The effect of buying decisions on consumers' assessment of their tastes

Building on the notion that consumers are often uncertain about their tastes or weights, this research examines the proposition that consumers might infer their importance weights from their choices and the choice sets they evaluate. It is also hypothesized that the degree to which choice affects self-assessed weights depends on the consumer's familiarity with the product category and the available product information. The results of an experiment demonstrated that consumers' assessments of their importance weights can be influenced by the choice set they previously evaluated. This effect, however, was not moderated by familiarity or provided product information.     

The effect of a similarity versus dissimilarity focus in positioning strategy: The moderating role of consumer familiarity and product category

Results of three studies show that the effectiveness of positioning strategies based on similarity and dissimilarity vis‐à‐vis other brands or with respect to the product category as a whole is moderated by the degree of familiarity of the consumer with the objects of comparison (Study 1) and by the degree of imageability and concreteness of the memory representation of the product category (Studies 2 and 3). Perceptual judgments appear to be more responsive to similarity and dissimilarity positioning either when consumers are more familiar or when product categories allow consumers to form clear, concrete memory representations. Study 3 shows that such effects are due to a shift in the relative proportion of common and distinctive features made salient under similarity and dissimilarity instructions. Methodological and practical implications are discussed. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Condoms and bananas: Shock advertising explained through congruence theory

This research examines the impact of shock advertising on consumer brand evaluations, for both socially acceptable and controversial product categories. The intervening roles of brand familiarity, perceived incongruity and disgust are also investigated. Utilizing two experiments and drawing upon congruence theory, this research offers empirical evidence to demonstrate that: (1) when familiar brands are advertised using a shock advertisement, consumers will show less favorable evaluations towards brands in a socially acceptable product category as compared to controversial products, and (2) for familiar brands, the differences in consumer evaluations between a socially accepted versus controversial product categories is mediated by perceived incongruity and disgust (a serial mediation). Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Adverse influence of brand commitment on consideration of and preference for competing brands

This research investigates if commitment towards a target brand limits set size and preference towards competing brands in memory‐based consideration sets across three situations: (1) situations in which the situational goal matches the benefit offered by the target brand; (2) situations in which the situational goal matches the benefit offered by a competitor brand; and (3) situations in which a new benefit is introduced in the category for the first time. Findings confirm the set size and preference biases of committed consumers against a competitor brand in the first two situations. However, in the third situation, committed consumers favorably or unfavorably view the competitor brand depending on whether it is the first brand to introduce the new benefit in the category. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Managing Opportunism in China: The Roles of Guanxi,Environmental Uncertainty,and Management Culture

ABSTRACT

This cross-cultural comparison aims to understand whether the influence of consumer ethnocentrism (CE) on consumer preference for domestic versus foreign products is product category and country-of-origin dependent. Three countries with dissimilar cultural orientation and economic status—China, South Korea, and the United States—were examined. American consumers were found to be more ethnocentric than Chinese and South Korean consumers. CE was found to significantly and positively predict American and Korean consumers’ preference for domestic products across product categories, while Chinese consumers’ CE did not translate into their preference for Chinese products. In addition, the relationship between CE and purchase preference varied across product categories as well as countries of origin.     

Reference Points Used In Quality And Value Judgements

We propose that a fundamental difference between quality and value judgments is that consumers rely more on internal standards (i.e., information stored in memory) to evaluate a brand's quality and external standards (i.e., reference brands available in the evaluation context) to assess a brand's value. Since internal standards are relatively stable and external reference brands may change across contexts, value judgments are more context-dependent than quality judgments. In addition, we propose that the relative invariance of quality ratings to contextual product information will hold only for consumers who are relatively familiar with the product category and the target brand. To examine the underlying mechanisms, an experimental study varies task, comparison brand information and familiarity and uses a process tracing methodology.     

