Abstract
Market categories guide purchasing decisions and product positioning. Traditionally, research on categories has focused on prototypical evaluations by interested audiences, where new entrants are compared to established exemplars. However, recent literature highlights goal-derived evaluations, where products are assessed based on the needs and ideals they fulfil. How these different types of evaluations dynamically interact remains underexplored. This study explores the emergence of the plant-based meat-alternative (PBMA) category in New Zealand (2017-2022), which challenged the incumbent meat category. Using a large longitudinal dataset, the study highlights the shifting roles and strategies of various actors—supporters, opponents, and agnostics—contributing to the generation of a new supra-ordinate umbrella category of ‘sustainable protein’. This new category encompasses the existing umbrella categories of meat and vegan/vegetarian foods, and responds to both prototypical and goal-derived evaluations. Our findings contribute to the literature by: (1) offering a multi-actor perspective of umbrella category evolution and evaluation, (2) illuminating the challenges faced by actors pursuing strategic categorization through goal-derived categorization processes, and (3) providing insights into dynamics between novel and incumbent umbrella categories in the presence of both prototypical and goal-based evaluations.