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MRE0010.1177/1470785318777429International Journal of Market ResearchBelboula et al.

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Consumers’ responses to
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Priming Task to assess automatic DOI: 10.1177/1470785318777429
https://doi.org/10.1177/1470785318777429
journals.sagepub.com/home/mre
understanding of product positioning

Imene Belboula
Universite Blida 2, Algeria

Claire-Lise Ackermann
Rennes School of Business, France

Jean-Pierre Mathieu
Universite Paris 13, France

Caroline Cuny
Grenoble Ecole de Management, Universite Grenoble Alpes ComUE, France

Abstract
Lack of understanding of new products’ positioning is one of the reasons proposed for their
failure. Through a process of semantic transformation, product design can communicate a new
product’s positioning to consumers. Drawing on the theoretical foundations of implicit cognition
and the results of an empirical study, this article demonstrates that the Semantic Priming Task is
a valuable tool to evaluate perceived product positioning conveyed by product design and to help
practitioners in their decision-making with regard to product design.

Keywords
positioning, product design, Semantic Priming Task

Introduction
This article aims to investigate whether an implicit measure can be used to assess automatic under-
standing of product positioning that is conveyed by product design. Positioning is the act of

Corresponding author:
Imene Belboula, Universite Blida 2, Faculty of Economics, Business and Management sciences, Ali Lounici, EL Affroun,
09011, Blida, Algérie.
Email: imenebelboula@gmail.com
2 International Journal of Market Research 00(0)

building a credible, attractive, and distinctive place in the consumer’s mind (Fuchs &
Diamantopoulos, 2012; Ries & Trout, 1986). It is an offshoot of differentiation, which is the
approach by which a firm aims to develop unique products that are clearly distinguishable from
similar offerings on the market (Porter, 1985; Wang, 2015). Effectively positioning a product in the
minds of consumers has been identified as one of the strategies that favors market acceptance for
a new product (Fuchs & Diamantopoulos, 2012). From a managerial point of view, positioning
refers to showing or communicating how a product compares with other products (Fuchs &
Diamantopoulos, 2012). From this perspective, decisions on how to communicate product posi-
tioning can be taken after product development has taken place, especially in cross-national con-
texts where the same product can be positioned in different ways because the importance of
attributes may differ across countries (Aaker & Joachimsthaler, 1999; Malhotra & Bartels, 2002).
However, product positioning may also play a key role in determining the overall product develop-
ment strategy, especially with regard to product design choices (Creusen & Schoormans, 2005;
Fuchs & Diamantopoulos, 2012).
Product design is the first element seen by consumers and is responsible for the product’s first
assessment, as Hollins and Pugh (1990) clearly found: “whatever the product, the customers see it
first . . .. The physical performance comes later, the visual always comes first” (p. 91). Product
design is defined here at the final output of a multidisciplinary creative and manufacturing process,
embodied in a product’s physical attributes and visible characteristics (Bloch, 1995; Veryzer,
1995). The past literature has suggested that product design can be used to gain a competitive
advantage because product esthetics capture consumer attention, generate positive emotional reac-
tions, and have a positive effect on perceived quality (Kreuzbauer & Malter, 2005; Radford &
Bloch, 2011). In addition, and this is the focus of this research, product appearance may also be
used to communicate the central consumer advantage to consumers (Creusen & Schoormans,
2005). Thus, the most critical positioning attributes should be the starting point in the design of
product appearance (Creusen & Schoormans, 2005).
Whereas early works on product design have mostly focused on esthetic responses (Berkowitz,
1987; Holbrook, 1986), more recent work has aimed to understand the influence of design seman-
tics on consumption behaviors (Dell’Era, Marchesi, Verganti, & Zurlo, 2008; Karjalainen &
Snelders, 2010; Veryzer, 1993, 1995). Design semantics refers to the idea that product design con-
veys meaning through users’ interpretations of signs that are embodied in the products (Karjalainen
& Snelders, 2010). Thus, using product design to position a product involves selecting the physical
and formal attributes that physically translate the positioning that the marketing department aims
to build in consumers’ minds. From that perspective, consumers’ response to product design should
be understood as one stage in a communication process (Krippendorff & Butter, 1984).
However, this communication process may fail to deliver the appropriate meaning, and this
failure may result from two major distortions: first, the designer may fail to embed proper mean-
ings into the product and second, users may not succeed in correctly decoding the meanings
embedded in the product design (Karjalainen, 2007). In other words, consumers’ perceived posi-
tioning may differ from marketers’ intended positioning. To limit the risks that product design fails
to communicate the intended product positioning, it should be verified that product design leads to
the consumer’s perception of product positioning in the direction intended by marketers.
Measures currently used to verify the alignment between product perceived positioning and
product intended positioning (i.e., the absence of the distortions previously mentioned here) are
qualitative and quantitative explicit measures. These measures have the features of typical self-
reported measures: awareness of evaluating the product design, intention to evaluate, control over
the evaluation, and deliberation in making the evaluation (Smith & Nosek, 2011). Even time pres-
sure exerted on respondents during a free elicitation task does not totally eliminate reflection and
Belboula et al. 3

Figure 1. Semantic transformation and attribution.

