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The paper aims to examine whether (1) deviation of design (i.e. objective design newness) is distinct to consumers' perception of design newness (i.e. subjective design newness) and (2) subjective design newness rather than objective design newness evokes the emotion of interest and enhances product evaluation.

In total five sets of quasi-experiments were conducted on the natural manipulations of design newness. Specifically, the first four studies examine consumers' perception of design newness, feeling-of-interest and product evaluation toward old and new Apple's iOS (i.e., iPhone OS) icons when a new Apple's iOS is released. The fifth study generalized the findings to the new design of XiaoMi MiPhone.

Across five quasi-experimental studies, the authors found that (1) consumers do not necessarily perceive an objectively new design to be subjectively new; (2) subjective design newness, but not objective design newness, evokes interest and (3) interest, in turn, enhances product evaluation and behavioral intention toward an innovation.

The current finding extended the current literature on design newness by demonstrating that subjective (vs objective) design newness provides a more holistic account of consumers' interest and positive product evaluation toward the innovations.

The research showed that simply updating or altering the design of a product does not evoke consumers' perception of design newness and positive product evaluation. Instead, designer and managers must explore ways to evoke consumers' perception of novelty, complexity, unfamiliarity, atypicality and difference. Furthermore, the current finding demonstrated that subjective design newness can be used to evoke consumer interest and, therefore, result in positive purchase evaluation.

The current research is the first to examine (1) the difference between objective and subjective design newness, (2) the emotional response toward design newness and (3) the emotion of interest as a mediator that explain the strong relationship between design newness and positive product evaluation.

This paper aims to examine whether perceived brand innovativeness has a positive effect on new product evaluations, which individual variables mediate and moderate this effect and whether perceived brand innovativeness is reinforced by new product launch.

A total of 387 adults residing in France took part in a two-stage study. The two-stage research design aimed to investigate the effect of the introduction of a new product on brand perceptions. The innovation context used to test the hypotheses was the launch of a new electricity meter in the French market.

Brand innovativeness affects the way consumers evaluate new products launched by the brand. This effect is mediated by perceived newness and moderated by functional, hedonic and social consumer innovativeness. In addition, attitudes toward the brand improve as a result of the new product launch.

Future research should test these hypotheses with other product categories and populations to provide external validity for the results and further investigate lack of support for some of the hypotheses.

The study’s findings highlight that the ability to develop and launch innovative products is not only know-how that is critical to innovation management but also a brand attribute stored in consumers’ minds that facilitates acceptance of the brand’s future new products.

This research addresses the underexplored question of how brand innovativeness and new product launch are interrelated. Extensive research has indeed shown the importance of customer-based brand equity and brand knowledge in evaluation and acceptance of new products. However, research on customer-based brand equity so far has paid limited attention to brand innovativeness. This research provides new findings on the relationship between brand innovativeness and new product evaluations.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of perceived value and innovativeness (service concept newness and relative advantage) in promoting customer brand engagement behaviors (CBEBs) and brand loyalty.

The conceptual model was empirically tested using nationwide survey data from 430 customers of Uber in Australia. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

The results of this study show that collecting brand information is positively influenced by perceived value, service concept newness and relative advantage. Participating in brand marketing activities is positively influenced by service concept newness and relative advantage. Interacting with others is positively influenced by perceived value and service concept newness. Subsequently, brand loyalty is positively influenced by participating in brand marketing activities and interacting with others. The direct impacts of perceived value and relative advantage on brand loyalty are also established.

This study only collected data from Uber customers. Another limitation of this study is the use of cross-sectional data.

To promote brand loyalty, service innovation needs to have both the right characteristics (i.e. perceived value, service concept newness and relative advantage) and practices that foster customer brand engagement behaviors.

Although service-dominant logic (SDL) is a theoretical lens used by research in the areas of service innovation and customer engagement, empirical studies that integrate the two areas remain limited. The findings of this study suggest a new mechanism in which service innovation can increase loyalty through increased CBEBs.

The purpose of this paper is to examine if “neo-retro”-product design, which is based on the reinterpretation of forms from the past, can paradoxically convey design newness and looks at how such products are perceived by innovators.

An experiment was conducted with two groups of respondents, with a total sample of 194 respondents. These were, respectively, submitted to two different product designs for highly technical headphones; one with a neo-retro-design and the other with a typical modern design. The approach enabled the testing and validation of different hypotheses regarding retro and innovation.