Effects of the number of advertised brands in a choice set: A metacognitive process

When product shelves feature more advertised brands, such that the choice set likely contains some familiar options, this subjective experience of familiarity could influence consumers' evaluations of chosen products and shopping experiences, through a metacognitive process. The findings of this study suggest that (a) a product shelf displaying some advertised brands, as opposed to no advertised brands, generates greater subjective familiarity, more favorable attitudes toward the purchased items, more shopping satisfaction, and greater intentions to revisit the store; and similarly, (b) a product shelf displaying more, as opposed to fewer, advertised brands generates greater subjective familiarity, more favorable attitudes toward the purchased items, more shopping satisfaction, and greater intentions to revisit the store. These outcomes result from a three‐step metacognitive process, whereby the subjective familiarity triggered by the presence of advertised brands influences judgments, through the effect of shopping pleasure. These results are robust for high‐ and low‐involvement products, as well as in contexts in which the prices of the advertised brands are higher than, lower than, or the same as those of the nonadvertised brands.     

Bridging the intention–behavior gap among organic grocery customers: The crucial role of point‐of‐sale information

Although the interest in organic groceries has increased, actual buying behavior falls short for reasons that are mostly unknown to researchers and practitioners. This paper addresses this so‐called intention–behavior gap by investigating the impact of point‐of‐sale (POS) information on the perception of purchase barriers and behavior. While behavior and interest differ for various product categories, the organic groceries most frequently bought worldwide are differentiated on the basis of product category involvement in a pilot study. A laboratory experiment and a field experiment containing actual purchase behavior and market data revealed the possibility of enhancing organic purchases within low‐ and high‐involvement categories, while exposed to POS information. In low‐involvement product categories, POS information should reveal new product category‐specific organic features. In high‐involvement product categories, the perceived addition of value for money is crucial for purchasing organic groceries. While the effect of POS information on perceived trust and knowledge is higher for health conscious or green consumers in low‐involvement product categories, it is the converse in high‐involvement product categories.     

Disentangling country-of-origin effects: the interplay of product ethnicity,national identity,and consumer ethnocentrism

The country-of-origin (COO) of products has been shown to affect consumer choice, especially in situations where the origin has a stereotypical association with particular products and depending on certain consumer traits (e.g., national identity, consumer ethnocentrism). However, little is known about how these phenomena are related. Two controlled experiments conducted in two different countries and product categories reveal that product ethnicity moderates the impact of national identity but not of consumer ethnocentrism. National identity is found to influence consumer preference only if the foreign product ethnicity is higher but not lower than that of comparable domestic products. Furthermore, while consumers with a low national identity are positively affected by a high product ethnicity of foreign products, this effect vanishes with increasing levels of national identity. This research has implications for academics and practitioners alike, as it examines important boundary conditions of country-of-origin effects that have been undiscovered so far.     

Multiple-Category Decision-Making: Review and Synthesis

In many purchase environments, consumers use information from a number of product categories prior to making a decision. These purchase situations create dependencies in choice outcomes across categories. As such, these decision problems cannot be easily modeled using the single-category, single-choice paradigm commonly used by researchers in marketing. We outline a conceptual framework for categorization, and then discuss three types of cross-category dependence: cross-category consideration cross-category learning, and product bundling. We argue that the key to modeling choice dependence across categories is knowledge of the goals driving consumer behavior.     

Consumer-based brand equity and brand performance

The relation between consumer-based brand equity and brand performance was investigated across 15 product categories in Brazil and the UK. Brand equity was conceptualized as related to the level of social benefit offered by each brand and was measured with a simple questionnaire that asked consumers to rate brands with respect to their familiarity and quality levels. These measures were then related to brand market share and revenue. Results showed that the relation between consumer-based brand equity and brand performance varies across product categories, indicating that products differ with respect to their level of brandability and suggesting ways to measure it.     

How Attitudes Toward Product Categories Drive Individual Brand Attitudes and Choice

Three experiments examine the role of attitudes toward the category to which a brand belongs in consumers’ attitudes toward individual brands. The core findings indicate that what consumers think generally about a category affects their evaluations of singular brands belonging to the category. Study 1 demonstrates that both consumers’ attitudes toward a category as well as their relative attitudes toward a brand versus intracategory competitors drive overall attitudes toward individual brands. Study 2 shows that manipulating attitudes toward a product category affects attitudes toward, and purchase intention of, individual brands belonging to that category. Study 3 demonstrates that more versus less favorably evaluated categories are more likely to exhibit brand positivity effects in judgments of singular brands. The results suggest the practical importance of measuring attitudes toward product categories, as well as the utility of marketing interventions aimed at the category level.     

