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>