Bragging and humblebragging in online reviews

Tourists often brag about their exclusive vacations, preferential treatments, and extraordinary adventures on social media. However, the existing digital marketing literature offers little guidance on whether bragging is an effective communication strategy. The current research investigates the joint effect of bragging type (bragging vs. humblebragging) and reviewer expertise (low vs. high) on brand evaluation in the online review setting. The results show that when reviewer expertise is high, humblebragging leads to more favorable brand evaluation compared to bragging. However, the opposite is true when the review is posted by a non-expert. We further reveal that the impact of bragging type on brand evaluation is serially mediated through reviewer likability and benign envy. Implications for managing travel platforms are discussed.