If all their products seem the same,all the parts within a product seem the same too: How brand homogeneity polarizes product experiences

Many different factors affect brand homogeneity, including the different products associated with a brand, how they are made, and how they are branded. How does the perceived homogeneity of a brand’s offered products, in turn, affect consumers’ experiences with those products? Nine experiments reveal that consumers have more polarized judgments of product experiences when the sampled products are perceived to belong to more homogeneous brands. When a consumption experience is positive, the consumer has an even more positive experience when they think the sampled product came from a homogeneous brand; however, when a consumption experience is negative, the consumer has an even more negative experience when they think the sampled product came from a homogeneous brand. This polarization occurs because the individual product inherits the brand-level quality of perceived internal consistency—when a brand seems homogeneous (i.e., consisting of homogeneous products), consumers also perceive any individual product from the brand as similarly consisting of homogeneous ingredients or parts. We suggest that brand homogeneity leads to selective processing of individual product experiences, which makes products seem more coherent, products rated faster, and ratings of different product ingredients or features more highly correlated. The perception that all of the parts within the individual sampled product are homogeneous in quality polarizes judgments of the product experience.     

The relationship between trusting beliefs and Web site loyalty: The moderating role of consumer motives and flow

This research (1) examines how specific consumer motives (i.e., goal‐directed: searching for information, experiential: browsing for recreation) influence the trusting belief–loyalty relationship at a Web site in a distinct manner and (2) investigates how the online flow experience in each of the motive states strengthens or weakens the trusting belief–loyalty relationship. The results suggest that for consumers with an experiential motive, benevolence‐ and integrity‐related beliefs are the key drivers of loyalty, while ability‐related beliefs do not drive loyalty. On the other hand, for consumers with a goal‐directed motive, the ability‐ and integrity‐related beliefs are the key drivers of loyalty, while benevolence‐related beliefs are not influential. Further, this research illustrates that when consumers with an experiential motive experience a high level of flow, the impact of trusting beliefs on loyalty weakens. However, for consumers with a goal‐directed motive, trusting beliefs continue to exert the same impact on loyalty across both high and low levels of flow. ©2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

An Analysis of Assortment Choice in Grocery Retailing

Consumers in grocery retailing commonly buy bundles of products to accommodate current and future consumption. When all products in a particular bundle share common attributes (and are selected from the same product category), the consumer is said to assemble an assortment. This research examines the impact of assortment variety on the assortment choice process. In particular, we test the prediction that consumers demand less variety for higher quality items. To investigate this relationship, we employ a flexible choice model, suitable for the analysis of assortment choice. The model, based upon the assumption that the utility of purchase of one item in an assortment depends upon the set of items already selected, allows for a general utility structure across the assortment items. We apply the model to household assortment choice histories from the yogurt product category. Substantively, we show that yogurt choice is affected by brand quality perceptions (quality-tier competition). Moreover, we show that reaction to reductions in variety (number of yogurt flavors) is mediated by brand quality perceptions. Taken together, these empirical facts paint a picture of a consumer who is willing to trade-off variety against product quality in assortment choice.     

Are Consumers Really Bewildered by Overchoice? An Experimental Approach to the Tyranny of “Too Much”

Conventional wisdom advocates that consumers love choice. But just how much? This study delves into this subject by considering the cognitive factors that underpin the consumer’s reaction to plentiful assortment on the shelf, but which may cause “analysis paralysis” and indecision. In an attempt to investigate the above, this study adopts an experimental approach to ascertain what occurs when consumers are faced with a multitude of options within the product category of red wine. The results suggest that if executed correctly, retailers can effectively reduce assortment in such a manner that does not negatively impact perceptions of choice, but does indeed reduce the cost incurred when consumers are forced to weigh up options against each other. Of particular interest, the study finds that product knowledge and experience also has a material effect on the outcome of these endeavors. Hence, both product category familiarity and the nature of the consumer should be factored into the strategic thinking of how a retailer can optimize the merchandise assortment displayed to the customer.     

