触摸,还是不触摸?先前触摸促进新产品接受

Touch or not touch? Prior touch facilitates consumers' adoption of new products

已有触觉研究和已有新产品研究都不能回答是否先前触摸一个新产品会影响消费者随后对另一新产品的理解和评估。本文发现:事先让消费者触摸(vs.不触摸)一个外观极度不一致的新产品会促进消费者对另一外观极度不一致的目标新产品的评估和选择(实验1-实验2)。实验3进一步发现,当先前触摸的产品和随后评估的产品在外观极度不一致这一点上不具相似性时(如,当所摸新产品在外观上与常见同类产品一致),先前触摸将不再促进目标新产品的不一致解决,进而不再影响目标新产品评估。最后,实验4剥离了触觉和视觉的影响,发现实验1~实验3的发现受触觉(先前摸)而非视觉(先前看)主导。

Previous touch literature cannot answer whether prior touching of a new product（i.e. a new watch） can facilitate consumers＇ evaluation of another extremely incongruent product（i.e. a new camera）. The present research posits that asking consumers to previously touch（versus not touch） an extremely new product（i.e. a new computer mouse） can offer them an opportunity to transfer their learning of the touched new product to understanding another target product＇s extremely incongruity, which consequently leads to incongruity resolution and increased evaluation of the target product（H1-H2）. This research further posits that the prior-touch strategy will be ineffective when the prior-touched product is conceptually different from the target product（i.e., it is common）（H3）, as conceptual disparity inhibits the occurrence of near transfer of learning. We conduct four lab experiments to test these hypotheses.Experiment 1 examined H1-H2 and further tested other alternative explanations including arousal and moods which might affect consumers’new product evaluation.College students completed a randomly-assigned 3（form incongruity：congruent vs.moderate vs.extreme）×2（prior-touch：touch vs.no touch）two-way between-subjects design,with product evaluation as the DV.This experiment found that prior-touch（versus no such touch）only increased evaluations of the extremely incongruent camera,supporting H1.A bootstrap analysis showed that incongruity resolution rather than arousal or positive mood mediated the effect demonstrated in H1,supporting H2.Experiment 2 examined consumers’real choices,finding that compared to no prior touching,prior touching an extremely incongruent mug can increase consumers’subsequent choices of an extremely incongruent computer mouse.Experiment 3 adopted a 2（prior-evaluated product’s form incongruity：extremely common vs.extremely new）×2（prior-touch）×2（target product’s form incongruity：congruent vs.extremely incongruent）three-way between-subjects design,using similar procedures of previous experiments.As expected,prior touching an extremely common computer mouse did not change participants’ability in resolving the extreme incongruity of and did not increase evaluations of the subsequent target watch,supporting H3.In Experiment 4,participants were randomly assigned to one of four type of senses（both touch and see vs.just touch with eyes closed vs.just see without touch vs.no-see,no-touch）conditions to evaluate the target soft drink.This experiment found that it was prior-touching the mouse rather than prior-seeing the mouse that drove the effect observed across Experiments 1-3.Theoretically,this research observes for the first time the carry-over effect of product touch,thus extending existing research on product touch.This research further enriches existing new product research,showing that prior touching an extremely incongruent product can enhance consumers’evaluations of the subsequent extremely incongruent target product.Managerially,this research has rich implications to new product’s launch and promotion.