Word of Nextopia - en djupare förståelse av Nextopia och hur det påverkar Word of mouth
The purpose of this study is to further develop the understanding of Nextopia, the belief that the next product will always be better, and the effects it has on Word of mouth, both oral (WOM) and electronic (eWOM), and investigate possible causes of this effect. This has been made through an experimental study of responses to two mineral water ads, with a manipulated time frame. First, this thesis supports the fact that there is a general Nextopia-effect on customers being exposed to a future product, which makes them evaluating the product higher in terms of feelings, attitude and intention. Further this study shows that there is also a Nextopia-effect on WOM and eWOM, by customers being more likely to recommend a future product rather than a current one. This propensity to recommend the product also has a relationship with responsibility, which correlates much stronger with WOM than eWOM. Another clear relationship was recognized between WOM and the Third-Person Effect (TPE) for future products. However, that could not be found between TPE and eWOM. This difference could be explained by the lower accountability for eWOM, by the fact that consumers believe others to be much more affected by social media than themselves.