Updating the Foote, Cone & Belding Grid: Revisiting the product classifications of the FCB Grid for online shopping and contemporary consumers’ decision making

This article proposes an update of the Foote, Cone & Belding (FCB) grid, which has been one of the most popular product-classification schemes in advertising and consumer research since its conception in 1980.
Cheong and Cheong

MANAGEMENT SLANT

  • Practitioners should not depend on the myth that consumers exclusively consider products’ emotional values (e.g., design, colors, brands’ sign values) or functional benefits (e.g., durability). Consumers may find products’ emotional and functional benefits almost equally important and evaluate them simultaneously.
  • Companies that traditionally sold products mostly offline (e.g., electronics, furniture, cars) now must pay close attention to online retailing, because many products now are purchased electronically.
  • Consumers likely will use the Internet to search for product information when shopping for high-involvement products; they are more apt to use traditional broadcast media...

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