Pham et al. (2024), Australasian Marketing Journal — brand innovativeness has positive indirect effect on positive WOM, mediated by perceived brand expertise

Claim: Pham et al. (2024), Australasian Marketing Journal, found brand innovativeness has a positive indirect effect on positive word-of-mouth, mediated by perceived brand expertise. A demonstrable capability ("we built something that works") signals "we have the competence to deliver what we promised."

Source: Pham et al. (2024), AMJ.

Confidence: Single-source (peer-reviewed).

Caveat: Independent research measures innovativeness → expertise → WOM generally, not calculators specifically. The link from "a calculator" to "perceived expertise" is a reasonable application of the theory, not a directly measured finding.

Why this matters for Candid: Defensible academic anchor for the "demonstration beats assertion" argument in client conversations. A broken, inaccurate, or trivial tool signals the opposite (negative expertise), so the rule is conservative — only ship tools that genuinely work.