(The) effects of vividness and number of features on consumer evaluation of a new product

Abstract

The present research is considered applying vividness effect on the high-tech product category, investigating the effect of number of features as well. The results indicate that when eight product features (i.e., low number condition) are presented in the ad, the vividness effect on the consumer attitude occurs through in-depth elaboration on the product attributes. However, when sixteen product features (i.e., high number condition) are presented in the ad, the vividness effect disappears because the high number condition makes consumers fail to elaborate sufficiently on the given product attributes. Through the mediation analysis, I explain the whole information processing of a consumer from viewing the ad to forming an attitude. That is, I show systematically the presence of the vividness effect through depth of information processing. Also, the results provide a convincing evidence for the premise that the manageable level of number of product features of a new high-tech product is lower than other product categories. The stronger implication lies on that the results also can be explained by the resource-matching perspective (Keller and Block 1997).