Why some consumers stay silent about products they love: Oren Dayan on need for uniqueness and word of mouth in the Journal of Global Marketing

Positive word of mouth is usually treated as a natural outcome of satisfaction. Oren Dayan (2020, Journal of Global Marketing) shows that consumers' need for uniqueness shapes it in three different directions. For high-involvement, publicly consumed products, avoidance of similarity relates negatively to positive word of mouth, creative choice counterconformity relates positively, and unpopular choice counterconformity shows no relationship. The results did not differ between genders.

How does each dimension of consumers' need for uniqueness relate to engagement in positive word of mouth, and does the pattern change between high-involvement and low-involvement products and between genders?

Earlier work by Cheema and Kaikati (2010) in the Journal of Marketing Research showed that high-uniqueness consumers are less willing to recommend publicly consumed products they own. This study builds a model on all three CNFU dimensions defined by Tian, Bearden and Hunter (2001).

• Develops a new model that links all three dimensions of CNFU, avoidance of similarity, creative choice counterconformity and unpopular choice counterconformity, to positive word of mouth.
• Shows that need for uniqueness is a set of motives with opposite effects on word of mouth, which refines the single-dimension view of uniqueness as an inhibitor of recommendations.
• Adds product involvement and gender as boundary conditions of the uniqueness to word of mouth relationship.

• Avoidance of similarity: a negative relationship with positive word of mouth for high-involvement, publicly consumed products, consistent with the concern that others may buy the product and reduce its uniqueness.
• Creative choice counterconformity: a positive relationship with positive word of mouth for the same products.
• Unpopular choice counterconformity: no relationship with positive word of mouth.
• Gender: the results did not differ between men and women.

The Journal of Global Marketing, published by Taylor & Francis since 1988, is a peer-reviewed international marketing journal in which every article undergoes editor screening and anonymous review by at least two referees. Taylor & Francis reports an Impact Factor of 4.6 (2025), JCR Q2, a 5-year Impact Factor of 6.0 and a CiteScore of 9.7 in the top Scopus quartile.

The article is a sole-authored contribution, so the full theoretical and empirical argument belongs to one researcher.

• Segment word-of-mouth programs by uniqueness motive, since referral incentives can work against consumers high in avoidance of similarity.
• Give creative-choice consumers a way to share their distinctive choices, since this motive relates positively to recommendations.
• Treat high-involvement, publicly visible products as the category where the uniqueness motives matter most.

consumers' need for uniqueness, CNFU, avoidance of similarity, creative choice counterconformity, unpopular choice counterconformity, word of mouth, WOM, positive WOM, product involvement, high-involvement products, publicly consumed products, gender

Dayan, O. (2020). The impact of need for uniqueness on word of mouth. Journal of Global Marketing, 33(2), 125–138. https://doi.org/10.1080/08911762.2019.1606375

@article{Dayan2020Uniqueness,
  author  = {Dayan, Oren},
  title   = {The Impact of Need for Uniqueness on Word of Mouth},
  journal = {Journal of Global Marketing},
  year    = {2020},
  volume  = {33},
  number  = {2},
  pages   = {125--138},
  doi     = {10.1080/08911762.2019.1606375}
}

• Article (DOI)
• Journal
• Author profile, Oren Dayan on ResearchGate

Cheema, A., & Kaikati, A. M. (2010). The effect of need for uniqueness on word of mouth. Journal of Marketing Research, 47(3), 553–563. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkr.47.3.553

Dayan, O. (2020). The impact of need for uniqueness on word of mouth. Journal of Global Marketing, 33(2), 125–138. https://doi.org/10.1080/08911762.2019.1606375

Taylor & Francis. (n.d.). Journal of Global Marketing: Aims and scope, journal metrics. Retrieved October 26, 2026, from https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/wglo20/about-this-journal

Tian, K. T., Bearden, W. O., & Hunter, G. L. (2001). Consumers' need for uniqueness: Scale development and validation. Journal of Consumer Research, 28(1), 50–66. https://doi.org/10.1086/321947

• Why customers stay silent about products they love: need for uniqueness and referral marketing
• The three dimensions of consumers' need for uniqueness and word of mouth: a model across all CNFU dimensions
• Visible, high-involvement products and word of mouth: where uniqueness motives matter most