Source: Adapted from Karjalainen (2007).

verbalization biases. However, recent research has suggested the existence of dual evaluative pro-
cesses by which two cognitive systems interact to produce evaluations: one system is automatic,
associative, and nonconscious and the other is deliberative and controlled (Van Bavel, Xiao, &
Cunningham, 2012).
In the specific case of product design, Veryzer, in his seminal 1999 paper, proposed a noncon-
scious processing explanation of a consumer’s response to product design and called for future
research in this area. From that perspective, the use of explicit measures to control whether product
design successfully communicates the intended product positioning is problematic because it only
involves controlled reflection processes and overlooks the substantial nonconscious and automatic
understanding of product design meaning. We suggest that such automatic understanding cannot be
captured through explicit methods and that it requires implicit measures: implicit measures are
indirect measures that do not inform the subject of what is being assessed and that tap memory
associations in an automatic manner (Ackermann & Mathieu, 2015).
This article aims to adapt and apply existing implicit measures to assess the implicit understand-
ing of product positioning that is conveyed by the design of the product. In the next section, we
briefly review the literature on product design and we introduce implicit measures. After we explain
how we develop a methodology from this review and we outline our results. Finally, we discuss the
implications and contributions of this study and offer ideas for subsequent studies.

Theoretical background
How product design conveys product positioning
Design semantics refer to how meaning is mediated by the signs designers embed in products
so the signs will be recognized and interpreted by consumers (Karjalainen & Snelders, 2010).
Through a process of semantic transformation, designers aim to transform qualitative attrib-
utes into design features. For instance, designers purposely created the specific U or Y shapes
of early Nokia phones to be interpreted as a friendly smile, which supports the brand identity
of personalization and a human approach (Karjalainen & Snelders, 2010). In this way, the
choice of colors, forms, and materials enables designers to translate product positioning into
specific design features. It is at this stage that the first distortion (i.e., a failure to encode
proper meanings) may occur (Karjalainen, 2007). Then, when exposed to the design of a prod-
uct, consumers have the opportunity to perceive it (i.e., to attribute an interpretation to the
formal attributes the designers embedded in the product to convey its positioning). The second
distortion (i.e., a failure to attribute meaning to design features in the way expected by the
designer) may occur (Karjalainen, 2007) at this point. Figure 1 illustrates how product posi-
4 International Journal of Market Research 00(0)

tioning can be mediated by design features designers embed in products and consumers per-
ceive when exposed to them.

A cognitive approach
Product design enables designers to deliver to consumers a message regarding the positioning of
the product that consumers are able to understand (i.e., to decode product positioning on the sole
basis of its design) only if consumers have stored in their memory some associations between spe-
cific design features, such as a specific shape or a given color, and qualitative attributes. For exam-
ple, a consumer is able to interpret the use of stainless steel material or polished surfaces as signals
of durability only if the consumer has learned to associate these specific design features with this
attribute. In the same way of thinking, consumers have learned to associate angular forms with
dynamism and masculinity, roundness with softness and femininity, and, in the automobile cate-
gory, bright colors with aggression (Creusen & Schoormans, 2005).
Building on the Human Associative Memory model (Anderson, 1983), we suggest that consum-
ers have developed a network of memory associations between design features and attributes as the
result of a learning process. The Human Associative Memory model describes human memory as
a network of interconnected memory nodes, which are basic elements that constitute a piece of
information stored in a person’s mind. Such nodes can be viewed as memory traces of previous
learning episodes (episodic memory models, Versace et al., 2014). According to the recent Act-In
model, “memory traces reflect all the components of past experiences and, in particular, their sen-
sory properties as captured by our sensory receptors, actions performed on the objects in the envi-
ronment and the emotional and motivational states of individuals. . .. Memory traces are therefore
distributed across multiple neuronal systems which code the multiple components of the experi-
ences” (Versace et al., 2014, p. 282). During information retrieval, the emergence of specific
knowledge comes from an interactive and integrated activation of these traces.
One of the main aspects of the Human Associative Memory model is spreading activation
(Anderson & Pirolli, 1984; i.e., the fact that the activation of a specific node spreads throughout
the network to nodes to which is connected). The activation of a memory node primes the activa-
tion of the entire memory network in which it is embedded, and this priming effect occurs outside
of conscious awareness. In line with this, we suggest that the perception of a design feature auto-
matically activates the conceptual attributes to which it is associated in memory without the
individual being aware of it. Thus, the different design features of a given product—colors,
shapes, materials, texture, and symbols—provide the basis for the perception of particular product
characteristics. According to the Human Associative Memory model, this process occurs in an
unintentional and nonconscious manner. As stressed by Veryzer (1999), “just as people may
implicitly learn the rules of an artificial grammar and then apply them without conscious aware-
ness, rules governing the processing . . . of product designs may be nonconsciously acquired and
applied” (pp. 503–504). Recent models developed by economists provide theoretical arguments
and empirical results that demonstrate the existence of two systems (Evans, 2003; Kahneman,
2011; Kahneman & Frederick, 2007). Two-system theories have been proposed to explain phe-
nomena, such as perception (e.g., Goodale & Humphrey, 1998) and memory (e.g., Schacter &
Tulving, 1994). They are based on the idea that there are different tracks of thought that constitute
two distinct mental modes: System 1 is automatic, fast and unconscious, while System 2 is slow,
effortful and conscious (Kahneman, 2011). Thus, the perception of particular product characteris-
tics automatically activating conceptual attributes in memory would belong to System 1 process-
ing, which implies specific protocols to be assessed. The purpose of this article is not to discuss
the distinction between two-system or unique system (continuum) models (for a theoretical and
Belboula et al. 5

