Exploring consumers' reactions towards innovative mobile services

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show how projective techniques – in particular cartoon tests – give useful insights when used as a tool for conducting marketing research into innovative products and services. The paper presents results from four studies on mobile services that were conducted with cartoon tests. Design/methodology/approach – Using specially developed cartoon tests on four topics in the realm of innovative mobile services, 669 participants (mostly students) were individually and personally interviewed. Each participant was presented with exactly one cartoon test. Each cartoon test had three to four variations. Thus, consumers' reactions to different results of the confrontation with mobile services could be explored. Using content analysis, participants' projections were examined. Findings – Cartoon tests are a useful research method for researching products and services that the general population are not yet familiar with. Furthermore, specific findings from consumers' confrontation with cartoon tests on mobile advertising, usage of mobile price comparison services and mobile shopping are presented. Originality/value – A well‐known, but – for the purposes of marketing research – rather seldom used method is applied to research on innovations. The paper shows that using projective techniques is fruitful to gain an understanding of consumers' latent attitudes and behavioral intentions towards mobile service innovations.