The results suggest that a neo-retro-product design conveys newness and does not mislead the consumer when it comes to evaluating a product's technological input. Furthermore, they support the idea that consumer innovativeness has a positive effect on the attitude towards neo-retro-product design.

Future research should explore the relationship between neo-retro-design and nostalgia proneness and perceived risk attached to innovative products.

The empirical findings of the paper highlights the creative process hidden behind the neo-retro-product design approach and have implications for design practitioners in the field of innovative products.

Despite the ever-growing importance of the retro-phenomenon, the relationship between neo-retro-product design, perceived innovation and consumer innovativeness has not previously been examined in the literature. The paper contributes to dispelling doubt as regards the compatibility of neo-retro-design and innovativeness.

This study aims to investigate how customers' perception of service innovation aspects (innovativeness, service newness and relative advantage) and their participation impact value perception, satisfaction and loyalty.

The conceptual model was tested using a nationwide survey from 430 Australian customers of Uber, using structural equation modeling.

Results show that customer participation (CP) and innovativeness positively influence perceived value. Satisfaction is positively influenced by perceived value, innovativeness and relative advantage. Both perceived value and satisfaction drive loyalty. Yet, CP did not influence satisfaction. The study’s findings generally support the mediating roles of perceived value and satisfaction.

Cross-sectional data were used. Thus, the results only provide a snapshot of the relationships among constructs.

To promote loyalty, service organizations emphasize how innovative aspects of services (innovativeness and relative advantage) can create value and satisfaction. Also, CP is critical in promoting customer perceived value and loyalty.

Building on service-dominant logic (SDL), this study proposes a conceptual model investigating how perceived innovative aspects of service and CP influence perceived value, satisfaction and loyalty of service organizations.

This paper aims at better understanding the intention to adopt service innovation in a business context by analyzing the nature of perceived value.

This research uses Holbrook's approach on value, applied to a B2B context, in order to better understand the nature of the perceived value of a new service. A qualitative study on 33 firms is carried out through two steps: an exploratory stage and an understanding stage.

The results show different aspects of the service innovation value in a business market, identify various recipients of this value, and underline how the level of newness in the service impacts the nature of perceived value. More generally, this research provides an analytical framework of service innovation value for a firm in a B2B market.

This study aims at broadening previous research that studied the perceived value of offerings in a B2B context by considering various types of perceived value of a service innovation. Also, Holbrook's frame of analysis was adapted to the B2B context. In order to make the conclusions more relevant, it would be necessary to enlarge the sample, introduce other service innovations and to carry out a quantitative study.

To market their service innovation, companies can adopt a positioning on other criteria than price or quality/performance and communicate with various recipients.

The paper highlights the diversity of components of service innovation value (not only economic and functional components but also emotional, symbolic, altruistic, interactional components of value).

A product communicates to consumers through its form and function, which may generate an effective response. Little is known, however, about the impact of the interaction of form and functional newness on consumers’ adoption preference. Drawing on uniqueness theory, this research aims to propose that the relative importance of form and functional newness to adoption preference could vary depending on the degree of consumers’ need for uniqueness (CNFU).

To mimic real consumption behavior as much as possible in these studies, the authors first choose a product that the respondents are familiar with and use on a daily basis. Second, the authors conduct a series of conjoint analysis in which respondents are presented with a set of options simultaneously and are asked to make a choice of adoption among those options. The authors conduct three conjoint studies using students and adult consumers.

Evidence from three conjoint studies using both student and adult consumer samples confirms the moderating role of CNFU. The results indicate that form and functional newness positively impact adoption preference, the positive effect of form newness is weakened in a compare-and-choose decision when functional newness is in place and this weakened interaction effect is mitigated with increasing CNFU.

This research makes several contributions to the extant literature. First, the authors investigate the moderating role of CNFU in the interplay between form and functional newness. By identifying a distinctive pattern between high- vs low-CNFU consumers, the authors propose a new aspect to explain the inconclusive results of the interaction effects in previous studies. Extending this line of research, the authors show that there is a dynamic component to the positive influence of form and functional newness on adoption preference. Consumers’ preference for form newness, relative to functional newness, is likely to be lessened with the decrease in their need for uniqueness. Second, this research goes beyond the survey or sales data approaches of prior studies to examine the interaction of form and function in a context that reflects actual decision processes. Assuming that consumers have access to a set of options before making an adoption decision, the authors are able to determine their priorities and preferences for new products. Using conjoint analysis, the authors observe consumers make a trade-off between form and functional newness. This approach allows us to investigate the relative importance of form and functional newness in affecting consumers’ adoption decision. Finally, the consistency of the results of these three studies enhances the robustness of this research.

