Preannouncing pioneering versus follower products: what should the message be?

Abstract

Despite the high practical relevance, prior research does not provide a clear picture whether the effectiveness of new product preannouncements is contingent upon order of entry and whether the message content of preannouncements for pioneering products should be different from those for followers. Drawing on diffusion research, the authors examine how preannouncements that focus on risk reduction and the product's relative advantage influence the relationship between preannouncement intensity and new product success, taking into account order of entry. A crossindustry study investigating 151 new product launches shows that for pioneers, a message focus aimed at reducing perceived product risk positively influences preannouncement effectiveness. Furthermore, a relative advantage focus negatively affects preannouncement effectiveness and thus is rather counterproductive for pioneers. With regard to early followers, results indicate a positive influence of a risk reduction focus on preannouncement effectiveness. A relative advantage focus, however, is only effective if the product category is already established when the early follower product is launched. Finally, for late followers, only preannouncements which strongly emphasize the relative product advantage lead to a positive effect of preannouncements on new product success.

Speed or quality? How the order of market entry influences the relationship between market orientation and new product performance

“…As indicated above, three cases on which there was no agreement were eliminated from the sample. Following Homburg et al (2009), we tested and confirmed that the order of entry regimes represented decreasing product newness (M First-to-market = 5.58, M Early-entrants = 4.33, M Late-movers = 3.56; F = 40.04, p b .01). Product newness was defined as the degree of difference between the NP and those already on the market and was measured on a 7-point scale, where 1 = very low and 7 = very high.…”

“…2 We chose to use covariance-based path analysis rather than PLS as our primary estimation method because (1) covariance-based SEM outperforms PLS in terms of parameter consistency (Reinartz, Haenlin, & Henseler, 2009) and (2) the data in PLS are typically standardized prior to the analysis, which may not be appropriate for complex mediation models such as ours (Cheung, 2009). (Calantone, Yeniyurt, Townsend, & Schmidt, 2010;Homburg et al, 2009;Lieberman & Montgomery, 1988). Therefore, the implication for firms is that they should remain vigilant to shift the emphasis from speed to quality or vice versa during the development of the NP should the expected order of market entry changes.…”

“…The key results of our study indicate that MO can improve the performance of first-tomarket products and late entrants by facilitating the development of highquality products, whereas it can improve the performance of early entrants by increasing innovation speed. Second, the study represents a departure from existing marketing research, which has mainly concentrated on explaining the main effects of order of entry (for exceptions, see Bowman & Gatignon, 1996;Homburg, Bornemann, & Totzek, 2009). …”

Toward a theory of the boundary-spanning marketing organization and insights from 31 organization theories

“…Information economics theory and signaling theory provide such a platform. In a situation of information asymmetry (which is typically the case between competitors), marketing organizations can signal to the marketplace important aspects of their organization, such as new product announcements (Homburg et al 2009), thus transferring information to the organization's stakeholders (most notably its customers) and competitors and resolving the information asymmetry. At the same time, it is difficult for competitors to know which marketing organizations are genuinely committed to business practices with which they associate.…”

Factors Affecting the Acceptance of Green Products

“…Ram and Sheth (1989) also offered evidence that supports the existence of innovation resistance related to perceived risk. Homburg et al (2009) investigated 151 new product launches and found that a message focusing on reducing perceived product risk positively influences preannouncement effectiveness. Coelho et al (2010) expanded on the innovation research and examined 21 factors that might influence the acceptance of innovation of a music player and a fitness program.…”