The Effect of Common Features on Brand Choice-Moderating Role of Attribute Importance

• Main Authors: Shu-yu Liu, 劉淑玉
• Other Authors: Ming-chuan Pan
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 1999
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/20457654672297121491

碩士 === 大同工學院 === 事業經營研究所 === 87 === ABSTRACT Consumers often make choices among brands that share identical features. For example, airbags are a common feature for new cars, CD-ROMs are a common feature for most computers. In addition, many products and services are bundled with almost identical bonus offerings, such as frequent-usage programs, gift certificates, and complimentary magazine subscriptions. Chernev argued that when brand attributes differ in importance, it will lead to different brand choices. He also offered his subjects a attribute made up of common features, whose addition will increase the information load and further complicate the choice. When facing the problem of excessive information caused by added common features and when the differences in the importance of attributes are not significant, consumers are inclined to accept the suggestions of the opinion leaders, which are used as guidelines and criteria in the decision process. Therefore, this study will explore two factors, i.e. differences in attributes and opinion leaders, that are considered by consumers at time of decision making. According to the experiment results, we obtained the following conclusions. 1. The effect of common features on the choices of brands is moderated by the relative importance of products’ attributes. The brand choice of both opinion leaders and non-opinion leaders are moderated by the importance of the attribute. 2. When one of the products’ attributes has primary importance, common features will increase the likelihood of choosing the brand with the best value on the primary attribute, thus leading to a divergence in the choice share of the alternatives. To opinion leaders, this condition is not significance. But to non-opinion leaders, this conditions is significance. 3. When products’ attributes have similar importance, common features will lead to a convergence of brands’ choice share. To opinion leaders, this condition is significance. But to non-opinion leaders, this conditions is not significance.