差异化营销策略外文文献翻译Word格式.docx

差异化营销策略外文文献翻译Word格式.docx

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Dalman,M.Deniz&

JunhongMin

Abstract

Thisresearchinvestigatesthatbranddifferentiationcreatingsuperiorvaluescanbeachievednotonlybyaddingmeaningfulattributesbutalsomeaninglessattributes,whichiscalled"

trivialattributeeffect."

Twostudiesprovidedempiricalevidencesasfollowing;

first,trivialattributeeffectcreatesastrongbranddifferentiationevenaftersubjectsrealizethattrivialattributehasnovalue.Second,trivialattributeeffectismorepronouncedinhedonicservicecategorycomparedtotheutilitariancategory.Last,theamountofwillingnesstopayishigherwhentrivialattributeispresentedandevaluatedinjointevaluationmodethanseparateevaluationmode.Finally,weconcludewithdiscussionandprovidesuggestionsforfurtherresearch.

Keywords:

branddifferentiation,evaluationmode,serviceindustry,trivialattribute

IntroductionProblemDefinition

Perhapsthemostimportantfactorfornewproductsuccessistocreatethemeaningfulbranddifferentiationthatprovidescustomerswithsuperiorvaluesbeyondwhatthecompetitorscanofferinthesameindustry（Porter,1985）.Notsurprisingly,morethan50percentofannualsalesinconsumerproductindustriesincludingautomobiles,biotechnology,computersoftware,andpharmaceuticalsareattributedtosuchmeaningfulbranddifferentiationbyincludingnewornobleattributes（Schilling&

Hill,1998）.However,thebranddifferentiationthatincreasesconsumerpreferenceisnotonlybyintroducingmeaningfulattributesbutalsomeaninglessattributes.For

example,itisnotunusualtoseebrandsdifferentiatingthemselvesinthemarketplacebyaddingsomenon-importantattributestotheirofferings（e.g.,Coca-Cola'

s"

S"

shapebottle,PanteneshampoowithvitaminsorFolgerscoffeechangingtheshapeofcoffeeparticles）.Thesenon-importantortrivialattributesasthemarketingliteraturesuggestsareattributesthat"

appearsvaluablebut,oncloserexamination,isirrelevantortrivialtocreatingtheimpliedbenefit"

（Carpenter,Glazer,&

Nakamoto,1994,p.339）.

Inmarketing,thesuccessfulbranddifferentiationbytrivialattributeshasbeendiscussedandexplainedbythreedifferentresearchstreams.First,researchontrivialattributeshasshownthatofferingtheseattributesincreasebrands'

buyinglikelihoodbygivingconsumersreasonsorrationalforchoice（Brown&

Carpenter,2000）.Interestingly,evenafterconsumersrealizedthatthebranddifferentiationbytrivialattributedidn'

tcreateanymeaningfuldifferentiation,theirbrandchoicewasthesame（Carpenteretal.,1994）.Second,Miljkovic,Gong,andLehrke（2009）findthatthistrivialattributeeffectonbranddifferentiationdependsonthechoiceset.Specifically,theyfindthatwhenthechoicesetconsistsofatleastthreebrands-whereeachbrandisstrongoncertainattributesanditisdifficultforconsumerstomakeachoice,offeringatrivialattributeservesasa"

tie-breaker"

andthusincreasesthebuyinglikelihoodofthatbrand.Last,literaturerevealsthatbranddifferentiationcanbeobtainedbyhowcompetingbrandsarepresentedandevaluatedeitherseparatelyorjointlywhichiscalledthe"

evaluationmodeeffect."

Hsee,Loewenstein,Blount,andBazerman（1999）introducethetwotypesofevaluationmodes:

separateevaluationandjointevaluation.Separateevaluationdescribestheevaluationcontextinwhichbrandsareevaluatedoneatatime.Jointevaluationmeansthatthebrandsareevaluatedsimultaneously.Inparticular,jointevaluationincreasestransparencywhencompetingbrandsareevaluated（Chatterjee,Heath,&

Min,2009）.Thus,whenabrandwithtrivialattributeispresentedandevaluatedjointlywithanotherbrandwithouttrivialattribute,consumersareeasytoidentifyuniquenessofthebrandwithtrivialattribute,whichresultsinbranddifferentiationandbrandpreference.Studiesintheevaluationmode

literaturecontinuetoprovidestrongempiricalevidencesthattheevaluationmodeeffectisparticularlystrongwhenconsumersneedtoevaluatebrandswithuncertainty（Chatterjeeetal.,2009;

Hseeetal.,1999）.

ThePurposeofThisResearch

Althoughourknowledgeoftrivialattributeeffecthasbeengreatlyenhanced,howthetrivialattributeaffectsbrandevaluationhasneverbeenstudiedfromtheperspectiveofproductdevelopmentandmarketingstrategy.Ourresearchaimstofillthegapbyofferingempiricalevidencesfromtwostudies.Thegoalsofthispaperisfourthfolds;

1）Canbrandsincreasetheirchoicelikelihoodbyaddingsometrivialattributes,2）Doesthiseffectdependonthenatureofthecategory（i.e.hedonicvs.utilitarian）,3）Doesthetypeoftrivialattributes（hedonicvs.utilitarian）affecttheconsumerresponsetothesetrivialattributes,andfinally4）Howcanmarketingmanagerseffectivelycommunicateabrandwithtrivialattribute?

