As Time Goes By: Do Cold Feet Follow Warm Intentions for Really New versus Incrementally New Products?
Alexander, Lynch and Wang combine prior theory on really new products with temporal construal theory and report four field studies. Consumers follow through less often on positive purchase intentions for really new products than for incrementally new ones, and the gap widens as time passes. Buyers of really new products think less concretely about the circumstances of buying and using them and are less well calibrated about how they will first use them. The authors discuss what this means for marketing and for market research on really new products.
Alexander, Lynch and Wang combine prior theory on really new products with temporal construal theory and report four field studies. Consumers follow through less often on positive purchase intentions for really new products than for incrementally new ones, and the gap widens as time passes. Buyers of really new products think less concretely about the circumstances of buying and using them and are less well calibrated about how they will first use them. The authors discuss what this means for marketing and for market research on really new products.
Written from the abstract as shown on the OpenAlex record, read 2026-11-04.
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Alexander, D. L., Lynch, J. G., & Wang, Q. (2008). As Time Goes By: Do Cold Feet Follow Warm Intentions for Really New versus Incrementally New Products? Journal of Marketing Research, 45(3), 307-319. doi:10.1509/jmkr.45.3.307.