TY - JOUR
T1 - Responses to different positioning strategies for unfamiliar food among food neophobics and neophilics
AU - Aqueveque, Claudio
N1 - Funding Information:
The author gratefully acknowledge the financial support received from the CONICYT Research Council of Chile (FONDECYT Project Number 11080096).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Elsevier Ltd.
PY - 2016/10/1
Y1 - 2016/10/1
N2 - Considering the relevance of product positioning for a new food product on its potential acceptance by consumers, this paper reports the results of an experiment conducted to test how food neophobic and food neophilics react to different new food positioning strategies. Two unfamiliar foods were used to examine the impact of three different product positioning strategies that stressed (1) utilitarian benefits, (2) hedonic benefits, and (3) symbolic benefits. The study used a 3 × 2 between-subjects quasi-experimental design (N = 180). The principal finding of the study is that for neophilic consumers, hedonic benefits seem to be significantly more attractive than utilitarian or symbolic benefits when the perceived level of unfamiliarity of the new food is high. For neophobic consumers, results provide partial evidence of more positive reactions to symbolic benefits compared to the other two benefits considered.
AB - Considering the relevance of product positioning for a new food product on its potential acceptance by consumers, this paper reports the results of an experiment conducted to test how food neophobic and food neophilics react to different new food positioning strategies. Two unfamiliar foods were used to examine the impact of three different product positioning strategies that stressed (1) utilitarian benefits, (2) hedonic benefits, and (3) symbolic benefits. The study used a 3 × 2 between-subjects quasi-experimental design (N = 180). The principal finding of the study is that for neophilic consumers, hedonic benefits seem to be significantly more attractive than utilitarian or symbolic benefits when the perceived level of unfamiliarity of the new food is high. For neophobic consumers, results provide partial evidence of more positive reactions to symbolic benefits compared to the other two benefits considered.
KW - Food neophobia
KW - New product positioning
KW - Unfamiliar food
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84973495936&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.foodqual.2016.05.017
DO - 10.1016/j.foodqual.2016.05.017
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84973495936
SN - 0950-3293
VL - 53
SP - 66
EP - 70
JO - Food Quality and Preference
JF - Food Quality and Preference
ER -