Researchers from WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, University of Bonn, and FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg published a new Journal of Marketing article that examines how consumers respond to new products co-developed with universities and the unique marketing opportunities for these products.
Firms often collaborate with universities to access novel scientific knowledge and technological expertise with an aim to develop superior new products. For example, Italian start-up Angles90 co-developed the first dynamic training grips with the faculty of Strength Training Ergonomics at the Technical University of Munich and sold its patented innovation in more than 30 countries. In the U.S., autonomous driving technology firm Argo AI recently announced its investment of $15 million to create the Carnegie Mellon University Argo AI Center for Autonomous Vehicle Research, which will focus on advancing the field of self-driving technology. Well-established firms such as Adidas also engage in university–industry collaborations.
This research investigates whether consumers react differently to the same product upon learning it has been co-developed with a university as well as what these perceptions depend on and how strong are the effects. The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled “ University Knowledge Inside: How and When University-Industry Collaborations Make New Products More Attractive to Consumers ” and is authored by Lukas Maier, Martin Schreier, Christian V. Baccarella, and Kai-Ingo Voigt.
The research yields three major findings:
However, companies rarely advertise their products as co-developed with a university. In one study, the researchers asked 22 managers in an Executive MBA program to develop a short product advertisement based on background information about a company and its latest product, including the notion that the product was co-developed with a university. Only 4 out of 22 managers used the university co-development information when marketing the focal product. Another study involved 42 Master of Science in Marketing students. Again, only a small number of participants (14.6%) decided to include the fact that the focal product was developed in collaboration with a university in their advertisement copy.
“Once a firm has decided to co-develop a new product with a university, we highlight how and when actively marketing university-co-developed products as such may yield incremental benefits,” the researchers say. The study offers the following lessons for Chief Marketing Officers:
Apart from political orientation, future research could look at other consumer characteristics with an aim to effectively target university-co-developed products. For example, scholars can test whether religiosity and nationality are moderators of the positive university effect. In the Netherlands, for instance, people tend to trust science and its institutions more than media, government, and courts of law. In contrast, there are other countries such as Guatemala with a very low belief in science and it will be interesting to see how consumers there respond to products co-developed with universities.
Full article and author contact information available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/00222429231185313
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Journal of Marketing
University Knowledge Inside: How and When University-Industry Collaborations Make New Products More Attractive to Consumers
15-Jun-2023