empirical discussion, see Keren & Schul, 2009; Osman, 2004). Rather, building on Penn (2016),
we argue that, as market researchers, we should be aware of the fact that implicit mind is some-
thing consumers are not aware of, but influence a lot their consumers’ decision-making, including
product design evaluation. That is the reason why specific protocols should be used, not only to
assess implicit attitudes, but also implicit semantic associations are automatically activated by
being visually exposed to a product.

Explicit versus implicit measures

In light of the importance of consumers’ correct understanding of product positioning, product
managers must evaluate the extent to which a new product is successfully positioned in the minds
of consumers (Fuchs & Diamantopoulos, 2012). As suggested by the previously summarized lit-
erature, product design is a tool that enables marketers to communicate on the positioning of a
product. Thus, it is critical that marketers control whether product design, in isolation of any other
information about the product, enables consumers to position it correctly. However, and very sur-
prisingly, little attention has been paid so far as to how the effectiveness of product positioning
should be measured (Fuchs & Diamantopoulos, 2012). And the question of how product design
enables consumers to automatically understand product positioning has received even less
attention.
A review of the literature shows that two methods are currently used for measuring positioning
success: (1) elicitation of positioning and (2) comparison with competing products among posi-
tioning dimensions (Wang, 2015). Elicitation techniques are qualitative techniques that aim to
investigate which attributes come to consumers’ minds when exposed to a given product.
Comparison techniques are perhaps the most popular approaches for measuring positioning suc-
cess (Fuchs & Diamantopoulos, 2012) and involve the comparison of the positioning of a product
against that of competing products on a number of a priori specified attributes in the attribute space
(Fuchs & Diamantopoulos, 2012; Wang, 2015). These methods are derived from methods such as
correspondence analysis, discriminant analysis, or multidimensional scaling (MDS; Fuchs &
Diamantopoulos, 2012; Green, Carroll, & Goldberg, 1981; Wang, 2015) and use perceptual maps
to reveal the relative positioning of the products in terms of attributes, preferences, or overall (dis)
similarity to each other.
However, like all explicit measures, these qualitative and quantitative methods require respond-
ents to deliberately engage in a reflection process. In a classic article, social psychologists Nisbett
and Wilson (1977) reported from many experimental demonstrations that verbal reports on our
own behavior often reflect reconstructive and interpretative processes, rather than genuine intro-
spection. In market research, dissociations between conscious awareness, actual behavior, and
memory have been reported (e.g., Calvert, Fulcher, Fulcher, Foster, & Rose, 2014; Penn, 2016;
Rivière, Cuny, Allain, & Vereijken, 2013; Werle & Cuny, 2012). They demonstrated differences
between memory that can be expressed explicitly as a conscious recollection and implicitly as
automatic, unconscious influences on behavior. One underlying hypothesis to explain these differ-
ences builds on the idea that explicit measures are direct measurements (i.e., they make explicit
reference to the relevant variable under study). Consequently, this will (1) place emphasis on the
processes that are accessible (automatic processes are not accessible) and (2) be vulnerable to ver-
balization biases (e.g., positivity bias, socially desirable responding, and contextual cueing
[Cunningham & Zelazo, 2007; Fazio & Olson, 2003; Gregg, Klymowsky, Owens, & Perryman,
2013]). In other words, the use of explicit measures cannot tap whether a semantic attribute, such
as one of the dimensions of the positioning of the product, has been automatically activated in
memory by exposure to the design of the product.
6 International Journal of Market Research 00(0)

