A Taste Of "Nextopia"

Abstract

This paper investigates consumer response to advertising for future, to-be-released products. Drawing on recent consumer psychology research on the optimism bias, positive uncertainty, and affective (mis-)forecasting, we explore consumers' positive bias for "the next product." A first experimental study of responses to car ads investigates how advertising the same product before versus after release has significant, favorable effects. Future-oriented advertising evokes greater elaboration and stimulates more positive evaluations of both ads and brands. The second experimental study replicates and extends these findings with mineral water ads for both familiar and unfamiliar brands. The third study rules out limited availability as a competing explanation and extends the findings by including a time lag and actual product consumption.