Purpose

In daily marketing practices, when launching and promoting new products, marketers often induce consumers’ awe of nature via exposing consumers to beautiful natural scenes. Does this marketing practice really facilitate consumers’ subsequent new product choice? Existing awe research and new product research have not examined this issue yet. The purpose of this study is to study whether the marketing practice of awe induction faciliates consumers' new product choice.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper examines the double-edged sword effect of different types of awe on consumers’ adoption of new products. The authors conducted five experiments using various product categories (soft drinks, juices, cookies and watches), various many sources of sample types (college student samples and adult samples) and various manipulation of awe. The authors also focused on both new products with incongruent visual appearance (Experiment 1a, Experiment 1c, Experiment 2 and Experiment 3) and new products with incongruent conceptual attributes (Experiment 1b) to enhance the rigor of the experiments and the generalizability of the conclusions.

Findings

The authors find that when consumers perceive awe of threatening natural phenomena, they decrease their choice of moderately incongruent new products (positive effect), while when consumers perceive awe of beautiful natural phenomena, they increase their choice of moderately incongruent new products (negative effect). Also, this paper finds that the emergence of the positive of the double-edged sword effect is driven by the sequential mediation of the need for accommodation and openness to new experiences, while the emergence of the negative of the double-edged sword effect is driven by the uncertainty reduction motive.

Research limitations/implications

This research has important theoretical implications. First, this paper advances existing awe research by reconciling the inconsistent findings in existing awe research by categorizing awe of nature. Second, this paper advances existing research on new products and moderate incongruity effects by exploring when the moderate incongruity effect exists and when it reverses in the new products field through the classification of awe of nature.

Practical implications

This study has rich implications for marketing management. First, marketers can facilitate consumers’ adoption of moderate incongruent new product via priming consumers’ awe of beautiful nature. Second, this paper suggests that marketers and brand managers should carefully choose the timing of new product launches to avoid inducing consumer awe of threatening nature (e.g. immediately after a severe natural disaster). Finally, the results of Experiment 3 in this paper suggest that when marketers want to launch new products with moderate incongruity, they need to target consumers with high cognitive flexibility.

Social implications

This paper discusses how different types of awe affect consumers’ attitudes and choice of moderately new products. This research question has its social value in helping marketers, companies, consumers and society know the power of awe of nature on the behaviors and decision-making.

Originality/value

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is among the first ones to examine the double-edged sword effect of different types of awe of nature on consumers’ new product adoption.

中文翻译：

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敬畏自然对消费者新产品选择的双刃剑效应

目的

在日常营销实践中，营销人员在推出和推广新产品时，常常通过让消费者接触美丽的自然场景来诱发消费者对自然的敬畏。这种营销做法真的有利于消费者后续的新产品选择吗？现有的敬畏研究和新产品研究还没有研究这个问题。本研究的目的是研究敬畏诱导的营销实践是否有助于消费者选择新产品。

设计/方法论/途径

本文探讨了不同类型的敬畏对消费者采用新产品的双刃剑效应。作者使用不同的产品类别（软饮料、果汁、饼干和手表）、不同的样本类型来源（大学生样本和成人样本）以及各种敬畏操作进行了五项实验。作者还重点关注视觉外观不一致的新产品（实验 1a、实验 1c、实验 2 和实验 3）和概念属性不一致的新产品（实验 1b），以增强实验的严谨性和结论的普遍性。

发现

作者发现，当消费者对具有威胁性的自然现象感到敬畏时，他们会减少对中度不一致的新产品的选择（正效应），而当消费者对美丽的自然现象感到敬畏时，他们会增加对中度不一致的新产品的选择（负效应） 。此外，本文还发现，双刃剑效应的正效应的出现是由适应需求和对新体验开放的顺序中介驱动的，而双刃剑效应的负效应的出现是由适应需求和对新体验开放的顺序中介驱动的。通过减少不确定性的动机。

研究局限性/影响

这项研究具有重要的理论意义。首先，本文通过对自然敬畏进行分类，协调了现有敬畏研究中不一致的发现，从而推进了现有的敬畏研究。其次，本文通过对自然敬畏的分类，探讨新产品领域中度不协调效应何时存在以及何时逆转，推进了新产品和中度不协调效应的现有研究。

实际影响

这项研究对营销管理具有丰富的意义。首先，营销人员可以通过激发消费者对美丽自然的敬畏来促进消费者采用适度不协调的新产品。其次，本文建议营销人员和品牌经理应谨慎选择新产品发布的时机，以避免引起消费者对自然威胁的敬畏（例如，在严重的自然灾害之后立即发布）。最后，本文实验3的结果表明，当营销人员想要推出适度不协调的新产品时，他们需要瞄准认知灵活性较高的消费者。

社会影响

本文讨论了不同类型的敬畏如何影响消费者对适度新产品的态度和选择。该研究问题具有社会价值，可以帮助营销人员、公司、消费者和社会了解自然敬畏对行为和决策的力量。

原创性/价值

据作者所知，本文是第一批研究不同类型的自然敬畏对消费者新产品采用的双刃剑效应的论文之一。