Laboratory Study Discussion

Results indicated that the technological features of a new product (highly or low new) have a strong effect on consumers’ evaluation of the product’s innovativeness (Hypothesis 1). This high impact is further conveyed to post-CPBI through CPPI and reinforces the importance of the perceived newness of technological aspects for a product to be perceived as a new offering by the brand.

In addition, the effect of technological newness on consumer perceived product innovativeness was found to be equivalent for products with high and low technological newness. Post hoc, one might expect to find a stronger (weaker) effect of technological newness on CPPI for highly (low) technologically new products compared with their low (high) counter-parts. However, this finding is consistent with the current innovation adoption literature. In the context of learning about innovative products, it has been found that discontinuous innovations are more difficult to comprehend and evaluate by consumers, mainly due to the difficulty consumers have in incorporating these new products into their existing product category knowledge structure (Moreau et al., 2001). The authors found consumers express higher difficulty in understanding specific features of the new product and the new product in general for discontinuous innovations compared with continuous innovations. In addition, a higher level of the surprise (wow) factor in discontinuous innovations compared with continuous innovations, lead to lower levels of comprehension for these products (Moreau et al., 2001).

Highly technologically new innovations are categorised as discontinuous innovations (Garcia & Calantone, 2002). Thus, borrowing from Moreau et al. (2001), it is very likely for the respondents to face higher levels of difficulty in comprehending and evaluating the highly technologically new mobile phone stimulus used in Study 7 compared with the less technologically new mobile phone. This lower level of ability to comprehend the highly technologically new mobile phone may prevent CPPI of this new product from being rated statistically significantly higher than its less technologically new counter-part and ultimately leads to an equivalent effect of TN on CPPI for both highly and low TN mobile phones.

Interestingly, this effect (Hypothesis 1: TN on CPPI) was also equivalent across highly and low innovative brands. It seems that the current level of brand innovativeness (pre-CPBI) does not affect this relationship. In other words, consumer perceived product innovativeness is mainly based on the technological newness of the product innovation than parent brand’s innovativeness level. As long as consumers can find some level of technological newness in the product, they perceive the product as having some level of innovativeness, regardless of its parent brand’s innovativeness level. This finding is consistent with the findings for Hypothesis 2 (pre-CPBI on CPPI) which are discussed below.

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The effect of pre-consumer perceived brand innovativeness on consumer perceived product innovativeness (Hypothesis 2) was fully supported for the pooled data. However, this relationship was partially supported across the four experimental groups. The effect of pre-CPBI on CPPI was significant for pooled data, less technologically new products and low pre-CPBI. This relationship was not supported for highly technologically new products and for high pre-CPBI.. In other words, it seems that consumers’ judgement about a new product’s innovativeness is not strongly affected by the parent brand’ innovativeness level.

This finding slightly contrasts with the general consensus that corporate brand associations can influence perceptions of the company’s products (Brown & Dacin, 1997; Keller, 2013). There are several possible explanations for this result. In the laboratory study, participants were exposed to the stimuli (informed respondents that brand A introduced this innovation) and rated consumer perceived product innovativeness based on this single exposure. A previous study on the effect of brand placements on branded product image found that brand placement affected the branded product image only when participants were exposed to a brand placement two or more times (Van Reijmersdal, Neijens, & Smit, 2007). Therefore, the absence of full support for the relationship between pre-CPBI and CPPI could be attributed to the limited consumer exposure to the brand– innovation pairing of this study. It has also been found that positive associations from the brand would be transferred to the new product upon consumers’ exposure to multiple brand–innovation pairings through multiple communication strategies such as preannouncement and advertising (Lee & O’Connor, 2003). Pre-CPBI might have had a significant influence on CPPI in the other two experimental conditions if participants had received an array of promotional material featuring the brand–innovation pair. Furthermore, the results of this study do not suggest that the entire set of brand associations (the overall brand image) of a brand cannot transfer and influence product evaluations. Rather, the results imply that considering the strong antecedent role of technological newness on CPPI, the transfer of brand innovativeness-related associations from the parent brand to the product innovation could be limited.