We argue that implicit measures may provide a more proximal estimate of how design features
automatically activate meaning than is possible with explicit measures. As a consequence, implicit
measures represent a more objective, although indirect, measurement of consumers’ perceived
positioning and could be very effective to compare perceived and intended positioning. Implicit
measures require participants to classify words or pictures into categories, and categorization speed
is observed to assess the strength of memory associations. Thus, they block the control loop
(Cunningham & Zelazo, 2007) that “prompts respondents to over-validate their responses” (Rivière
et al., 2013, p. 377) in an explicit questionnaire and thereby gain access to automatic associations
in memory.
Following Rivière et al. (2013), we build on Cunningham and Zelazo (2007) to argue that implicit
and explicit measures assess the two endpoints of an iterative reflection process. Through their itera-
tive reprocessing (IR) model, Cunningham and Zelazo (2007) proposed that evaluations are con-
structed through an iterative reprocessing of stimuli. When exposed to a given stimulus, associations
existing in memory with that stimulus are automatically activated and provide the basis of an initial
evaluation. Then, this initial evaluation is reprocessed iteratively during a process of reflection that
produces more nuanced evaluations. However, the automatic process underlying the initial evalua-
tion is active during the different iterations and influences the subsequent, more reflective evalua-
tions. In other words, the process of reflection does not supplant the automatic process. It is just the
opposite: automatic and reflective processes interact to generate evaluations that result from existing
memory associations, but also from other processes that consumers use to process information, such
as motivation, time pressure, or the presence of others (Rivière et al., 2013).
In our field of investigation, this implies that when a consumer is exposed to the design of a
product, the meaning associated in memory with some specific design features is automatically
activated. An explicit method, be it qualitative or quantitative, and requires consumers to reflect on
the attributes they associate with the design of the product will prompt a reflective process similar
to that described by Cunningham and Zelazo (2007). Thus, an explicit measure will reflect the
outcome of the consumer’s reflection process prompted by the need to verbalize an answer; how-
ever, an implicit measure offers an immediate assessment of the ability of the design features to
automatically activate meaning.

Semantic priming paradigm and the lexical decision task

Among the implicit measures, the implicit association test (IAT) has gained considerable support
because of its validity and reliability properties and has been the most widely used in consumer
behavior research (Ackermann & Mathieu, 2015; Dimofte, 2010; Gregg et al., 2013). The IAT
measures differences in associative strength between two concept categories and two attribute
categories. This makes it an appropriate tool in many situations in which there is an intent to com-
pare two competing brands, a product and its challenger, or two opposite product categories. But
this tool may not be optimal for marketing studies that aim to investigate associations with a single
brand, product, or product concept (Rivière et al., 2013).
In contrast, priming tasks are implicit measures that aim to measure the strength of the relation-
ship between a prime stimulus and a target. A Semantic Priming Task is a lexical decision task
associated with a semantic priming paradigm: participants are first primed with a stimulus and then
exposed to a target, word, or pseudo-word about which they have to make a lexical decision (Meyer
& Schvaneveldt, 1971). A priming effect is observed if the time needed to categorize the target
stimuli is shorter when primes and target stimuli are semantically related than when they are not.
Although Semantic Priming Tasks are commonly used in research on memory as a means to
explore automatic relations among concepts, their use in business research remains scarce (Rivière
Belboula et al. 7

Figure 2. Response Times as a way to measure the strength of association between design features and
attributes.
Source: Adapted from Ackermann and Mathieu (2015).

et al., 2013). However, their extensive use in other research fields provides support for their
validity.
Our aim is to measure the extent to which exposure to a product design conveys meaning (i.e.,
the extent to which exposure to physical features activates semantic nodes in memory). This makes
the Semantic Priming Task highly suitable because it may investigate the extent to which exposure
to a prime (i.e., the design of the product) facilitates the categorization of attributes as words or
pseudo-words. The ease with which an attribute will be recognized as a word depends on how
strongly it is semantically associated in memory with some of the design features of the product.
Figure 2 illustrates the underlying mechanism, which is as follows: exposure to the design of the
product (i.e., the prime) automatically activates in memory conceptual nodes to which some specific
design features of the product are semantically associated; the activation level of these conceptual
nodes is temporarily increased; the activation of these conceptual nodes facilitates the categorization
as words or pseudo-words of attributes (i.e., the target) that are associated with them; and the degree
of facilitation induced by the initial exposure to the product design is the measure of the associative
strength between the product design and the attributes (Figure 3).
To conclude, we propose the following:

1. Traditional explicit measures cannot tap the automatic activation of attributes by exposure
to product design;
2. Associative strength between attributes and product design can be measured by a Semantic
Priming Task; and
3. Associations between attributes and product design that are measured with a Semantic
Priming Task differ from self-reported associations due to verbalization biases.
8 International Journal of Market Research 00(0)

Figure 3. Semantic Priming Task: organization of sequences.

Method
Participants and research approach
A total of 368 French native-speaking undergraduate students (62.2% females; 37.8% males)
enrolled in a marketing course completed the experiment as part of a course requirement.
The experiment was presented to them as a new product pretest, and it was preceded by a
comprehension test. Indeed, implicit measures are indirect measures; this implies that
respondents should not be informed of the purpose of the measurement (Greenwald & Banaji,
1995).
To test the validity of our theoretical propositions, we sought a product category with which
participants would be somewhat familiar but in which they would be very unlikely to have
expert knowledge. We selected the Oral B TriZone electric toothbrush. Participants first com-
pleted a Semantic Priming Task and then answered an explicit questionnaire. We measured the
level of involvement in the category of electric toothbrushes by using Zaichkowsky’s
(1994) Personal Involvement Inventory (PII). The PII level was inferior to 4(x̅ = 3.10, t
(357) = −11.474, p < .001), indicating a low level of personal involvement in the category of
electric toothbrushes.
We analyzed the Oral B website to identify the words that were used to describe the TriZone’s
functional and symbolic attributes. We identified the attributes that were most used to describe
TriZone, and we made the assumption that these attributes would correspond to the intended product
positioning. The symbolic attributes we identified were designed,1 esthetic, elegant, and sophisti-
cated. The functional attributes we identified were performant, efficient, soft, dynamic, reliable, sim-
ple, and good quality. These attributes were used both in the Semantic Priming Task to measure
implicit perceived product positioning and in the explicit questionnaire to measure explicit perceived
product positioning.
Belboula et al. 9

