Working Paper Poster Session Commodities, Imagery, and Identity

Citation:

N/A (1999) ,"Working Paper Poster Session Commodities, Imagery, and Identity", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 26, eds. Eric J. Arnould and Linda M. Scott, Provo, UT : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 264-265.

Advances in Consumer Research Volume 26, 1999      Pages 264-265

WORKING PAPER POSTER SESSION

COMMODITIES, IMAGERY, AND IDENTITY

 

DIMENSIONS OF PRODUCT INTANGIBILITY AND THEIR IMPACT ON PRODUCT EVALUATION

Einar Breivik, Norwegian School of Management, Norway

Sigurd Villads Troye, Norwegian School of Management, Norway

Ulf H. Olsson, Norwegian School of Management, Norway

Product intangibility has received considerable attention in the marketing literature and has been employed to predict and explain differences between traditional products and services with respect to consumer information processes and marketing strategies. Despite its alleged theoretical and managerial relevancepopularity both from a theoretical and managerial perspective, product intangibility has rarely been carefully defined and does not appear to have satisfactory semantic validity. In the current paper we argue that product intangibility rather than being treated as a uniCdimensional concept, more fruitfully can be conceptualized as encompassing the following two dimensions: Inaccessability to the sensesLack of sensationability and generality. The results support theis twomulti-dimensional conceptualization of the product intangibility construct and indicate. The results furthermore suggest that they give rise to different effects with respect to how consumers product evaluate ion productsof . Sense inaccessability is found to negatively influence perceived evaluation difficulty and perceived processing effort. Conversely, generality is found to have a positive influence on perceived evaluation difficulty and perceived processing effort. Furthermore, sense inaccessability is found to have a weak positive effect on certainty of evaluation. The results are discussed and implications proposed.

 

USE OF VISUAL MENTAL IMAGERY IN NEW PRODUCT DESIGN

Darren W. Dahl, University of British Columbia, Canada

Amitava Chattopadhyay, University of British Columbia, Canada

Gerald J. Gorn, University of British Columbia, Canada

This research seeks to advance our understanding of how marketing can facilitate the new product design process. It focuses on how designers’ use of a specific cognitive process, visual mental imagery, can influence the customer appeal of a design. The paper presents an experiment that manipulates the type of visual imagery utilized, and the incorporation of the customer in the imagery invoked, and examines its effects on the usefulness, originality, and customer appeal of the resulting design. The findings are integrated into a discussion that clarifies the role of visual imagery in design and identifies the potential of this cognitive tool in the new product design process.

 

THE SYMBOLIC REALM OF BODY ADORNMENT: THE TATTOO AS IDENTITY MARKER

Anne Velliquette, University of Arkansas

Jeff B. Murray, University of Arkansas

In the tradition of Barthes (1967/1983), Baudrillard (1981; 1994), and Goffman (1959), the following paper explores the symbolic realm of body adornment from a sociological perspective. This orientation assumes that consumer objects are a condensation of social and cultural tensions. The meaning of objects therefore, results from socio-historical circumstances such as collective legitimization of particular meanings and the marketing of historical identities. Specifically, the tattoo as identity marker is used to illustrate these ideas. This article begins with a general discussion of body adornment, then moves on to a priori themes, ethnographic method, emergent themes, and discussion and conclusions.

USING PRODUCTS TO EXCESS: AN INTERSECTION OF LAW AND CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

Karl A. Boedecker, University of San Francisco

Fred W. Morgan, University of Kentucky

Jeffrey J. Stoltman, Wayne State University

Marketing efforts designed to promote increased product consumption by encouraging consumer to use more of the product may cause consumer to use products beyond a sage limit. When courts find that such overuse is foreseeable by the marketer, a person who incurs injuries resulting form this overuse can often recover damages from the marketer. This paper identifies different categories of product overuse and reviews the relevant case law regarding their product liability implications. Actions of both marketers and consumers are considered. The final section presents some recommendations that marketers can follow in order to reduce their product liability exposure.

 

CONSUMER RESEARCH IN THE COURTROOM: ADMISSIBILITY, EXTENT OF USE, AND DATA ANALYSIS

Fred W. Morgan, University of Kentucky

The interdisciplinary nature of lawsuits means that courts must consider legal evidence, e.g., expert testimony and supporting materials, from extremely divers source. The US Supreme Court recognized some of the problems associated with evidentiary sources in it Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals (19933) decisions. In Daubert the court set forth several consumer guidelines for court to utilize in examining scientific evidence. In this paper we review consumer research data analyses techniques in the context of the Daubert decision. Our goal is to provide consumer researchers with a current view of the use of their research methods by courts.

 

A PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION OF THREE GENDER IDENTITY INSTRUMENTS

Kay Palan, Iowa State University

This study examines three gender identity instruments, including two that have been commonly used in consumer research, for the purpose of highlighting weaknesses in current instruments and providing direction to the development of new gender identity instruments. Using survey data, differences in scale development and construct definitions are examined with factor analysis and internal consistency measures. The results show many probelms with all of the instruments, including the content validity of their underlying dimensions and low internal consistency of several dimensions. Responses of males and females to the three instruments are compared. Future development of gender identity constructs and measurement instruments are discussed.

 

HEAVENLY YOUGURT AND DARNED POTATOES: FOOD CATEGORIES EXPRESED THROUGH IN-HOME STORAGE

Tine Vigne Francois, Odense University, Denmark

This working paper explores the consumers’ categorization of food products expressed through their storage in homes. The study is based on in-depth interviews, observations and photographs in France. A semiotic analysis of the food categories within the refrigerator is carried out. The dichotomies of clean/dirty and transformed/not-transformed seem to constitute the overall logic of the code of ordering the refrigerator. Looking at all the foods in homes, these seem to be categorized according to the dichotomy of dry/humid which decides whether a food product is stored within the refrigerator or not.

 

EMOTIONS ON MARS AND VENUS

Vassilis Dalakas, University of Oregon

This paper is attempting to examine, through the use of indirect self-report measures, the notion that women experience both positive and negative emotions more often and more intensely than men. As a first step, subjects were asked to indicate how often they expect to experience twenty different emotions in the context of various service encounters. Results showed that gender differences exist in very few cases. Further research is expected to explore more thoroughly the use of indirect measures in consumer emotion research.

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