Cricket Lollipops and Mealworm Chocolate: Investigating Receptivity to Radically Creative Products

This study aims to develop a deeper understanding of the factors at play behind consumer’s receptivity to a radically creative product, and whether their personalities, specifically their openness to experience, moderates their intentions to try said product. Creativity research has already established the link between radically creative ideas and the novelty and familiarity dichotomy. I have used products in the entomophagy (edible insects for human consumption) industry as suitably novel products to gauge consumer’s intentions-to-try. For this study, a survey of 77 participants generated observations on intention to try edible insect products of varying familiarities, and information about the participants own resistance to change and openness to experience. A regression analysing the interaction between familiarity and intention to try found significant interactions between the two variables for unprimed populations, and also found significant interactions for the effect of openness on the relationship between familiarity and intention to try . Finally, a theory was posited to explain the results, and suggestions were given for further exploration of the nexus between radical creativity, novelty, intention-to-try, and personality factors.