Dark Side of Cuteness : Effect of Whimsical Cuteness on New Product Adoption

N Yoon, Jaewoo Joo, Woo Park

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference article in proceedingsScientificpeer-review

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Abstract

A wide range of businesses actively use cute characters such as the globally popular LINE FRIENDS characters for product design to increase consumers’ product adoption. Prior research has found that whimsical cuteness—which elicits fun and playful mental representations—can lead to higher product adoption. The effectiveness, however, has been investigated mostly in indulgent contexts. This article aims to uncover the opposite phenomenon, that is, whimsical cuteness could be detrimental for product adoption, in particular, in a non-indulgent context. In a pre-test, we measured the different types of cuteness of nine LINE FRIENDS characters, selecting one pair of characters differed only in terms of whimsical cuteness. Additionally considering product newness, the main study tested whether product adoption differed depending on the level of whimsical cuteness and product newness. The results demonstrate that participants were less likely to adopt a non-indulgent product when it was highly whimsically cute compared to less whimsically cute because the indulgence provoked by fun and playful mental representations conflicted against the restraint reinforced by a product for self-control. The adverse effect increases when the product has lower product newness whereas high product newness dampens the effect. The findings suggest that practitioners should carefully consider product nature and newness when applying whimsically cute features to product design and marketing promotions. This study has originality in that it is the first to demonstrate the adverse effect of whimsical cuteness on new product adoption and verify the moderating effect of product newness.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationWith Design: Reinventing Design Modes
Subtitle of host publicationProceedings of the 9th Congress of the International Association of Societies of Design Research (IASDR 2021)
EditorsG Bruyns, H Wei
PublisherSpringer
Pages617-633
Number of pages17
ISBN (Electronic)978-981-19-4472-7
ISBN (Print)978-981-19-4471-0, 978-981-19-4474-1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 6 Nov 2022
MoE publication typeA4 Conference publication
EventWorld Conference on Design Research - Hong Kong, China
Duration: 5 Dec 20219 Dec 2021
Conference number: 9

Conference

ConferenceWorld Conference on Design Research
Abbreviated titleIASDR
Country/TerritoryChina
CityHong Kong
Period05/12/202109/12/2021

Keywords

  • LINE FRIENDS
  • New product adoption
  • Product newness
  • Self-control
  • Whimsical cuteness

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