Table 1. Semantic Priming Task: test sequences and distractive sequences.

Prime Target Sequence type

TriZone 22 pseudo-words Distractive
11 product attributes capturing TriZone positioning Test
11 other product attributes Distractive
Design 1 11 product attributes capturing TriZone positioning Distractive
11 other product attributes Distractive
Design 2 11 product attributes capturing TriZone positioning Distractive
11 other product attributes Distractive

Design and procedure

We used the E-Prime software to develop and administer the Semantic Priming Task. Participants
were seated in front of a personal computer (PC) and required to indicate as quickly as possible
whether the letter string that appeared on the screen represented a word or pseudo-word by press-
ing the appropriate key on the PC keyboard.
A semantic Priming Task consists of distractive sequences and test sequences. The aim of the
distractive sequences is to prevent participants from understanding the real purpose of the test,
whereas the aim of the test sequences is to measure the strength of the association between a focal
stimulus and focal targets. Each sequence starts with the presentation of a stimulus (the prime),
followed by the presentation of a target about which participants have to make a lexical decision.
The primes were pictures from three different Oral B electric toothbrushes, and one of them was
the TriZone. The name and logo of the original brand were removed from the three stimuli, and the
pictures were of the same size, quality, and shooting angle. Stimuli were presented on a neutral
white background. The targets were 22 French words and 22 pseudo-words. The 22 French words
included the 11 product attributes identified on the Oral B website that we believed capture the
TriZone positioning and 11 other words. The 44 targets (i.e., letter strings corresponding to words
or pseudo-words) and the 3 primes (i.e., electric toothbrushes pictures) were combined to form 88
couples (prime-targets), which combined in one block of 66 distractive sequences and one block of
22 test sequences. Each participant reviewed the 88 couples. Table 1 illustrates how primes and
targets were combined to form the 88 prime-targets couples. The test sequences involved the pres-
entation of a picture of the TriZone electric toothbrush followed by the 11 product attributes cap-
turing TriZone positioning. Conversely, the distractive sequences used pictures of 1—the TriZone
electric toothbrush followed by attributes not corresponding to TriZone positioning or pseudo-
words and of 2—other Oral B electric toothbrushes followed by real words. The presentation
orders of the distractive and test sequences were randomized for each participant.
Each sequence (1) started with the presentation of a fixation point in the center of the screen for
a duration of 500 ms, (2) immediately followed by a 200 ms presentation of a priming stimulus,
then a (3) 100 ms presentation of a mask composed of a row of five hash-masks (#####) was pre-
sented, and this was followed by (4) the presentation of a target letters-string that represented a
word or pseudo-word. Participants had to answer as quickly as possible by pressing the “1” key if
the string of letters was a real French word or the “2” key if it was not. The target disappeared as
soon as the participant answered. The inter-sequence interval was set to 1500 ms. Response time
(RT) was measured from the target onset until the participant’s response.
The 200 ms presentation of the prime guaranteed that its trace in memory would be relatively
inaccessible to a conscious report. The stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA; i.e., the interval between
the presentation of the prime and the presentation of the target) was set at 300 ms because this SOA
level guarantees significant priming effects (e.g., Fazio, Sanbonmatsu, Powell, & Kardes, 1986).
10 International Journal of Market Research 00(0)

After the Semantic Priming Task, participants completed a short questionnaire and provided
demographic data, such as their ages and genders. Explicit product positioning was measured using
semantic differential items anchored with 5-point scales, ranging from “not” to “very” on the 11
attributes.

