Creation of Market Categories through Product Strategy: A Text-Mining Approach

The study aims to investigate the process employed by companies to intentionally create market categories through implementation of product strategy. Much of the research on market category formation focuses on the spontaneous emergence of market categories, with a few studies focusing on the intentional creation of market categories. In the course of this study, I therefore sought to understand the logic by which companies intentionally create market categories, by treating the process through which market categories are formed as a sensemaking process, and by treating the behavior of a company intentionally forming a market category as an effort to manage this sensemaking process. In empirical study, we conducted an exploratory case analysis through content analysis of company press releases and consumer reviews. It is possible that market categories can be formed or changed if the way in which they are shared among market participants can be changed. In this study, we identified two sense-giving activities for the creation of market categories by firms as follows: (1) reorganizing market categories that flat-panel TV manufacturers in the North American market have attempted to form into subcategories of smart TVs, and (2) connecting them to surrounding categories through strategic labeling to establish new categories.