According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, what we think of a product or brand, or how positively or negatively we assess it, depends on the context in which it is viewed.
The research suggests that marketers have to carefully construct and consider the context to get the desired results.
"Although [consumers] generally think their judgments reflect the true quality of the products, many irrelevant contextual factors from the weather to another product brand can influence consumers' evaluations," the authors write.
The study was based on four experiments that looked at how consumers compare and contrast products and brands and what it takes to get them to positively or negatively evaluate them.
In the experiments, researchers manipulated the context in various ways so that participants would eventually place a rating on a product or brand. The results measured the "distance" between the context and target ranges.
They looked at the way the context and the product (target) overlap determine consumer reactions to the targeted product.
When consumers shop in a mall, impressions of one store can be influenced by perceptions of the surrounding stores. Or, when consumers browse the print ads in a magazine, perceptions of one brand could be influenced by the brands in the surrounding ads. Therefore, when marketers decide to advertise their products in particular contexts, they would benefit from considering how it measures up in terms of its context.
"Consumers routinely encounter and consider products within a surrounding context, whether that context consists of other products in a shopping mall or from media or personal experience," the authors write. "When the marketer can anticipate the context (such as when placing ads in a themed magazine), he or she would be well-served by considering aspects of the context and target that influence range overlap."
Citation: Chien et al., 'Dimensional Range Overlap and Context Effects in Consumer Judgments', Journal of Consumer Research, April 2010
