Prominent attributes under limited attention

Yi Zhu; Anthony Dukes

doi:10.1287/mksc.2017.1037

Prominent attributes under limited attention

Yi Zhu, Anthony Dukes

Marketing (CSOM)

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

21 Scopus citations

Abstract

Evidence shows that marketers can direct consumers’ limited attention to specific product attributes by making them “prominent.” This research asks: How should firms decide which attribute to make prominent in competitive environments? A key feature of this setting is that consumers’ preferences are context-dependent and that a firm’s choice of an attribute affects the evaluation of all products in the category. We develop a model in which firms selectively promote one of two attributes (e.g., image or performance) before competing in price. We find when consumers evaluate both attributes, perceived differentiation within an attribute can become diluted; we call this the dilution effect. This implies that making the same attribute prominent can arise in equilibrium. Only if there is a sufficient quality advantage in an attribute do we find equilibria with firms making different attributes prominent. We also show how the dilution effect can be a disincentive for investments in quality improvements.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	683-698
Number of pages	16
Journal	Marketing Science
Volume	36
Issue number	5
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2017.1037
State	Published - Sep 1 2017

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The authors are grateful for comments and discussions with Mark Bergen, Ron Berman, Eric Bradlow, Ernan Haruvy, Dmitri Kuksov, Nanda Kumar, Lin Liu, Shĳie Lu, Robert Meyer, David Reibstein, Amin Sayedi, Jeffrey Shulman, Duncan Simester, Vasiliki Skreta, Upender Subramanian, Christophe Van den Bulte, Andre Veiga, Charles Weinberg, Linli Xu, Narine Yegoryan, Pinar Yildirim, especially the review team, as well as participants at the 2015 INFORMS Marketing Science Conference, the 8th Workshop on the Economics of Advertising and Marketing at Oxford University, SICS Conference at the University of California Berkeley, and seminars at the University of British Columbia, Indian School of Business, Indiana University, London Business School, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Pennsylvania, University of Southern California, University of Texas at Dallas, and University of Washington. The first author gratefully acknowledges financial support from the 3M Nontenured Faculty Grant and Dean’s Small Research Grant at the Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota. The authors are listed in reverse alphabetical order and contributed equally.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 INFORMS.

Keywords

Competitive strategies
Context-dependent preferences
Dilution effect
Limited consumer attention
Prominent attributes

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title = "Prominent attributes under limited attention",

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Prominent attributes under limited attention

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

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