? and iv) what is the influence of actual testing the product on consumers’ attitude, purchase intention and recommendation behavior? To answer these questions, the authors analyze survey and behavioral data of a social media tryvertising campaign and its related online community on Facebook, which was implemented to support the market launch of a new durable product (i.e., high-end binoculars). The remainder of the article is organized as follows: The following section reviews literature related to new product introductions, online communities, social interaction and information exchange as well as involvement. Then, our hypotheses are developed. In the next section, the social media tryvertising campaign as well as the data set are described and we provide the results of the hypotheses testing. The article concludes with a discussion of the findings, implications and limitations.