Anna Fenko - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Anna Fenko

Noisiness is an important product experience that is not restricted to the auditory properties of... more Noisiness is an important product experience that is not restricted to the auditory properties of products; bright colors and cluttered visual patterns can also be experienced as noisy. The aim of this study was to determine to what extent the overall product noisiness is attributed to the sounds that the products make and to what extent is it attributed to the visual appearance of the products. We manipulated the auditory and visual properties of alarm clocks and whistling kettles by combining noisy and quiet stimuli of the two sensory modalities according to a full factorial design. Participants in our experiment assessed the noisiness, pleasantness, and annoyance of the products. The results demonstrated that noisiness and annoyance of the products were generally dominated by the product sound, whereas contribution from visual patterns was insignificant. The noisiness of the sound had a negative influence on the overall pleasantness of the products. The results suggest that in order to create pleasurable product experience, designers need to pay more attention to the auditory properties of products.

Methods in Consumer Research, Volume 2

Abstract Both consumer researchers and product designers recognize the importance of good design ... more Abstract Both consumer researchers and product designers recognize the importance of good design for the success of products and brands. Consumer researchers are focused on understanding consumer responses to product design. Designers try to adjust products to consumers' needs and enhance product experience by involving consumers in the design process. The complexity of consumer responses to products has prompted both consumer and design researchers to formulate conceptual models of consumer responses to product design. This chapter will give an overview of four different perspectives that are used to describe consumer responses to product design, including the designers' perspective centered on product esthetics, the consumer perspective revolving around product experience, the semiotics perspective on symbolic product meaning, and the managerial perspective stressing consumer satisfaction as most important.

Recent studies emphasize positive effects of congruity in advertising on consumer responses, but ... more Recent studies emphasize positive effects of congruity in advertising on consumer responses, but the effects of different types of congruity remain unclear. This study investigated the effects of visual and ad/self-congruity on consumers’ attitudes toward the ad, perceived product quality and purchase intentions. In a 2x2 between-subjects experiment (N=173), introverted and extroverted participants were exposed to advertisements with introverted/extraverted visual design for extraverted/introverted products. The results demonstrated the positive effect of visual congruity on attitude towards the ad. However, the effect of ad/self-congruity was non-significant. Both introverted and extraverted consumers preferred the congruent combination of the introverted product and advertisement

Multisensory Packaging, 2018

This chapter discusses different strategies to communicate food health benefits to consumers. Cur... more This chapter discusses different strategies to communicate food health benefits to consumers. Currently, health labels and nutrition information are the main tools used to inform consumers about the health benefits of food products. However, consumers often ignore health claims due to a lack of trust, knowledge, and/or awareness. Another strategy is to use multisensory packaging design that influence healthy food choice indirectly, through ‘nudge’-type interventions. The chapter summarizes current research into the effects of multisensory packaging cues (e.g., colour, shape, material, and sound) and informational cues (e.g., health and organic labels) on healthiness perception, taste evaluation, and product choice. The results suggest that congruent health communication, which integrates multisensory packaging design and informational cues, can decrease consumer scepticism towards health claims and by so doing encourages consumers to make healthier food choices.

Frontiers in Psychology, 2018

This study investigates the relative impact of textual claims and visual metaphors displayed on t... more This study investigates the relative impact of textual claims and visual metaphors displayed on the product's package on consumers' flavor experience and product evaluation. For consumers, strength is one of the most important sensory attributes of coffee. The 2 × 3 between-subjects experiment (N = 123) compared the effects of visual metaphor of strength (an image of a lion located either on top or on the bottom of the package of coffee beans) and the direct textual claim ("extra strong") on consumers' responses to coffee, including product expectation, flavor evaluation, strength perception and purchase intention. The results demonstrate that both the textual claim and the visual metaphor can be efficient in communicating the product attribute of strength. The presence of the image positively influenced consumers' product expectations before tasting. The textual claim increased the perception of strength of coffee and the purchase intention of the product. The location of the image also played an important role in flavor perception and purchase intention. The image located on the bottom of the package increased the perceived strength of coffee and purchase intention of the product compared to the image on top of the package. This result could be interpreted from the perspective of the grounded cognition theory, which suggests that a picture in the lower part of the package would automatically activate the "strong is heavy" metaphor. As heavy objects are usually associated with a position on the ground, this would explain why perceiving a visually heavy package would lead to the experience of a strong coffee. Further research is needed to better understand the relationships between a metaphorical image and its spatial position in food packaging design.