The predictable effect of pre-CPBI on post-CPBI (Hypothesis 3) received strong support, regardless of the technological newness of the introduced innovation. Not surprisingly, the effect was stronger for highly innovative brands compared with low innovative brands. Strong brands (e.g., a highly innovative brand) possess a stronger, more favourable and more stable brand association network compared to weaker brands (Keller, 1993; Krishnan, 1996). Thus, pre-existing CPBI would be related more highly to the post-exposure CPBI for highly innovative brands.

Controlling for the effect of pre-consumer perceived brand innovativeness on its post values, a new product, regardless of featuring a high or low technological newness, leads to an enhancement of post-consumer perceived brand innovativeness (Hypothesis 4). The results

indicated that this enhancement is larger for low innovative brands than for highly innovative brands. One possible explanation for this interesting result is that for a highly innovative brand, innovativeness and its related associations (e.g., creativity, novelty, and dynamism) are core attributes which constitute its definition. These associations are the most salient and essential attributes for understanding a highly innovative brand (Eysenck & Keanne, 1990) which result in a stronger and more stable association network for a highly innovative brand compared to a low innovative brand. Prior research has found that salient attributes and a more stable association network are more difficult to change (Keller, 1993; Murphy 1988; Smith et al., 1988). Thus, a product innovation is more influential in changing the innovativeness attributes of a low innovative brand compared to a highly innovative brand.

This finding is also consistent with information integration theory-IIT (Anderson, 1981a) used to developed this relationship. Recall that based on IIT: Post-perception of brand A = Pre- perception of brand A + Perception of innovation. Using this formula with a simple numerical example below, it is clear that the effect of CPPI on post-CPBI is stronger for a low innovative brand. In the following calculations a high level CPPI (rated 7 out of 7) is used. The same results are found if a low CPPI is added to the formula. Consider a 7-point Likert scale and the averaging method for integration in these calculations:

Pre-CPBI + CPPI = Post-CPBI ∆ (Post – Pre)

For a low pre-CPBI 4 + 7 = 11/2 = 5.5 5.5-4 = 1.5 1.5 > 0.5 For a high pre-CPBI 6 + 7 = 13/2 = 6.6 6.5-6 = 0.5

Also, this relationship (Hypothesis 4: CPPI on post-CPBI) was found to possess stronger effects when a brand introduces a highly technologically new product. Similarly, this finding is consistent with the principles of information integration theory; everything else equal, information with larger weight and value (importance and favourableness) is more effective in changing attitudes than information with lesser weight and value (Anderson, 1981a).

Finally, regarding the outcomes of CPBI, the results indicated a direct and positive relationship between consumer perceived brand innovativeness and brand attitude, providing support for Hypothesis 5. This is an important finding. This predisposition toward the brand may lead to consumer satisfaction. In essence, consumer perceived brand innovativeness may seed the expectation of satisfaction even before product consumption (Henard & Dacin, 2010; Stock, 2011). Furthermore, changes in brand attitude are associated contemporaneously with stock return and lead accounting financial performance (Aaker & Jacobson, 2001). The extremely strong coefficients of 0.84 on brand attitude, which is considered as constituting a large impact, reinforces the importance

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of aiming to build CPBI. Efforts at building CPBI and ultimately increasing brand attitude are very likely to result in higher levels of satisfaction for consumers as well as value for firms.

In addition to generating positive attitude toward the brand, a positive CPBI does lead to an enhancement of consumer purchase intention with a moderately strong effect of 0.46 (Hair et al., 2010). Interestingly, this positive impact seems to be stronger when a low innovative brand introduces a new product than a highly innovative brand (see Table 4.7). One possible explanation for this result is that strong parent brands may have a dominant influence in purchase intention formation because of their high-innovativeness reputations and consequent high level of diagnosticity (Bian & Forsythe, 2012; Kunz et al., 2011). However, weak parent brands, which have mediocre innovativeness reputations, may have a less dominant influence because of their less distinctive innovativeness reputations and consequent low diagnosticity. Thus, purchase intentions may be formed more easily for strong brands with high level of innovativeness (e.g., Samsung) than for weak brands with low level of innovativeness (Nokia), regardless of the presence of an innovation, because of the high diagnosticity of the strong and highly innovative brand. Consequently, an innovation will be more distinct in the purchase intention formation of the weak brand, due to the lesser dominance of the weak parent brand. This distinction will enable an innovation, either as a highly technologically new or a less technologically new product, to create greater purchase intentions for low innovative brands than for highly innovative brands.