Measurement of the relative importance of product attribute information: A review of the information display approach

In determining whether or not to mandate disclosures of product information, policymakers may wish to first investigate the relative importance of different attribute-related information cues in influencing the purchase decision-making of consumers. This paper examines the applicability of the information display approach to this research task. In addition, unresolved problems associated with the approach are addressed for the benefit of researchers interested in applying the methodology.     

Aesthetic responses to prototypicality and uniqueness of product design

This paper investigates how dimensional measures of product design form influence the aesthetic responses of consumers through the concepts of product prototypicality and uniqueness. We develop and test a model with two different methods. The first is a longitudinal panel of passenger vehicle models available in the U.S. automotive market from 1999 to 2007. The data includes 16 firms, 32 brands, and 137 products (i.e., vehicle models) from four product-based, industry-derived market segments. We also conduct an experiment motivated by the results of the model. The model results suggest prototypical design and aesthetic response can vary by the relative prototypicality and sub-dimensions of the product’s design. Results from both the model and experiment suggest that consumers prefer prototypical design form across the entire passenger car market, but prefer unique design form within specific market segments. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.     

Footwear with feeling: a cultural approach to product development

ABSTRACT

Holt (2004) pioneered a change in marketing discourse by outlining how brands can become icons through tapping into cultural mythologies of the time. Yet, the theory has remained purely focused on branded consumption. This film extends the approach to the realm of product development and focuses on the transformation of a fashion trend into a consistent product category by examining the flatform shoe, a new shoe style that blends the height of a heel with the comfort of a flat. Through qualitative interviews and ethnographic analysis, this film argues that consumers are able to attach a strong postfeminist sensibility to the style. This helps to elevate the style to a mainstream category of its own through an adherence to cultural branding principles.     

IPTV(网络电视)广告类型和产品类型的广告效果

在本研究中，从IPTV作为一种新媒体的角度，根据不同的IPTV广告类型和产品类型存在的效果差异进行探索。为此，依据广告类型和产品类型的不同分别进行了4个实验调查，IPTV广告效果测定了广告态度、广告点击意向、产品购买意向。首先，由于IPTV广告种类的不同，使广告效果的差异表现在广告态度和点击意向上；第二，根据产品类型的不同，IPTV广告效果也出现了差异。在广告态度和点击意向及购买意向存在差异的同时，IPTV广告中探索研究比经验型研究显示出更有效的反应；第三，由于广告类型和产品类型的不同，相互作用效果在购买意向上表现了出来。这些为广告中利用IPTV的媒体两面性提供了依据；其次，倡议在广告实行战略中开发能预期对消费者起到积极广告效果的带有图标和字幕的网幅广告；再次，在IPTV广告的制作方面，为探索性的IPTV广告能够诱发更有效的广告效果提供了理论性的依据。     

Managing supplier involvement in new product development: a portfolio approach

Supplier involvement in new product development projects has become an increasingly popular method for improving project effectiveness (product costs and quality) and project efficiency (development costs and time). One of the key issues in managing this involvement is determining which type of involvement a manufacturer should have with the various suppliers that may be engaged simultaneously in a development project. In this article, a Supplier Involvement Portfolio is introduced to distinguish four types of supplier involvement in development projects. Subsequently, suitable supplier–manufacturer interfaces for the four types of involvement are defined in terms of the direction of information flow, the communication media used, the amount of communication, the topics discussed and the functions involved.     

Illustrating a systematic approach to selecting motion pictures for product placements and tie-ins

Previous literature has inadequately facilitated the systematic selection of motion pictures for promotional actions. By contrast, in the present illustrative application, single-source data on movie attendance and on consumption in Spain permit the examination of a film’s suitability for promoting a product by considering the match between attending the film and consuming the relevant good or service. The illustration investigates how such suitability is predicted by movie characteristics (storyline content and country of origin) to the end of identifying what types of film best fit various product categories.     

