LR #3: Young consumers’ innovativeness and hedonic/utilitarian cool

attitudes
Our young generation, who are fully engaged in maintain their lifestyle and their life full of music,
technology and celebrity culture because of their use of social media (Facebook, YouTube, twitter).
Because of these activities this generation has different style than prior generations. For this generation
shopping is highly focused and experiential activity because of growth pf retail and product choice. Thus,
brand names significantly affect their purchasing behavior of fashion items, and they are willing to pay a
premium for favorable brands that emphasize coolness.

The purpose of this study is to find out the relationship between young consumers’ innovativeness and
their hedonic or utilitarian attitudes towards cool clothing by examine the role of income on this
relationship. Singular cool, personal cool, aesthetic cool, functional cool and quality cool, these are the
same factors named cool factors are used under the hedonic and utilitarian cool dimensions to test the
hypotheses.

The variables for this articles are Young consumers, Income, Innovativeness, Hedonic cool attitude,
Utilitarian cool attitude

A web based survey has been conducted of 265 respondents. To assess the measurement scales, a
confirmatory factor analysis was conducted for this operation. Single-group SEM and multiple-group
SEM were performed to examine the hypothesized relationships.

The result found that innovative young consumers tend to have stronger hedonic cool attitude towards
clothing than non-innovative young consumers. Also, innovativeness and utilitarian values of cool
products are not interrelated for young consumers. Innovative high income young consumers are willing
to purchase cool products to show their personality higher and also, show their higher individuality and
self-identity.

Authors: Mijeong Noh (Human and Consumer Sciences, Ohio University,

Athens, Ohio, USA)
Rodney Runyan(School of Family and Consumer Sciences, Texas State University,
San Marcos, Texas, USA)
Jon Mosier (Merchandising Management, Michigan State University, East Lansing,
Michigan, USA)