Role of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Cues on Consumers’ Perceived Product Quality in an Emerging Market

Abstract

This article aims to investigate the role of intrinsic and extrinsic cues on consumers’ perceptions of product quality, and the moderating role of product knowledge using products that are at different stages of product life cycle. Two survey-based studies were conducted with distinct samples for products (automobiles and smartwatches) in an emerging market. The findings suggest that consumers use more (less) diagnostic extrinsic marketing cues such as country of origin (COO) effects, event sponsorships, and celebrity endorsements to develop perceived quality for automobiles (smartwatches). Furthermore, product knowledge moderates the impact of cues on the perceived quality of products, which further depends on the product life cycle stage. This research brings out significant differences between consumers with differing knowledge levels across a wide range of marketing cues, especially given that first-time buyers have limited exposure to the category before their first purchase.

Keywords:

• Diagnostic cues
• perceived quality
• emerging market
• product knowledge
• country of origin
• ad quality
• word of mouth

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge inputs from Dipankar Chakravarti, Shanker Krishnan, and support from the ISB-Wharton Behavioral Lab.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that there exists no conflict of interest in this work.

Additional information

Funding

The research did not receive any funding for the project.