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Consumer perceptions of product variants positioned on atypical attributes

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Abstract

How do consumers perceive new product variants that are positioned on atypical attributes? The authors investigate the joint effects of three factors? brand familiarity, retail shelf display, and consumer goal orientation. The study focuses on snack foods positioned on the atypical attribute of low fat. There are three main findings. First, although high (vs. low) brand familiarity causes relatively unfavorable perceptions on the positioning attribute, it also creates sufficiently favorable perceptions on another determinant attribute, product taste, resulting in a net positive effect for brand equity on purchase likelihood. Second, goal-based versus taxonomic shelf display (i.e., placement with health foods vs. regular snack foods) results in relatively negative perceptions on the positioning attribute, yet more favorable buying intentions. Finally, more (vs. less) health-oriented consumers rate such product variants less favorably on fat content but more favorably on product taste; the former segment is also more likely to buy such product variants.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, USA

    Kalpesh Kaushik Desai

  2. University of Connecticut, Connecticut, USA

    S. Ratneshwar

Authors
  1. Kalpesh Kaushik Desai
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  2. S. Ratneshwar
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Kalpesh Kaushik Desai (Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin, 1995; MBA from India, 1985) is an assistant professor of marketing at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He specializes in research that applies the principles of categorization, memory, and other cognitive psychology theories to managerial problems in branding, product-level competition, and retail judgments. His specific research interests include category extensions, ingredient branding, brand repositioning, consideration sets, in-store product placement, and price perceptions of retail stores. His research draws heavily from his 5 years of product management experience in India. His research has been published in theJournal of Consumer Research, theJournal of Marketing, and theJournal of Business Research.

S. Ratneshwar (Ph.D., Vanderbilt University, 1987) is a professor of marketing and Ackerman scholar in the School of Business at the University of Connecticut. His research interests include consumer goals and motivation, consumer judgment and decision making, categorization and memory processes, time style and time consumption, advertising and persuasion, interactive marketing, and marketing strategy. His work has been published in theJournal of Consumer Research, theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Consumer Psychology, theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, Marketing Letters, theJournal of Business Research, theJournal of Strategic Marketing, and a few other journals. He currently serves on the editorial boards of theJournal of Consumer Research, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and theJournal of Interactive Marketing. He also served as lead editor of a recently published research volume,The Why of Consumption.

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Desai, K.K., Ratneshwar, S. Consumer perceptions of product variants positioned on atypical attributes. J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. 31, 22–35 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1177/0092070302238600

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