Results
RTs shorter that 250 ms or longer than 1500 ms (Hermans, Houwer, & Eelen, 2001) were not
retained for data analysis; this reduced the sample for the statistical analyses to 357 partici-
pants. We calculated the mean RT for each prime-target couple when the target was 1 of the 11
attributes identified as capturing the TriZone product positioning, though we included only
correct responses in our statistical analyses. RT captures the design-attribute associative
strength; a shorter RT indicated stronger associations between the prime (i.e., the design) and
the target (i.e., the attribute). An attribute is suggested to be part of the TriZone implicit per-
ceived positioning if a significantly shorter RT occurs in the test sequence (i.e., when the
respondent indicates that an attribute is a real French word after seeing TriZone) compared with
the distractive sequences (i.e., the attribute preceded by the design of another electronic tooth-
brush: design 1 or design 2).
We applied an analysis of variance (ANOVA) to the explicit and implicit data with product
design as the within-subjects variable (see Table 2). The ANOVA revealed that the three prime
designs led to a significantly different average RT to determine that each of the 11 target attributes
is a real French word. The ANOVA for explicit answers also revealed significant differences
between the three designs for 8 out of the 11 attributes.
The results suggest that design 1 is the most differentiated design, with the attributes “designed,”
“esthetic,” “elegant,” “performant,” “efficient,” “soft,” and “dynamic” being more implicitly asso-
ciated to design 1 than to the TriZone design and design 2. At the explicit level, design 1 also gener-
ated stronger associations with the different attributes than the two other designs, but no significant
differences were observed between design 1 and the TriZone regarding “performant,” “efficient,”
and “soft.” Very interestingly, out of the 11 attributes we identified, only “good quality” appears as
the attribute that is mostly associated with the TriZone design at both the explicit and implicit
levels.
In addition, we performed correlation analyses (see Table 3) to identify attributes for which
associations or dissociations between the TriZone explicit and implicit perceived product position-
ing are observed; dissociation is understood here as the signature of reflection and verbalization
biases. The only attribute for which no dissociation is observed is the attribute “reliable”: the
shorter the RT for “reliable” is (i.e., the stronger the implicit association), the stronger “reliable” is
explicitly associated to the TriZone design. The TriZone is therefore clearly positioned on the
attribute “reliable.” Conversely, an implicit explicit dissociation is observed for the attributes
“designed,” “esthetic,” and “elegant”: for each of these attributes, the higher the RT (i.e., the
weaker the implicit association), the stronger the attribute is explicitly associated to the TriZone
design.
Finally, to illustrate the difference between implicit and explicit perceived product positioning,
we used a semantic differential method (SDM) to develop two perceptual maps of the TriZone
positioning. First, principal components analyses with varimax rotation confirmed the distinction
between functional and symbolic attributes at both the explicit and implicit levels, and two factors
were extracted, one corresponding to the symbolic dimension of product positioning and the other
corresponding to the functional dimension. Then, a factorial analysis of correspondence was per-
formed on the RT and explicit answers to map the TriZone implicit and explicit perceived product
Table 2. Relationships between product design and attributes.
Belboula et al.

Attributes Mean (SD) Mean comparison Tukey test

TriZone Design 1 Design 2 F p

Designed Implicit 723 (255.21) 617 (241.05) 923 (150.50) 177.55 <0.001 Design 2 > TriZone > design 1
Explicit 3.28 (1.09) 4.52 (1.14) 2.97 (1.74) 2.25 <0.001 Design 1 >TriZone > design 2
Esthetic Implicit 718 (228.98) 608 (248.78) 924 (150.50) 199.87 <0.001 Design 2 > TriZone > design 1
Explicit 3.08 (1.12) 4.80 (1.52) 1.75 (2.14) 1.72 <0.001 Design 1 > TriZone > design 2
Elegant Implicit 715 (250.93) 600 (249.96) 851 (142.48) 116.12 <0.001 Design 2 > TriZone > design 1
Explicit 2.93 (1.23) 3.43 (1.09) 2.43 (1.93) 3.81 <0.001 Design 1 > TriZone ns design 2
Sophisticated Implicit 841 (189.15) 820 (83.07) 946 (125.30) 84.02 <0.001 Design 2 > TriZone ns design 1
Explicit 3.94 (0.90) 3.89 (0.82) 3.91 (0.89) 12.16 0.70 TriZone ns design 1 ns design 2
Performant Implicit 668 (260.98) 570 (252.65) 875 (191.02) 154.04 <0.001 Design 2 > TriZone > design 1
Explicit 3.98 (0.92) 4.06 (1.02) 3.26 (1.04) 3.20 <0.001 TriZone ns > design1 > design 2
Efficient Implicit 643 (202.46) 557 (241.85) 801 (173.37) 126.66 <0.001 Design 2 > TriZone > design 1
Explicit 3.98 (0.91) 3.96 (1.02) 2.43 (0.96) 1.14 <0.001 TriZone ns design 1 > design 2
Soft Implicit 741 (645.17) 540 (279.29) 938 (716.06) 80.25 <0.001 Design 2 > TriZone > design 1
Explicit 3.28 (1.04) 3.89 (1.54) 1.78 (1.68) 1.79 <0.001 TriZone ns design 1 > design 2
Dynamic Implicit 636 (223.70) 561 (245.05) 773 (197.69) 237.23 <0.001 Design 2 > TriZone > design 1
Explicit 4.08 (0.74) 3.21 (1.29) 1.54 (1.33) 6.01 <0.001 TriZone > design 1 > design 2
Reliable Implicit 647 (223.80) 827 (188.86) 761 (182.23) 74.61 <0.001 Design 1 > design 2 > TriZone
Explicit 3.75 (1.00) 3.66 (1.07) 3.78 (0.98) 15.27 0.34 TriZone ns design 1 ns design 2
Simple Implicit 655 (199.05) 854 (61.83) 627 (210.43) 186.94 <0.001 Design 1 > design 2 ns TriZone
Explicit 3.57 (1.19) 3.41 (1.36) 3.53 (1.21) 13.98 0.15 TriZone ns design 1 ns design 2
Good Implicit 547 (197.97) 961 (84.76) 575 (195.05) 692.27 <0.001 Design 1 > design 2 ns TriZone
Quality Explicit 4.07 (1.08) 3.45 (1.75) 1.13 (1.01) 3.98 <0.001 TriZone > design 1 > design 2
11
12 International Journal of Market Research 00(0)

Table 3. Correlation analyses.

