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Academic research has traditionally focused on marketing
communications in television, radio, and print media. Less
research has been aimed at direct experience in communicating
information. Because of the progress of package technology, it
is possible to let consumers sample products in several ways.
Moreover, more and more firms invite consumers to sample their
products in many places. Direct experience is prevalent in our
lives gradually. In 1995, Wright and Lynch proposed a "media
congruence" hypothesis. They found that direct experience is
congruent with (or best suited to) experience attribute belief
communication, and advertising is congruent with search
attribute belief communication. However, most of the previous
studies used low-price objects; and there is less research on
the communication effect of media congruence in Taiwan. We will
examine empirically the communication effect of media congruence
under the different prices of objects--high-price (personal
computer and electric fan) and low-price (fruit juice and white
board marker) objects and under the different involvement.We
conducted two experiments. Experiment 1 (low-price product) was
analyzed by a repeated-measure design, which contains two
between-subjects factors (promotion order and product order) and
two within-subject factors (promotion type and attribute type).
Experiment 2 (high-price product) was also analyzed by a
repeated-measure design, which contains three between-subjects
factors (involvement, promotion order, and product order) and
two within-subject factors (promotion type and attribute type).
Subjects were 160 undergraduates of Tatung of Institute
Technology.The results of hypotheses test lead us to arrive at
the following points:1.Advertising was more congruent with
search attributes, and direct experience was more congruent with
experience attributes in low-price product. This result confirm
Wright and Lynch's "media congruence" hypothesis. So, when
markers plan to introduce a new low-price product, they can
decide the determinant attributes first, then choose a congruent
way to communicate new product information.2.Communication
effects of media congruence for three belief variables exists in
high-price products.3.Media congruence for the number and
weighting of important attributes are not supported in both low-
and high-involvement conditions. This result show that consumers
still pay more attention to important experience attributes
instead of being manipulated by media in choosing high-price
products.4.Involvement mitigates media congruence interaction
for belief strength, but not for recognition accuracy and the
number and weighting of important attributes. These results show
that product attribute beliefs are more easily changed than are
importance weights.
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