How to Advertise Radical Product Designs

Abstract

New product designs can be radical in terms of new technology or new external form. Forms that are too radical, however, are often rejected by consumers because they represent new meanings to target buyers. We suggest that including designers’ beliefs, feelings, or intentions in advertising for products characterized by radical designs may help audiences contextualize and understand the new meanings embodied in the novel designs. This, in turn, can make such products more appealing to the average consumer. This paper presents an experimental study of viewer attitudes towards four radical new product designs when they are accompanied by designer philosophies. For all designs, the designer philosophies had positive impacts on viewer attitudes.

Keywords:

• radical designs
• advertising
• new products

Notes

1. In an effort to get industry feedback on our findings, we showed a draft of this paper to a senior executive in charge of design (Vice President of Design) at an international packaging manufacturer. She expressed strong agreement with both our findings and our recommendations.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jeffrey Durgee

Jeffrey F. Durgee is an Associate Professor of Marketing in the Lally School of Management at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy New York. His PHD is in Sociology from the University of Pittsburgh. He does research on the interface between art and marketing, qualitative methods for new product development, and more recently, consumer behavior regarding refurbished products. His articles have appeared in many journals including the Journal of Product Innovation Management, the Journal of Advertising Research, and Design Management Review.

Dmitri Markovitch

Dmitri G. Markovitch is an Assistant Professor of Marketing in Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's Lally School of Management. He holds a PhD from New York University's Stern School of Business. Dr. Markovitch conducts research in three substantive areas: marketing-finance interface, new product strategies and performance, and managerial decision-making under uncertainty. He has published numerous articles in academic journals, including Management Science, Marketing Science and Journal of Product Innovation Management.

Dongling Huang

Dongling Huang is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the David Nazarian College of Business and Economics, California State University, Northridge. She holds a Ph.D. in Management Science with concentration in Marketing from University of Texas at Dallas. Professor Huang's research interests include new product strategies and marketing analytics. Her research has been published in Journal of Industrial Economics, Marketing Letters, and Journal of Culture Economics, among other journals. Her papers have received awards such as the American Marketing Association (AMA) Marketing Analytics and Research Best Paper Award, Academy of Management Conference Best Paper Award, and AMA Advanced Research Techniques Forum Best Paper Award.