Differences in the relative influence of product attributes under alternative processing conditions: Attribute importance versus attribute ease of imagability

Abstract

We present two experiments that test whether ease of imagability can shift the influence of a product attribute without affecting its assessed importance in the decision. Results of the experiments indicate that more easily imagined attributes may have a disproportionate influence when subjects use imagery in the evaluation, but not when they engage in more analytical processing. Experiments 1 and 2 differ in the manner in which method of evaluation (imagery based vs. nonimagery based) was manipulated. In Experiment 1, use of imagery was manipulated through explicit instructions to either engage in or refrain from using imagery, whereas use of imagery was manipulated in Experiment 2 by varying the overall value of the alternatives. Results of Experiment 2 indicate that subjects who were asked to evaluate alternatives that were described in generally positive terms used imagery in the evaluation, placing greater emphasis on the easily imagined attributes, whereas subjects who were asked to evaluate alternatives that were described in generally negative terms or mixed positive and negative terms did not use imagery, basing their evaluations on attribute importance. Our findings support the hypothesis that consumers may at times evaluate alternatives by using an imagery heuristic, which involves imagining the actual experience with an alternative and assessing the desirability of the alternative according to the affective response to this imagined experience.

Evoking the Imagination as a Strategy of Influence

“…Vivid product attributes have a disproportionate infl uence on product preferences when consumers pro-cess the product information using imagery (Keller & McGill, 1994;McGill & Anand, 1989). Moreover, because consumers are likely to base their purchase intentions on the ease with which they can imagine the product experience, asking consumers to imagine the product experience in the absence of vivid product information may not only be ineffi cient but may actually decrease the likelihood of purchasing the product (Petrova & Cialdini, 2005).…”

“…Th e existing fi ndings converge across a variety of products, such as automobiles (Burns, Biswas, & Babin, 1993;McGill & Anand, 1989), beer (Rossiter & Percy, 1978), apartments (Keller & McGill, 1994;McGill & Anand, 1989), restaurants (Petrova & Cialdini, 2005), cameras (Schlosser, 2003), and vacations (Adval & Wyer, 1998;Krisnamurty & Sujan, 1999;Petrova & Cialdini, 2005). However, all of these product categories have an experiential component, and the product use has been associated with positive aff ect.…”

“…Research in this direction reveals that instructing individuals to use their imagination while processing the product information (Keller & Block, 1997;Keller & McGill, 1994;Krishnamurthy & Sujan, 1999;McGill & Anand, 1989) or incorporating imagery appeals in an ad (Babin & Burns, 1997;Bone & Ellen, 1992;Escalas, 2004) can enhance product evaluations and the likelihood of purchasing the product. For example, in one of the fi rst studies on the eff ects of imagination in a consumer context (Gregory et al, 1982), half of the residents in a neighborhood were given information about the features of a cable service.…”

Consumer Perceptions of Branding Alliances of Educational Institutions and Hotels in Hong Kong

“…Brand attitudes can be defined as consumers' overall evaluations of a brand (Mitchell & Olson, 1981). Consumers might form an attitude based on their direct experience (Fazio, 1986) or their imagined attempt to experience the attitude object (P. Keller & McGill, 1994). In general, consumers are more likely to select a brand toward which they hold the most favourable attitude when facing a choice of brands in a product category (James, 2005).…”

Elaboration on experience: Effects on attribute importance

“…The manipulation used by McGill and Anand prompted subjects to elaborate on thoughts and activities related to specific attributes used in the descriptions of specific alternatives (see also Keller & McGill, 1994). Their results show that easily imagined attributes are more influential in choice than less easily imagined attributes, for subjects prompted to imagine the alternatives.…”