When innovation backfires: Preference for predictability moderates the spillover of functional food ambivalence to the entire parent category

Abstract

The present research extends findings on when and why consumers (fail to) adopt innovative food products by showing that consideration or consumption of such products (functional foods) can backfire when they entail an inherent and incompatible trade-off between healthiness and naturalness. Four experiments, examining consumers’ willingness to buy, try, and actually consume such foods, show that this trade-off yields a sense of ambivalence that spills over from single product exemplars to negatively affecting (unrelated members of) the parent category of functional foods. However, this effect is not invariant across consumers. Ironically, it is more pronounced for consumers that tend to be more open to novel experiences and also more open to ambivalent feelings to occur—consumers with lower levels of the Preference for Predictability. Implications for marketing practice are discussed.