Food Quality and Preference, 2016

In the global market, consumers are exposed to multiple brand names in unfamiliar languages. Even... more In the global market, consumers are exposed to multiple brand names in unfamiliar languages. Even meaningless words can trigger certain semantic associations. This phenomenon is known as sound symbolism, i.e., the direct link between a sound and a meaning. Sound symbolism helps consumers to form product expectations based on unfamiliar brand names. Product expectations can be also formed based on various elements of packaging design, including colours, shapes and materials. This study investigated the effects of unfamiliar brand names (“Asahi” vs. “Ramune”), package shapes (round vs. angular) and product types (muesli cookie vs. butter cookie) varied in perceived healthiness (low vs. high) on perceived product healthfulness, product evaluation, taste expectations and purchase intention. General health interest (GHI) was used as the moderating variable. The results showed that package shape and product type significantly influenced the perceived product healthfulness of the two experimental products. Brand name alone did not affect consumer responses. However, the congruent combination of product shape and brand name (round “Ramune” cookie) was preferred to incongruent combinations. Furthermore, the congruent combinations (“Ramune” butter cookie and “Asahi” muesli cookie) were expected to taste better and were more likely to be purchased compared to incongruent combinations. These results suggest that congruency between the type of product, brand name, and package design is important for creating a successful brand strategy. The study also showed that the effects of sound symbolism and congruency on perceived product healthfulness are more pronounced for consumers with low interest in healthy eating. However, further research is needed to generalise our results to other product groups.

Food Quality and Preference, 2016

More and more information labels appear on the front of food packages, increasing the complexity ... more More and more information labels appear on the front of food packages, increasing the complexity of consumer decision-making and enhancing consumer scepticism toward food labels. It is important to evaluate the efficacy of information communicated to consumers. The experimental study among 209 Dutch consumers compared the effect of health and hedonic labels on consumer scepticism toward the labels and consumer responses to food products (apple juice and a chocolate cookie) under three presentation conditions (visual, visual-tactile and multisensory). The results demonstrated that consumers were more sceptical toward the hedonic label than toward the health label. The influence of consumer scepticism on product experience, product evaluation and purchase intention varied for different product categories. For a hedonic product (a chocolate cookie), the hedonic label had a more positive effect on consumer responses compared to the health label. The results also showed that the multisensory presentation reduced scepticism and enhanced product evaluation for the hedonic product compared to the visual and tactile presentations. The results suggest that multisensory experience may alter consumer scepticism toward food labels and thus product evaluation and consumer choice. Our findings can be useful for food manufacturers and policy makers in evaluating the efficacy of food labels and information presented on food packages.

Creating pleasurable products requires understanding of the influence of sensory product properti... more Creating pleasurable products requires understanding of the influence of sensory product properties on affective user experience and symbolic meaning of products. This paper gives an overview of a series of studies, in which we investigated the impact of sensory product properties (color, material, sound, smell, and taste) on affective user experiences (pleasure, annoyance, satisfaction, and surprise) and symbolic meanings of products (freshness, warmth, and noisiness). The results demonstrate that the pleasantness of a product could not always be predicted on the basis of the pleasantness of its sensory properties. The findings also suggest that sensory product properties might be linked to symbolic properties through metaphorical meaning of sensory adjectives.

HERD: Health Environments Research & Design Journal, 2014

OBJECTIVE: This study investigates the influence of ambient scent and music, and their combinatio... more OBJECTIVE: This study investigates the influence of ambient scent and music, and their combination, on patients' anxiety in a waiting room of a plastic surgeon. BACKGROUND: Waiting for an appointment with a plastic surgeon can increase a patient's anxiety. It is important to make the waiting time before an appointment with the surgeon more pleasant and to reduce the patient's anxiety. Ambient environmental stimuli can influence people's mood, cognition, and behavior. This experimental study was performed to test whether ambient scent and music can help to reduce patients' anxiety. METHODS: Two pre-studies ( n = 21) were conducted to measure the subjective pleasantness and arousal of various scents and music styles. Scent and music that scored high on pleasantness and low on arousal were selected for the main study. The field experiment ( n = 117) was conducted in the waiting room of a German plastic surgeon. The patients' levels of anxiety were measured in fo...

