Hedonic combinatorics: How combining unrelated products affects product enjoyment

Dr Jia, Shi Jayson   (Principal Investigator (PI))

Dr. ZHANG Ke   (Co-Investigator)

Professor Shiv Baba   (Co-Investigator)

30

2017-01-01

969240

Hedonic combinatorics: How combining unrelated products affects product enjoyment

combined versus independent, consumer experiences, consumption sets, placebo effect, utility

Marketing

Business Studies (B)

17508016

General Research Fund (GRF)

2016

Completed

1 Investigate how framing products in a set as independent or combined affects their experience utility. 2 Explore the boundary conditions under which the affect operates – particularly whether the nature of the products or their relationships (e.g., similarity, cross-product elasticities, etc.) affect experience utility. 3 Establish the specific mechanism for the effect at a more detailed level than general assimilation effects. 4 Explore how the effect operates in the ecologically and conceptually important situation of branding. Here, the utility value of all products in a set (if they are the same brand) is being manipulated. Explore how the nature of product combinations affects branding’s impact on experiences. 5 As an additional objective, and as a methodological contribution, I would like to use new digital technologies to explore the aforementioned research objectives. New phenomena investigated may include exploring digital products, virtual products, augmented reality products, etc. New methodologies encompassed may involve in-lab VR goggles as well as digital data, e.g., from mobile app usage.