The effects of exports on facility environmental performance: Evidence from a matching approach

This paper employs matching techniques to investigate the effects of facility export status on environmental performance. Using facility-level criteria air emission data in the US manufacturing industry, we find the industry-specific effects of export status on emission intensity, measured by emissions per value of sale. In some industries, there is consistent and robust evidence supporting the superior environmental performance of exporters relative to non-exporters in terms of emission intensity for all criteria air pollutants tracked. In other industries, we find weak evidence that exporters appear to have a higher emission intensity than non-exporters. This industrial heterogeneity in the effects of exporting on the environment is closely related to industrial characteristics including pollution abatement capital expenditure, trade costs, capital intensity and others.     

Effects of team cognition and constraint on new product ideation

Idea generation is a critical activity in new product development. This study investigates the effects of ideation team's cognitive depth (specialization) and breadth (diverse expertise) as well as goal constraint on the generation of new product ideas. Focusing on the determinants of new product idea development helps articulate the mechanisms to generate more useful and novel product ideas. The findings indicate that specialization and diverse expertise affect idea novelty directly, albeit differently. Goal constraint helps enhance the usefulness dimension of new product ideas, but has little effect on the newness dimension of the ideas. Finally, goal constraint helps harness the diverse expertise of the team toward a more useful idea.     

Familiarity and competence diversity in new product development teams: Effects on new product performance

When developing new products, most firms use cross-functional teams, but research on the effect of functional diversity on new product performance returns heterogeneous results. We propose a measure of competence diversity that is more comprehensive than the common functional diversity proxy. Empirical findings, based on a survey of 142 product and sales managers, support the improved predictive validity of our scale. We further observe a mediating effect of the instrumental use of information in the competence diversity–new product performance relationship. Finally, we discuss the moderating effect of familiarity among team members on the relationship between competence diversity and the instrumental use of information. All authors contributed equally to this article and are listed in random order.     

Effects of foreign product names and country-of-origin attributions on advertisement evaluations

In an effort to correct methodological problems with previous research on effects of country-of-origin attributions, two experiments examined college students' reactions to brief oral or written ads for products with English, French, German, or Spanish names. Subjects rated how much they liked the ad and liked the product name and rated their likelihood of purchasing the product. Results showed that, overall, English names were generally favored over the foreign names. This finding, however, varied tremendously with the product; for several products one or more of the foreign names was preferred. Country of origin also frequently interacted with either sex or modality of the ad. In general, written ads were preferred over oral ones. Results were interpreted as arguing for great care and caution in interpreting country-of-origin effects. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

The effect of product touch information and sale proneness on consumers' responses to price discounts

Since price discounts are costly and can negatively affect consumers' perceptions of quality, it is crucial to identify the factors that make them effective in stimulating purchase behavior. Drawing on cue utilization theory, we examine price discount effectiveness in affecting consumers' reliance on the sale cue based on the provided product touch information as an intrinsic cue and individual consumer differences in sale proneness. Two experimental studies indicate that price discount information, product touch information, and sale proneness interact to determine consumers' responses. Perceived quality is the underlying mechanism behind the observed effects. For nonsale-prone consumers, product touch information favorably influences responses to large price discounts by addressing product quality concerns and enhancing purchase confidence, but has no effect for regularly priced or low discounted products. For sale-prone consumers, product touch information is not effective in increasing their responses regardless of the discount size. A qualitative study provides support for these results and highlights the role of perceived quality and purchase confidence. The research contributes to behavioral pricing, cue utilization theory, and sensory marketing and suggests that marketing managers should provide consumers with product touch information when implementing high discounts for products for which prepurchase touch is important.     