Explicit measures

Implicit measures 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
1—Designed 0.157**
2—Esthetic 0.150**
3—Elegant 0.125*
4—Sophisticated −0.084
5—Performant −0.063
6—Efficient −0.048
7—Soft −0.018
8—Dynamic −0.018
9—Reliable −0.157**
10—Simple 0.005
11—Good quality −0.006

**p < .01.

*p < .05.

Figure 4. Perceptual maps of explicit and implicit product positioning.

positioning. This provided a visual illustration of differences between implicit and explicit per-
ceived product positioning (see Figure 4).

Discussion
With this experiment, we attempted to develop and test a Semantic Priming Task that can be used
in the context of product positioning and its materialization into a product design. We propose that
(1) designers use formal codes to translate the positioning that has been defined by marketers, and
(2) consumers can automatically understand marketers’ intended positioning because these formal
codes are associated in memory with qualitative attributes. We propose that the results of the
explicit measures traditionally used to control for consumers’ perceived positioning are biased by
reflection and verbalization processes. Thus, explicit measures cannot tap the associations between
some specific design features and qualitative attributes that have been automatically activated by
the exposure to the product, and the sole utilization of explicit measures overlooks consumers’
nonconscious processing of product design.
Belboula et al. 13

Our aim was not to establish the superiority of one type of measure, implicit or explicit, over the
other. It was to show that they offer different results that are complementary. As highlighted by
Rivière et al. (2013), the radically different structures of implicit measures versus explicit self-
reported measures enable the collecting of different data related to the same topic. When respond-
ing to an explicit questionnaire, respondents have ample time to scrutinize and to interpret the
design of the product. In contrast, implicit measures tap associations that are automatically acti-
vated by the exposure to the design of the product. Thus, if the two measures are to offer similar
results, this suggests that the measurement context, time allocated to the reflection process, and
individual characteristics do not shift the deliberate evaluation away from the automatic evalua-
tion. In contrast, a difference between the two types of measures suggests that consciously process-
ing product design shifts the deliberate evaluation away from the automatic evaluation. A divergence
between implicit and explicit results should not be understood as contradictory, which would ques-
tion the validity of one of the two measures; rather, they should be seen as complementary in the
sense that they highlight two different points within the iterative reprocessing of the stimulus (i.e.,
the design of the product) to which consumers are exposed. Differences between explicit and
implicit measures suggest that the reflection process leads respondents to “review” their automatic
interpretation of product design, the “revision” process being nonconscious.
Our research has clear implications for practitioners. We suggest that a combination of implicit
and explicit measures offers a better measure of perceived product positioning than the measure
provided by the sole use of an explicit measure. Combining implicit and explicit measures may
help practitioners make decisions during the product development process because controlling
perceived product positioning implicitly and explicitly may identify attributes that are explicitly,
but not implicitly, associated to the design of a product and vice versa. Qualitative techniques may
be used to further investigate the nature of this apparent “conflict” and thus provide a better under-
standing of design semantics (i.e., of how consumers perceive meaning conveyed by product
design).
Implementing a Semantic Priming Task, although relatively easy, remains more time-con-
suming than developing and administering an explicit questionnaire, especially online. It requires
a specific expertise in the protocol development, thus an additional cost if implicit and explicit
testing have been both chosen to be used to provide complementary results. Even if some prac-
titioners are already using adaptations of implicit tests for commercial purposes (e.g., investiga-
tion of semantic networks, Rivière et al., 2013; understanding of consumers’ emotional
engagement with brands, Calvert et al., 2014; exploration of brand attitudes, Gregg et al., 2013;
barriers to brand usage, Penn, 2016), these financial and time constraints may make marketers
reluctant to use implicit methods. Nevertheless, in our field of investigation, that is, automatic
understanding of product positioning, we suggest that there are some situations in which the use
of a combination of implicit and explicit measures may be very useful. For example, low involve-
ment often characterizes the purchase of fast-moving consumer goods because consumers do not
dedicate much time to understanding the product, and this therefore stresses the importance of
controlling the extent to which its design automatically conveys the product’s positioning.
Similarly, processing new products also requires more cognitive efforts than processing existing
products because unfamiliar stimuli are more difficult to handle and there is more to learn from
them (Pieters, Warlop, & Wedel, 2002). Again, if consumers are not highly involved in the evalu-
ation process, they may be reluctant to dedicate time and effort to understanding the new prod-
uct. This, again, stresses how critical it is to control implicit perceived product positioning
because implicit processes do not require cognitive efforts. Finally, any situation where tradi-
tional methods have shown their limitations; for example, when promising prelaunch evalua-
tions fail to predict poor post-launch sales, this is an appropriate situation for the combined use
of explicit and implicit measures.
 14

Table 4. Presentation of the different implicit methods referenced in the article.

