Managing consumers’ product evaluations through direct product experience Available to Purchase

Where traditional mass‐media advertising may perish in the enormous amount of communication messages, the product itself can act as a decisive communication tool and provide consumers with product‐related information in the buying decision situation. For example, the sound the product makes in use and the tactile sensation give an impression of the product’s quality. To complement the little research on the role that durable consumer products can play in marketing communications, we investigated the effects of direct product experience on information processing and product evaluation in a sample of 127 adult consumers. The results showed that direct experience enhanced consumers’ opportunity and ability to process product‐related information, but not their motivation to process the information. Subsequently, the induced levels of motivation, opportunity, and ability influenced both consumers’ attitude toward the product and their attitude confidence. One important implication for product development and marketing communications is that the communicative abilities of products can effectively be employed to enhance positively consumers’ evaluation of the product.