763  2011 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc. ● Vol. 38 ● December 2011 All rights reserved. 0093-5301/2011/3804-0011$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/660702 Shall I Tell You Now or Later? Assimilation and Contrast in the Evaluation of Experiential Products KEITH WILCOX ANNE L. ROGGEVEEN DHRUV GREWAL This research demonstrates that the effect of product information on the evaluation of an experiential product depends on the order with which such information is presented. In a series of experiments, we find that when information is presented before consuming an experiential product, the information results in an assimilation effect such that consumers evaluate the same experience more positively when the product information is favorable compared to when it is unfavorable. More interestingly, we demonstrate that when such information is presented after con- suming an experiential product, it results in a contrast effect such that consumers evaluate the same experience more negatively when the product information is favorable compared to when it is unfavorable. These findings have important im- plications for marketers in a host of experiential categories. I magine being at a wine tasting and learning that a wine is expensive after tasting it. Will learning the price af- terward affect your evaluation differently compared to if you had learned the price beforehand? It is well documented that information, such as price, learned prior to evaluating a product can affect consumer judgment (Makens 1965; Plassmann et al. 2008). This is particularly true for expe- riential products because much of experience is ambiguous (Hoch 2002); for example, learning that a wine is expensive before tasting it can actually lead to more pleasure during the experience (Plassmann et al. 2008). Similarly, learning the brand name of food before eating it can make it seem to taste better (Makens 1965). Less is known about how learning information about a product after it is experienced Keith Wilcox is the Joseph R. Weintraub Term Chair in Marketing and assistant professor of marketing, Babson College (kwilcox@babson.edu). Anne L. Roggeveen is associate professor of marketing, Babson College (aroggeveen@babson.edu). Dhruv Grewal is Toyota Chair of Commerce and Electronic Commerce and professor of marketing, Babson College (dgrewal@babson.edu). Correspondence: Keith Wilcox, Babson College, Malloy Hall, Babson Park, MA 02457. The authors appreciate the helpful comments of Thomas Kramer, Anirban Mukhopadhyay, and Nancy Upton. Baba Shiv served as editor and Pierre Chandon served as associate editor for this article. Electronically published May 13, 2011 affects how it is judged. This current research examines how product information learned either before or after the con- sumption of an experiential product affects consumer eval- uation. Previous research has investigated how presenting infor- mation about a product’s quality before or after trial affects judgment (Braun 1999; Braun-LaTour and LaTour 2005; Hoch and Ha 1986; Levin and Gaeth 1988). Hoch and Ha (1986) find that advertisements for a shirt promoting high product quality presented both before and after people ex- amined the shirt increase quality judgments. Similarly, Levin and Gaeth (1988) demonstrate that people judge meat to be less greasy and of higher quality when they are told it is 75% lean versus 25% fat both before and after they tasted the meat. More recently, Braun-LaTour and LaTour (2005) find that advertisements presented before and after sampling juice can have a positive effect on both memory-based (see also Braun 1999) and immediate quality judgments. Thus, previous work suggests that when information is presented before and after trial it can have an assimilation effect on consumers’ evaluations of quality. Because the evaluation of experiential products is pri- marily affect-based (Biswas, Grewal, and Roggeveen 2010), this current research focuses on the effect of product infor- mation, learned before or after trial on consumers’ affective evaluations. We show that the effect of product information on the evaluation of an experiential product depends on the This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.52.73 on Tue, 20 Nov 2012 11:17:15 AM