Predicting Consumer Choice in New Product Development: Attitudes, Intentions and Behaviour Revisited

The new product development process comprises a series of information‐gathering phases intended to reduce the uncertainty which surrounds the management of innovation. To the extent that this is a rational process, new product failures can be attributed to a lack of high quality, relevant information for decision making. In view of the particularly high failure rate for consumer non‐durables, it makes sense to look critically at the quality of market research information employed in new product decision making. Concept and product tests, which rely heavily on measures of attitude and intention, are very frequently used to gain such information relatively early in the innovative process, but, while they have sometimes been indicted for their inability to predict managerially‐useful aspects of new brand choice, there appears to have been no attempt at understanding why they are often ineffective. Without this understanding it is impossible to suggest an alternative approach. There is no panacea for the problem of predicting consumer choice in new product development but there is great need to come to grips with this problem. This article attempts to provide the necessary understanding and suggests an alternative means of conceptualising the attitude — intentions — behaviour relationship in marketing.