Light as a feather: Effects of packaging imagery on sensory product impressions and brand evaluation

Inspired by the increasing importance of packaging design for product and brand management, this study tests effects of movement visuals and location of imagery on sensorial product impressions. Participants were exposed to a packaging variant for a fictitious brand of washing powder. Subsequently, they smelled packaging contents, estimated package weight, and evaluated product and brand. Findings show that movement visuals connoting upward (versus downward) movement resulted in the experience of a less concentrated smell, but only when presented in the top-left region of the package. Furthermore, imagery located in the top-left (versus bottom-right) region induced lower estimates of package weight. Additionally, findings show that location and movement visuals impact brand image formation and consumer preference.     

Effects of product-specific word-of-mouth communication on product category involvement

Drawing primarily from categorization theory, this paper presents justification for the effects of word-of-mouth (WOM) communication on product category involvement. Results of an empirical test of this relationship are presented showing an enduring effect of positive WOM communication on product category involvement; this effect was not found for negative WOM. These results suggest that positive WOM about one firm's brand may help competitors by increasing involvement, thus generating more sales (not necessarily of one's own brand) in an entire product category. Our findings, coupled with categorization theory, provide support for a series of propositions presented concerning the effects of changes in product category involvement on nondiscussed brand attitudes and purchase intentions.     

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.     

Monetary incentives and environmental concern. Effects of a differentiated garbage fee

Market-based instruments, i.e., economic incentives and disincentives, are gaining popularity in environmental policy. However, research on the effectiveness of economic incentives for regulating environmentally relevant consumer behaviour demonstrates convincingly that the implementation of this instrument is based on inadequate assumptions concerning the motivation guiding consumer behaviour. In this paper it is argued that stronger focus should be placed on studying how the regulation instrument influences the perception of the environmentally relevant activity that it was meant to regulate. The attitudes of Danish citizens towards differentiated garbage fees (implying a relatively small economic incentive) and the impact of its implementation on the attitude towards recycling are analysed. The attitude towards differentiated garbage fees is primarily determined by the perceived equity of differentiated garbage fees and its perceived effectiveness with regard to combating waste problems. The most important determinant of the attitudes towards recycling activities is the expected environmental and public benefits. However, empirical support is found for the hypothesis that the use of monetary incentives at the consumer level may re-frame the recycling issue into the sphere where private cost-benefit calculations apply. The negative effects of this re-framing can more than outweigh the positive impact of the monetary incentive on attitudes and behaviour.

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Zusammenfassung Monetäre Anreize und Umweltbewutsein. Die Wirkung differenzierter Müllgebühren. Marktkonforme Instrumente wie ökonomische Anreize oder Strafen werden in der Umweltpolitik immer populärer. Allerdings zeigen Forschungsergebnisse über die Wirksamkeit ökonomischer Anreize für die Regulierung umweltrelevanten Konsumentenverhaltens, da\ die Anwendung dieses Instrumentes auf unzweckmä\igen Annahmen über die Motivation beruht, die dem Verbraucherverhalten zugrunde liegt. In diesem Beitrag wird gefordert, da\ die Frage stärker in den Mittelpunkt gerückt werden mu\, wie das Regulierungsintrument die Wahrnehmung des umweltrelevanten Verhaltens beeinflu\t, das reguliert werden soll. Eine empirische Studie untersucht die Einstellungen dänischer Bürger gegenüber differenzierten Abfallgebühren (die einen relativ kleinen ökonomischen Anreiz bieten) und die Wirkung dieser Ma\nahme auf die Einstellung gegenüber der Wiederverwertung. Die Einstellung zu differenzierten Müllgebühren wird in erster Linie durch ihre wahrgenommene Gerechtigkeit bestimmt und durch ihre wahrgenommene Wirksamkeit gegenüber den Müllproblemen. Die wichtigsten Determinanten der Einstellung gegenüber der Müllwiederverwertung sind ihre erwarteten allgemeinen Umweltvorteile. Allerdings sprechen die Daten für die Hypothese, da\ monetäre Anreize das Thema der Müllwiederverwertung auf Verbraucherebene auf das Niveau privater Nutzen-Kosten-Kalkulationen herunterdrücken. Die negativen Effekte dieser Verschiebung könnten die positiven Wirkungen monetärer Anreize auf Einstellung und Verhalten sogar überkompensieren.

