Using Narrative Transportation to Enhance New Product Comprehension

Are consumers who are unfamiliar with a really new product aided in their understanding by storytelling? In a questionnaire study, respondents read a narrative about someone using a product, and were then tested on their comprehension and degree of mental submergence into the story (‘transportation’). The results show that respondents with low familiarity with the product domain depend on transportation to understand the new product. Respondents with high familiarity were more easily transported, but transportation did not help them to understand the product better. Implications are discussed for transportation theory and for consumer research on really new products.

Citation:

Ellis Van den Hende, Jan Schoormans, and Dirk Snelders (2007) ,"Using Narrative Transportation to Enhance New Product Comprehension", in E - European Advances in Consumer Research Volume 8, eds. Stefania Borghini, Mary Ann McGrath, and Cele Otnes, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 205-205.