Brand name and consumer inference making in multigenerational product introduction context
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SEIGYOUNG AUH obtained his PhD from the University of Michigan. His research interests include application of resource-based theory to marketing strategy and capability. His research has appeared in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Retailing, International Journal of Research in Marketing and Journal of Business Research, among others.
ERIC SHIH obtained his PhD from the University of California, Irvine. His research interests include diffusion of technological innovation at the family household level and information technology policies at the national level. His research has appeared in the Journal of Marketing, Management Science and Journal of Retailing, among others.
Keywords
Abstract
brand name; innovation; multigenerational product introduction; inference making; information congruency
Employing consumer inference making and the information congruency framework, the authors examined the effect of brand name in the context of multigenerational product introduction in two studies. Results showed that brand name type had an effect on perceived technological improvement, product differentiation and the degree to which one is willing to pay more for the current version compared to the previous version of technology. Furthermore, results showed that the degree of congruency between brand name (sequential vs nonsequential) and type of innovation (breakthrough vs normal) can elevate such effects. The results underscore the importance of proper branding strategies for high-tech products, especially when it is a breakthrough development.
Journal of Brand Management (2009) 16, 439–454. doi:10.1057/palgrave.bm.2550104; published online 13 July 2007
INTRODUCTION
Seigyoung Auh Yonsei School of Business Yonsei University 134 Shinchon-dong, Seodaemun-gu Seoul, 120-749, Korea Tel: + 82 (2) 2123-5486 E-mail: [email protected]
Many technological products such as personal computers, consumer electronics and software that are available in the marketplace today are introduced as part of multigenerational product lines. Many of these products use alpha-numeric brand names. For example, successive generations of Sony’s popular videogame consoles have been branded as PlayStation 1, PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3. The numbers are used to indicate the generation of product lines over time. For other firms, the branding strategy of multigenerational products may abandon numeric labelling © 2009 Palgrave Macmillan 1350-23IX
Brand Management
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altogether and instead pursue descriptive wordings such as Power Utilities, Power Utilities Gold and Power Utilities Elite. Alternatively, firms may mix numbers and words in labelling over time. Microsoft, in a series of product introductions starting from the early 1990s, introduced various versions of its Windows operating systems that are labelled as Windows 3.0, 95, 98, 2000, XP and most recently Vista. Another well-known example is Intel, which shifted its branding convention for its microprocessors from 286-386-486 to Pentium
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