Stupire o Persuadere? Strategie di Lancio di un Nuovo Stile nel Settore della Moda

Can companies accelerate consumers’ acceptance of the new and unfamiliar? What are the most effective launch strategies for really new products? By means of two experiments based on the use of real stimuli taken from fashion showpieces, our study contributes to a better understanding of these issues that are critical in those contexts where companies’ success lies in the ability to systematically introduce new styles. Our research contributes to the understanding of the practices in the launch of new styles. Results of our experiments show that exposure to primes that exaggerate the visual features of a target improves target evaluations. This effect is due to the ability of exaggerated primes to enhance the ease of processing the target without being recognized as the source of the ease of processing, thereby increasing the likelihood that the fluency is misattributed to the evaluations of the target. This result can be replicated even with non expert consumers when there is a high redundancy between the information of the prototype and of the marketed product. Our research, while limited to the area of visual stimuli, provides insights to companies in different contexts to evaluate the best way to present new styles, according to the level of expertise of the target market and the level of complexity of the new design.