Implicit measure Description Main references

Semantic Participants complete a series of sequences consisting of a prime presentation (that appears very quickly, Meyer and
Priming Task sometimes subliminally) followed by the presentation of a target. The task requires participants to categorize Schvaneveldt
the targets as words or pseudo-words as quickly as possible. A priming effect is observed if the time needed (1971)
to categorize the target stimuli is shorter when primes and target stimuli are semantically related than when
they are not. The degree of facilitation induced by the presentation of the prime is the measure of the semantic
association between the prime and the target.
Affective In an Affective Priming Task, targets are words that are either positively or negatively valenced. A priming effect Fazio et al.
Priming Task is observed if the time needed to categorize the target stimuli is shorter when primes and target stimuli share (1986)
the same valence than when they are not. The degree of facilitation induced by the presentation of the prime is
the measure of the attitude toward the prime.
Implicit Participants complete a series of categorization tasks involving distinguishing stimuli belonging to two target Greenwald et al.
Association Test categories, i.e., concept A and concept B, and to two contrasted attribute categories, e.g., “bad” and “good.” To (1998)
perform these tasks, participants must press as quickly as possible a button to the left of a computer keyboard
for stimuli belonging to one concept and one attribute category and a button to the right of the keyboard for
stimuli belonging to the other concept and attribute categories. An implicit positive attitude toward concept
A is observed if the task is completed more quickly when stimuli related to concept A and positive attributes
share the same keyboard button than when stimuli related to concept A and negative attributes share the same
keyboard button.
Go-No Go A GNAT (Go-No Go Association Task) requires participants to “go,” i.e., press the space bar when presenting Nosek and Banaji
Association to stimuli that belong to a target or evaluative attribute category (signal), and to “not go,” i.e., not press on any (2001)
Task key, for stimuli that do not belong to the target or attribute category (noise). Strength of association is assessed
by the degree to which stimuli belonging to the target and attribute category (signals) can be discriminate from
items that do not belong to these categories (noise).
International Journal of Market Research 00(0)
Belboula et al. 15

Finally, our research only recruited student as the sample. The cognitive process at stake in a
Semantic Priming Task, that is, categorization, is a process that is only slightly influenced by social
variables such as occupation, incomes or marital status (Wu & Lin, 2006). Thus, the use of a stu-
dent sample should neither critically reduce the external validity of our results, nor undermine the
reliability of the methodology presented in our article. However, sampling is a matter of concern
in any research related to product positioning, and it stands to reason that marketers who would like
to use a Semantic Priming Task to measure consumer’s associations with product design should
recruit a sample that would be representative of the targeted population.

Conclusion
By applying a Semantic Priming Task to measure consumer’s associations with product design, we
aimed to demonstrate that (1) associations between attributes and product design that are activated
by exposure to the product can be measured by a Semantic Priming Task and (2) associations
between attributes and product design measured with a Semantic Priming Task differ from self-
reported associations due to verbalization biases. The results support our views and contribute to
further establishing the validity of the Semantic Priming Task in marketing studies by showing its
relevance in the context of product design and perceived product positioning.
Indeed, of the various new implicit measures (see Dimofte, 2010 for a detailed review), the most
widely used are the Implicit Association Task (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998) and the
Evaluative Priming Task. However, despite the relative ease of implementing the latter, there are
few marketing studies that have used implicit measures other than the IAT, with the exception of
one study using the Go-No Go Association Task (Spence & Townsend, 2007), and some have used
the Evaluative Priming Task (e.g., Calvert et al., 2014; Dempsey & Mitchell, 2010; Penn, 2016;
Rivière et al., 2013; Werle & Cuny, 2012). Table 4 presents the different implicit methods refer-
enced in the article. From a conceptual standpoint, one of the main limitations of the IAT is that it
is a relative measure (Ackermann & Mathieu, 2015), which makes sense in many managerial situ-
ations. However, there are also many cases where the researcher wishes to investigate a unique
concept, and finding an “opposite” concept is a matter of a pure methodological constraint. From
that perspective, the Evaluative Priming Task is a promising tool for market research because it
enables measuring the strength of automatic associations with a single target, be it a brand, a prod-
uct, a product category, or any concept relevant to the understanding of consumption behaviors. As
suggested by Rivière et al. (2013), the “systematic use” of this method “could lead to insightful
results that are both scientifically valid [as supported by extensive psychological research] and
complementary to the findings of explicit tests” (p. 388).

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Note
1. The attribute we identified is “design.” In the French language, the word design can be used as an adjec-
tive, meaning that attention was paid to the design of the product and that the design is trendy.

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