Revisiting Tversky's Trail—How Money Makes a Subtle Difference in Similarity Effect Experiments

Recent findings in research on context effects indicate that, as opposed to choices under hypothetical settings, compromise effects are significantly attenuated in binding settings that include real payments for products. The present investigation examines to what extent this finding applies to yet another context effect, namely the similarity effect (SE). The SE stipulates that, compared with initial shares of two options A and B in a binary choice set, the introduction of an option C that is dissimilar to B but similar to A will hurt the latter more than the nonadjacent option B. The conducted online survey examines the SE in unforced choices of experienced consumers between real brands across three consumer good categories. The results confirm that the SE is evidently reduced under real payment conditions, hence confirming the hypothesis that the applied choice setting moderates the efficacy of the composition of choice sets.     

Brand Identification by Product Design: The Impact of Evaluation Mode and Familiarity

Distinctive product design is a cornerstone of sustainable branding. Ideally, consumers will be able to identify brands by product design without seeing any logos. Once companies have established strong associations between product designs and brands in consumers’ minds, they seek protection against imitation as well as consistency in product lines. This research discusses methods for measuring consumers’ abilities to identify brands by product design. Study 1 shows that brand identification depends on the evaluation mode that the identification task evokes. Compared to a task that presents products side by side (comparative mode), participants are more likely to confuse copycats with an original design when they see only one product (noncomparative mode). Study 2 replicates findings of Study 1, demonstrating some robustness of effects across three countries (United States, Spain, Germany) and across three different product categories (beer, smartphones, cars). Study 2 further investigates how familiarity with the product influences brand identification. Although consumers with high (compared to low) familiarity are more likely to accurately identify an original product in a noncomparative evaluation mode, they are also more likely to confuse a copycat with the original product in this mode. Overall, this research extends knowledge about brand identification by product design and provides information brand managers may need for legal decisions in trademark or design patent cases. This research also provides information for brand managers making decisions regarding new product development, for example, product line extensions.     

Understanding consumer's brand categorization across three countries: Application of fuzzy rule-based classification

In multi-brand situations, people categorize all known brands into subsets called consideration, hold, foggy and reject sets. This is the Brisoux–Laroche model. Traditional brand categorization models including this, assume that consumers can properly categorize each brand into these subsets. However, a brand with both perceived positive and negative attributes increases the difficulty for a consumer to decide about the placement into subsets. This study investigates consumers' brand categorization when a brand has both perceived positive and negative attributes. We propose that a brand may belong to more than one subset (decision fuzziness). Using fuzzy-rule-based classification, this is investigated across three cultures (Chinese, Japanese and Kazakhstan) and two product categories: Quick Service Restaurants (QSR) and beer. The findings confirm that decision fuzziness varies across cultures. Chinese consumers have less decision fuzziness for foreign brands than for local brands in the QSR market. In general, the opposite is found to be true for Japanese and Kazakh consumers.     

Now that's a Bright Idea: The Influence of Consumer Elaboration and Distance Perceptions on Sustainable Choices

Integrating theory related to psychological distance and elaboration on potential outcomes, hypotheses are offered that predict that consumers’ elaboration levels moderate the effect of temporal distance on choice of energy efficient products. In three experiments, the authors examine the influence of temporal and psychological distance and the moderating effect of a consumer's propensity to elaborate on potential outcomes (EPO) in retail choice-based situations. Results support these predictions with consumers lower in elaboration more likely to choose an energy efficient product when perceived distance is proximal versus distal, while the distance effect has less of an influence on consumers prone to higher elaboration. We test the effect of distance perceptions within a retail lab environment, as well as across ad and retail contexts. These results will help marketers better understand how to promote products in ad versus retail-based contexts and across different consumer groups. Findings offer implications for theory, retailers, product marketers, and NGO's interested in promoting energy efficient choices.