2134/10008098.v1
Peiyao Cheng
Peiyao
Cheng
Ruth Mugge
Ruth
Mugge
Cees De-Bont
Cees
De-Bont
“Smart home system is like a mother”: The potential and risks of using product metaphors to influence consumers’ comprehension of really new products
Loughborough University
2019
Design Practice and Management
Art Theory and Criticism
Product metaphor
Consumers’ comprehension
Really new products
Analogical leaning
2019-10-22 13:18:49
Journal contribution
https://repository.lboro.ac.uk/articles/journal_contribution/_Smart_home_system_is_like_a_mother_The_potential_and_risks_of_using_product_metaphors_to_influence_consumers_comprehension_of_really_new_products/10008098
<p>Driven by innovative technology, really new
products (RNPs) incorporate new functions that provide significant benefits for
consumers. But consumers often experience difficulty understanding RNPs, which
hinders consumers’ further adoption. To facilitate consumers’ comprehension, the
use of product metaphors in RNPs is a promising strategy because it relates a
target RNP to a source product/concept familiar to consumers. By using
knowledge from the familiar source, consumers could gain better comprehension of
the RNP. However, product metaphors can also carry risks that hinder consumers’
comprehension of RNPs, such as consumers’ misidentification of the source and consumer’
inability to use the relevant knowledge to comprehend RNPs. This
research investigates the potential and risks of using product metaphors in
RNPs through a mixed-methods approach. Specifically, an
experiment and in-depth interviews were conducted to examine the effects of
product metaphors on consumers’ comprehension. Results revealed that consumers
encounter difficulty in detecting the similarities between source
concepts/products and target RNPs due to which product metaphors may not
necessarily enhance consumers’ comprehension. Accompanying a product metaphor
with a textual clue can help consumers to detect the similarities between
source concepts/products and target RNPs, leading to enhanced consumers’
comprehension. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. </p><br>