Consumer Evaluations of Hybrid Products

Abstract

This article examines how consumers evaluate hybrid products. Hybrid products possess features of more than one category and hence may be categorized into alternative categories. We combine two different streams of literature—traditional categorization and psycholinguistics—to demonstrate how beliefs about two different categories can be elicited for a hybrid product using a priming approach. We also find that relative category knowledge can moderate the elicitation of multiple category beliefs.

How context shapes category inferences and attribute preference for new ambiguous products

“…Researchers have questioned how consumers make inferences and develop expectations for products that do not fit nicely into a single product category (Gill & Dubé, 2007;Gregan-Paxton, Hoeffler, & Zhao, 2005;Moreau, Markman, & Lehmann, 2001b). A common observation is that when a new product consists of properties from two or more categories, consumers tend to classify the product under a single pre-existing category, and use that category exclusively to generate inferences (GreganPaxton et al, 2005;Noseworthy & Goode, 2011;Rajagopal & Burnkrant, 2009). This suggests that new hybrid products are not necessarily seen as hybrid, at least not when it comes to functional expectations.…”

“…This suggests that new hybrid products are not necessarily seen as hybrid, at least not when it comes to functional expectations. Rajagopal and Burnkrant (2009) coined this, "the single category belief problem," and identified it as a major challenge for marketers given that key attributes from the supplementary category (i.e., the category that does not frame the primary category referent) may go ignored (p. 232).…”

The Curious Case of the Refrigerator–TV: Similarity and Hybridization

“…To illustrate, they described an MP3 player-GPS by listing the features of the MP3 player and then adding that it also contains a GPS system. Similarly, Rajagopal and Burnkrant (2009) described to participants a hybrid of a GPS navigation system and a radar detector, but the HP did not link their functions in any way. By contrast, an integrative hybrid would build on emerging properties (Hampton, 1987(Hampton, , 1988.…”

Naming is framing: the public understanding of scientific names

“…A name acts as a label guiding people to a particular schema, which in turn acts as a frame when processing information (Ferguson & Bargh, 2004;Herr, 1986;Higgins, 1996). Once this schema becomes activated, people pay more attention to the attributes that are part of the schema, disregarding those that are not (Rajagopal & Burnkrant, 2009), which also determines what people will remember (Sedikides & Skowronski, 1991). Ironically, these might be the distinguishing attributes that define the newness of the concept.…”

“…Therefore, they do not notice the differences between the new concept and the concept used to give meaning, and consequently do not notice that a single known concept is not enough to understand the new concept. The result is that non-experts learn from single examples (Gregan-Paxton, 2001), leading to exemplar learning (Barsalou, 1991) and single category beliefs (Rajagopal & Burnkrant, 2009). The meaning given to the new concept is basically a copy of what is already known.…”