Toreachthesegoals,inthefirststudy,wereviewtrivialattributeeffect,andtesthowitcreatesthebranddifferentiationinservicesector.Then,inthesecondstudy,wediscussabouttheevaluationmodeliterature,andtestthattheeffectwhethertrivialattributeismoresalientinjointevaluationorseparateevaluationmode.Finally,weconcludewithdiscussionandprovidesuggestionsforfurtherresearch.

TheoreticalBackground

TrivialAttributeEffectonServiceChoice

Trivialattributesaredefinedastheattributesthatdonotcreatemeaningfuldifferentiationinevaluationofalternatives（Broniarczyk&

Gershoff,2003;

Miljkovicetal.,2009）.Consumerstreatthistrivialinformationintheadvantageofbrandsthatofferthemevenwhentheyareinformedbeforedecision-makingaboutthetriviality（Carpenteretal.,1994）.BrownandCarpenter（2000）explainthisadvantagewiththereasonsbasedaccount.Theyarguethatconsumersprefertochooseonthebasisofeasilyjustified,cognitivelyavailablereasons（Brown&

Carpenter,2000）.Thus,whentheoptionscannotbechosenbasedonimportantattributes,consumersneedtorelyon

trivialattributesthatcreatebranddifferentiation（Shafir,Simonson,&

Tversky,1993）.

Thequestionaboutwhattoaddtotheofferingtoincreaseitsvalueisespeciallyimportantforservices（Devlin,1998）,asitis moredifficulttocreateacompetitiveadvantageinserviceindustries（Storey&

Easingwood,1998）.Themainreasonisthatunlikephysicalgoods,servicesareintangibleandconsumersoftenfaceaproblemofidentifyingthenecessaryattributesinservicesforevaluation.Thus,theyenduponlyrelyingonbrandcomparisonsonthebasisofselectedattributes（Gabott&

Hogg,1994;

Rust&

Chung,2006）.Therefore,servicescreatemoreuncertaintyforconsumersthanphysicalgoodsatthepurchasestage.Whenadecisioncan'

tbejustifiedonrelevantattributes,consumersformargumentsbasedontrivialattributesevenaftertheyaretoldaboutthetrivialityoftheattribute（Albrecht,Neumann,Haber,&

Bauer,2011）.

Therefore,withtheamountofuncertaintyinservicesandthedifficultyofevaluatingattributesasmentionedabove,consumersarelikelytousetrivialattributeswhentheyarefacedwithanambiguouschoicesetevenaftertheyaretoldaboutthetriviality.

Wepositthehypothesisasfollows;

H1:

Thechoicelikelihoodofserviceproviderthatoffersatrivialattributewillbehigherthanthatdoesnotoffer.

Comparedtophysicalgoods,servicesarebasedoninformationprocessing（Rust&

Chung,2006）andhowtheinformationisprocesseddependsonwhethertheserviceisutilitarianorhedonic（Hirschman&

Holbrook,1982）.AccordingtoBatraandAhtola（1991）,consumershavethesetwomotivesinachoicecontext.Hedonicservicesarerelatedto"

fun"

and"

pleasure"

（Babin,Darden,&

Griffin,1994）whereasutilitarianservicesarerelatedto"

functionality"

（Strahilevitz&

Myers,1998）.Inachoicecontext,theoutcomesofthesetwotypesofservicesarevalueddifferentlyastheutilitarianoutcomedependsonobjectivestandardswhereashedoniconesdependonsubjective（discretionary）standards（Botti&

McGill,2010）.Moreover,BottiandMcGill（2010）arguethathedonicmotivesaresought"

asanenditself"

whereasutilitarianmotivesareusedtoreachahigher-levelgoal.Wearguethatutilitarianservicesaremoreanxietyprovokingthanhedonicservicesastheyincludeimportant,

hardertoachieve,anduncertaingoals（Lazarus,1991）.Andinsituations,whengoalsareanxietyprovoking,trivialattributesaremoreinfluential（Xiao,Dacin,&

Ashworth,2011）.Therefore,weexpecttheeffectoftrivialattributestobemorepronouncedinahedonicservicecategorythaninautilitarianservicecategory.Wepositthehypothesisasfollows:

H2:

Theadvantageofserviceproviderthatoffersatrivialattributewillbemorepronouncedforthehedonicservicescomparedtoutilitarianservices.

MarketingCommunicationStrategyUsingTrivialAttributeEffect

Priorliteraturehassuggestedthatcomparisonisanaturalandpowerfulstrategythatconsumersoftenrelyon（Cooke,Janiszewski,CunhaJr,Nasco,&

DeWilde,2004;

Dhar,Nowlis,&

Sherman,1999）.HseeandLeclerc（1998）suggestthatconsumerpreferencechangesdependingonhowproductsarepresentedandevaluated,specifically,whethertheyareevaluatedseparately（separateevaluationmode）orjointly（jointevaluationmode）.Forexample,inseparateevaluationwhenoneisaskedtoratetheimportanceofsupportinggovernmentinterventionforsavingdolphinsoverpreventingskincanceramongfarmworks,thenumberofpe