New fun(ction). The influence of communicated newness, hedonic and utilitarian perception on app usage over time

Master's Thesis from the year 2019 in the subject Business economics - Offline Marketing and Online Marketing, grade: 8.0, VU University Amsterdam (Faculty of Economics and Business Administration), language: English, abstract: This study set out to explore the influence of utilitarian and hedonic perception and communicated newness on mobile application usage over time. The effect of hedonic and utilitarian perception and motivation on app adoption and usage has been well researched, showing that both play an important role. However, no prior study has compared the two dimensions. Previous research has demonstrated that communicated newness can positively influence consumer responses which has been examined in the context of singular consumer decisions, but not yet in a setting considering usage over time.

By carrying out an online experiment, participants¿ app perception and app usage over time were collated and analyzed on basis of a generalized linear model. Results indicate that utilitarian and hedonic advertisements did not have an effect on app usage over time. Findings do not support the notion that app usage benefits from communicated newness but show that app usage was harmed by communicated newness for the time-span of three to six days after the initial usage.