Matching product newness to consumer exploratory buying behavior:
Strategies for effective new product launch
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Abstract:
The topic of new product acceptance has figured prominently in the marketing literature. Yet,
in a context of increasing globalization, a new challenge is to optimize launch strategies
across countries. Linking consumer cultural characteristics, consumer exploratory buying
behavior, and new products’ characteristics to new products’ preference data should guide
managers towards optimizing these decisions. We test our hypotheses using five European
countries and find an effect of the congruency between the product newness and consumer
exploratory buying behavior profile, as well as an effect of the congruency between the
product newness and the consumer cultural profile on new product liking.
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Extended Abstract:
The topic of new product acceptance has figured prominently in the marketing literature.
Understanding and predicting accurately new product acceptance has become a key success
factor on today’s markets. As a consequence, innovation features as a key challenge in
business research today. A plethora of studies have focused on consumer response to
innovation (Hauser, Griffin and Tellis 2006). Yet, only few studies investigated the
relationship between new products’ and consumers’ characteristics. Moreover, the crosscultural dimension has become increasingly vital to companies in terms of new product
diffusion (e.g. Tellis et al. 2003; Golder and Tellis 2004). This paper proposes to match
elements of product newness to the existing two-dimensional conceptualization of exploratory
buying behavior (see Baumgartner and Steenkamp 1996). It also intends to integrate cultural
variations by testing the hypotheses in a cross-national context, using 5 countries in Europe
(UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain).
In terms of consumers’ personality characteristics, researchers quickly recognized the
applicability of exploratory behaviors to important areas of consumer behavior. Activities
such as innovative behavior in product purchase, variety seeking, brand switching,
recreational shopping, and information search are manifestations of exploratory tendencies in
the consumer buying process (Baumgartner and Steenkamp 1996). Yet, Baumgartner and
Steenkamp (1996) proposed that a two-factor conceptualization of exploratory consumer
buying behavior might be more useful than the initial seven facets. Following this
observation, they developed the Exploratory Buying Behavior Tendency (EBBT) scale, with
two forms of exploratory buying behavior: Exploratory Acquisition of Products (EAP) and
Exploratory Information Seeking (EIS) based on the distinction between sensory and
cognitive stimulation seeking.
In terms of new product characteristics, past studies have shown that perceived product
newness can have a major impact on the product’s diffusion and adoption (Gatignon &
Robertson 1991; Rogers 1976). Yet, more recently, Calantone and colleagues (2006)
concluded that product innovativeness per se has no direct effect on new product profitability
and meta-analyses results (Szymanski, Kroff and Troy 2007; Montoya-Weiss and Calantone
1994; Henard and Szymanski 2001) revealed that newness and performance are positively
related but that the average bivariate effect remains small to moderate in size. In terms of
marketing research, it appears relevant to study the effect of variables associated to product
newness rather than the effect of newness in itself. Following this observation, recent research
has focused on more specific product characteristics associated to product newness: e.g.
complexity (Mukherjee and Hoyer 2001), uncertainty related to really new products (Hoeffler
2003), and familiarity with the product category (Dahl and Hoeffler 2004). We propose to
follow Berlyne’s theory of collative variables, stating that newness is accompanied by other
properties, closely related, but sufficiently distinct from newness itself to produce their own
influence on the direction of stimulus selection or the strength of any stimulus selection
process (Berlyne, 1960, 1966). We argue product newness can create sensory or cognitive
stimulation depending on its accompanying variables. Namely, we propose that variables such
as change or surprise produce sensory stimulation (further labeled sensory newness). In
contrast, variables such as complexity or puzzlingness produce cognitive stimulation (further
labeled cognitive newness).
What are the likely effects of the product newness on liking? And more importantly, what are
the likely interactions between product newness, consumer exploratory behavior and cultural
characteristics? Drawing a parallel between the consumer exploratory buying behavior (EAP
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and EIS) and the product profile (sensory and cognitive newness); we expect congruency
between the product profile and the consumer profile to yield higher product liking than
incongruency between the two. More specifically, we expect (1) consumers with high (low)
EAP to show higher (lower) liking for sensory new products as sensory newness should
satisfy sensory stimulation seeking. Similarly, we expect (2) consumers with high (low) EIS
to show higher (lower) liking for cognitive new products as cognitive newness should satisfy
cognitive stimulation seeking. At the cultural level, individualism and uncertainty avoidance
have been related to consumer innovativeness. We expect (3) consumers in countries with
high (low) individualism to show higher (lower) liking for sensory new products as they are
‘different’ from existing ones; and (4) consumers in countries with high (low) uncertainty
avoidance to show lower (higher) liking for cognitive new products as they comprise more
uncertainty.
The results from a large study conducted in 5 European countries (i.e. UK, Germany, France,
Italy and Spain) with 150 to 180 respondents per country evaluating 36 new products each (in
the detergent category) partially supported our predictions. The analysis was conducted using
a three-level hierarchical linear model with product characteristics (Level 1), personality
characteristics (Level 2) and cultural characteristics (Level 3). Multigroup confirmatory factor
analysis (Steenkamp and Baumgartner 1998; Byrne 1998) was previously performed to
address the issue of measurement invariance across countries.
Specifically, in terms of main effects, we find a positive effect of consumer exploratory
behavior on new product liking (EAP and EIS), a positive effect of sensory newness and
negative effect of cognitive newness on new product liking. Moreover, we find that the
negative effect of product cognitive newness on liking increases as EIS increases and that the
positive effect of sensory newness decreases as EAP increases. This suggests that incongruity
between the personality and product profile yields higher product liking. In terms of cultural
characteristics, we find that the negative effect of product cognitive newness on liking is
reinforced as uncertainty avoidance increases and that the positive effect of sensory newness
on liking is emphasized as individualism increases. Hence we find that congruity between the
culture and product profile yields higher product liking In conclusion, our results show that
personality and cultural characteristics are not a negligible source of variation in new product
evaluation and new product liking in particular. Product characteristics should not be
dissociated from personality and cultural characteristics when evaluating new product liking.
As always, our research has several limitations that present opportunities for future work. The
present study is based on a reduced number of product and personality characteristics. Further
research should examine the influence of more extent product and personality characteristics.
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