While consumers appreciate improved and newer functionality in general, this may not be the case for a novel form. For consumers who desire to belong or to fit into social norms, adopting a product with an extreme atypical form could be risky and provoke a negative social response. For those with such conservative attitudes, learning costs are likely to overshadow the excitement of owning a radical product. Thus, a product with high functional newness and standard form would be the right choice for this group of consumers. On the other hand, consumers with high CNFU are more likely to overcome concerns regarding the risks and learning costs of a novel form due to their desire to use the unconventional product display to differentiate themselves and establish their uniqueness. Therefore, a product with high functional newness and novel form may be more favorable for them. With this insight, marketers can better define their market segment and position their product strengths. For example, in the competitive smart phone industry, some brands may try to focus on high form newness to capture high-CNFU consumers (e.g. LG Flex curved cell phone).

First, the authors propose the moderating role of CNFU to explain the gap in the literature. This new view provides product managers and marketers with a better understanding of how consumers in different consumer segments (e.g. high vs low degree of CNFU) behave distinctively in their response to form and functional newness. Second, most of the literature on consumer response to product form has focused on consumer opinion, attitude, perception or product evaluation. This study focuses on measuring consumers’ adoption preference through a conjoint approach. This distinction is important because a positive attitude does not necessarily translate to adoption when consumers make their final choice decision. Third, prior studies test the effects of form and function using sales data or between subject experiments where respondents only view a single product. This approach is less representative of real adoption behavior when the reality is consumers often compare a set of options simultaneously and make an adoption decision among a pool of available options.

In this research, the authors aim to identify a situation when a consumer’s judgment of unethical behavior is not consistent with their intention to act ethically.

Across two studies, participants were asked to evaluate how ethical an actor’s behavior was when the actor knowingly kept surplus change from a distracted cashier. The identity of the actor was manipulated to be of either high or low similarity to the participants. The business where the distracted cashier worked for was described as either locally owned or a chain. Participant’s intended action in similar situation was assessed after their evaluation of how ethical/unethical the actor’s behavior was.

While participants generally find the actor’s behavior to be unethical, identity overlap between the participant and the actor is found to moderate how likely one is to emulate the actor’s behavior in a similar situation. Identity overlap is found to positively predict one’s likelihood to act like the actor in the scenarios. Whether the business was locally owned or a chain was not found to affect one’s ethical judgment or ethical intention.

Identity overlap is found to positively predict one’s likelihood to act like the actor in the scenarios.

Whether the business was locally owned or a chain was not found to affect one’s ethical judgment nor ethical intention. While participants in general do show that they judge the actor’s behavior as unethical, identity overlap between the participant and the actor moderates how likely one is to act like the actor if put in the same scenario.

The research suggests that consumers are more likely to act unethically when they identify with “similar” others, regardless of how unethical they consider that behavior to be.

This research suggests that even when consumers acknowledge that certain behavior against a business is unethical, their intention to engage in the unethical behavior may not be predicted by their judgment of how unethical the behavior is. Instead, consumers are likely to emulate unethical behavior of those whom they consider similar to themselves, regardless of how unethical they judge that behavior to be.

Capturing consumers’ notice by differentiating a product from competing brands in attaching an affixed label featuring product claims, as an alternative front-of-package (FOP) cue, has been widely used in fast-moving consumer goods retailing. This paper aims to apply perceived product newness as the basis for examining how affixed labeling, manipulated in terms of design features and message claims, can impact consumer evaluation.

Four between-subjects experiments examined the persuasive impact of the use of affixed labels. In particular, how product evaluation, in response to affixed labeling, varied as a function of its shape (Study 1a), location (Study 1b), the combination of shape and location cues (Study 1c) and the strength of message claims conveyed by such labels (Study 2). Perceived product newness is assessed as a mediator for all studies.

The results show the power of affixed labels in persuasion. Specifically, consumers tend to perceive the item as newer, achieving persuasion, when the affixed label has a distinctive shape or location. Yet, incorporating several unusual design components fails to trigger an elevated result if a singular visual stimulus serves as a cue for an item’s newness. Further, the strength of claims highlighted in an affixed label correlates to positive impact on evaluations.

This study offers an empirically based examination of consumers’ responses to affixed labeling and identifies perceived product newness as a mediator of the observed effect.

A salient, affixed label enables a credible cue for product newness, therefore, driving evaluation.

This paper contributes to understanding the influence on the persuasion of FOP labeling, with salience to retail promotional and sales messaging tactics.