The pretrial evaluation of innovative, new products: The effect of schema incongruity on the processing and effectiveness of advertising, and, The evaluation of innovative, new attributes.

In an examination of how the (in)ability to resolve incongruity between new product information and an existing product-category or brand-category schema influences the processing and effectiveness of new product advertising and also the perception of new attributes, this research makes two primary claims and proposes a model of new product evaluation. With schema incongruity expected to prompt greater processing of an advertisement than schema congruity, this research contends that it is the consumer's (in)ability to resolve incongruity using the information presented in an advertisement that determines the route to persuasion, and subsequently, the relative influence of advertising claims and peripheral cues as major determinants of advertising effectiveness. Secondly, this research predicts that the (in)ability to resolve incongruity also has an indirect influence on the perception of new product attributes. Specifically, it is predicted that it is the consumer's (in)ability to successfully integrate new attributes into an existing schema that determines how (un)favorably those attributes are evaluated; and it is the effort employed during that process that is predicted to determine the strength of that effect. A model of new product evaluation is proposed that predicts that new product evaluation is a function of not only the attitude towards the category and the evaluation of new attributes(s), but also the consumer's (in)ability to resolve the incongruity between the two. Thus, whereas, prior research has suggested that there are two factors that impact product evaluation---category affect and the degree of incongruity between the new product and the existing category schema---this research suggests that another factor must be considered. That factor is whether or not the consumer is able to resolve the incongruity and successfully integrate the new attributes into an existing schema.Ph.D.Cognitive psychologyMarketingPsychologySocial SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/124697/2/3150224.pd