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The research reported in this paper was sponsored by grants from the Danish Environmental Protection Agency and the Danish Social Science Research Council.     

A cross-cultural analysis of price responses to environmental changes

In planning the marketing mix for a product, managers implicitly respond to changes in both their internal and external environments. This paper studies managers' judgments of how they would respond to changes in their own product costs asnd competitor's prices. A manager could react to these by focusing on new products, new markets, or the marketing mix for the current product market. We concentrate on the third. We focus on a set of potential reactions that could include a change in price. Data from managers in both the United States and Europe are used to study pricing reactions to hypothetical scenarios of environmental changes. We estimate relationships between the managerial response and changes in the environment for different types of businesses in different countries.     

Inclusive apparel shopping experiences for older consumers in China: product attributes and retail environment

ABSTRACT

The study explored apparel shopping experiences of older Chinese consumers, which integrate apparel product and retail environment aspects from an inclusive strategy perspective. Research questions include: What factors contribute to older Chinese consumers’ satisfaction and dissatisfaction? What are the major implications of older consumers’ (dis)satisfying shopping experience? What role can fashion practitioners play to make the retail environment and apparel products more accessible to the aging segment? Critical Incident techniques were used for data collection at a community park in Beijing. A total of 151 usable critical incidents from 84 older Chinese informants (55 years and older) were included in the data analysis. Content analysis with deductive qualitative data analysis method was used. Findings suggest that the older Chinese consumers assess their shopping experiences largely based on shopping outcome achieved (product purchased). This is in contrast to the movement toward more experiential focus in the developed markets in the recent decades. A significant number of tangible product attributes (including design/styling, comfortability/fit, and material) and intangible attributes (such as price and product assortment) contributed to the older Chinese informants’ satisfying or dissatisfying shopping experience. Aspects related to retail environment, including retail atmospherics and service quality were also important, but to a lesser extent than product attributes. This study represents an early attempt to explore how the tangible and intangible aspects of product attributes and retail environment contribute to the aging Chinese consumer’s shopping experience. Findings of the Chinese older consumers’ utilitarian, rather than experiential focus in their shopping experience evaluation provide insights on this market segment and valuable implications are developed.     

Young adults’ responses to product placement in movies and television shows

This research examines young adults’ attitudes towards product placement in films and television shows from two countries that represent contrasting cultural distinctions: the US and Korea. The results suggest that young adults in both countries perceive film product placement in a similar way but, with respect to television, Korean respondents tend to perceive it as less effective in enhancing content realism and more unethical and misleading. In addition, the findings suggest that, for both film and TV, materialism, attitude towards advertising, and realism enhancement appeared to be significant predictors of consumer cognitive response to product placement. However, cross-cultural differences were observed for TV product placement. In the US, materialism and realism enhancement were found to be most powerful predictors of cognitive response to product placement. In contrast, attitude towards advertising and materialism were found to be the strongest predictors in Korea. Implications for both advertising researchers and practitioners are provided.     

One Vs. Many: who wins? An empirical investigation of online product display

ABSTRACT

This study questions the unharmonious ways of product displays in online grocery retailing and aims to find if visual complexity of the product display has any impact on behavioral outcomes of online grocery shoppers. Our main finding was that visually complex images, i.e. images with a high number of elements have a negative effect on affective and cognitive states resulting in decreased behavioral intentions. However, when the number of elements in the product display was decreased, i.e. the visual complexity of the product display was reduced, shoppers’ cognitive and affective responses and intentions were similar to when they were exposed to noncomplex images. We also found that arousal and pleasure (parallel mediators) absorption, telepresence, utilitarian and hedonic values and perceived ease of use (serial mediators) mediate the effect that the product display has on behavioral intentions.