An Experimental Study of Production Information Order Effect on Product Evaluation

Abstract

This study mainly investigates the information order effect on utilitarian products by referring and advancing works of Wilcox, Roggeveen and Grewal (2011) and Biswas, Grewal and Roggeveen (2010). The study tries to find the best order to present the product information (before or after showing the product) in order to earn better evaluation from customers. This study tests both the affective and cognitive product judgment. Furthermore, with two more conditions – first, experience / search advertisement and second, unattractive / normal packaging are also tested. The results show there is assimilation effect occurred when search advertisement is presented before whereby consumers have better cognitive evaluation. When experience advertisement is presented before, contrast effect occurred and affective evaluation is reduced. However, when unattractive packaging is presented before, assimilation effect occurred and cognitive evaluation increased. When normal packaging is presented before, consumers have better evaluation on tested product.