Food neophobia, the avoidance of novel foods (Birch & Fischer, 1998), can be seen as a potent... more Food neophobia, the avoidance of novel foods (Birch & Fischer, 1998), can be seen as a potential barrier for the introduction of new food products (Tuorila et al., 2001). This study investigates how slogans in a food product advertisement can facilitate product acceptance by two consumer groups, food neophobics and food neophilics. Food neophobia can be measured by the Food Neophobia Scale (FNS) with five positive and five negative items regarding foods and food-related situations (Pliner & Hobden, 1992). With this scale consumers can be classified as either neophobic towards food, someone who avoids unknown foods, or as neophilic, someone who embraces novel foods (Veeck, 2010). Slogans have been shown to influence brand awareness, to effectively convey certain product attributes and to make them more prominent in the minds of consumers (Kohli et al., 2007). For instance, slogans were used to prime various attributes of soup (Boush, 1993). Pryor and Brodie (1998) provided further empirical evidence that slogans can be used as vehicles for priming certain key attributes to a product. We suggest that slogans embedded in a product advertisement can be used to employ a certain loading of familiarity or newness associated with the presented novel food product. By changing the perception in a favorable way (as being more familiar for food neophobics and as more new for food neophilics) we expect to promote the acceptance of a novel food product. Food neophobics may react positively to a slogan that conveys familiarity rather than newness. Providing taste or “it tastes like...” information may result in a higher willingness to try novel foods in this group (Pelchat & Pliner, 1995). For neophilics, on the contrary, the perceived newness should be stressed. They perceive unusual foods in a positive light and embrace situations involving new foods (Veeck, 2010). Therefore, we expect food neophilics to react positively to a slogan that conveys newness rather than familiarity. According to the MAYA (Most Advanced Yet Acceptable) principle (Hekkert, Snelders, & Van Wieringen, 2003), success of any innovation depends on a careful balance of typicality and novelty. In the current study we test whether this principle is also true for the domain of food neophobia by using a slogan that send a mixed message conveying familiarity as well as newness. We expect a slogan combining familiarity and newness to appeal to both groups (neophobics and neophilics) simultaneously. The data analysis showed significant effects of food neophobia on Taste Expectation [F (215, 1) = 7.084, p = .008], Intention to Try [F (215, 1) = 13.222, p .05). Interaction effects of slogan manipulations and food neophobia were significant for Taste Expectation [F (215, 2) = 3.750, p = .025] and Intention to Try [F (215, 2) = 3.128, p = .046] and marginally significant for Attractiveness [F (215, 2) = 3.012, p = .051] and Intention to Buy [F (215, 2) = 2.675, p = .071]. Pairwise comparisons showed that food neophobics had an overall lower preference for the product than food neophilics (see Figure 3). Slogan manipulation affected neophobics and neophilics differently. For neophilics, the slogan conveying newness significantly increased perceived product Attractiveness, Taste Expectation, Intention to Try and Intention to Buy compared to familiarity slogan. Significant differences between mixed and familiarity slogan were found only for Taste Expectation. For neophobics, the slogan stressing familiarity of the product did not increase their acceptance of the product on any of the four measures. The mixed slogan also did not show any significant effect.

ABSTRACT The main challenge in successfully communicating health and/or taste benefits is to actu... more ABSTRACT The main challenge in successfully communicating health and/or taste benefits is to actually meet consumers’ expectations generated by the information provided on the front of the package. The current study addresses this challenge by manipulating the presence of health label (present vs. absent) and advertising claims (health vs. taste) on the front of the package of cereal bars and potato chips, representing respectively, healthy and less healthy product category. After being exposed to one of the packages, respondents had to taste the product. Attention to the information displayed front-of-pack, and consequent effect on actual taste evaluation, health product perception, and buying intention were measured. For healthy product category, taste and health benefit claims performed equally well. By contrast, for less healthy product category, taste benefit claim influenced positively the taste perception and consequent buying intention, while health benefit claim reduced the perceived tastefulness and healthfulness of the product, and thus intention to buy the product. These results show that consumers’ expectations could be easily backfired, as perception of the food products’ healthfulness and tastefulness seems to be a “barometer” for the credibility of information communicated to consumers at the point of sale. The findings are crucial for enhancing the understanding of health and taste benefit information effects, and thus, resuming the discussion on the establishment of standards to avoid the use of unjustified and potentially misleading information displayed on the front of food packages.

ABSTRACT Gender-specific marketing gains importance as women become more influential as consumers... more ABSTRACT Gender-specific marketing gains importance as women become more influential as consumers. The study investigated an efficiency of two approaches to gender-specific marketing: designing a stereotypically "feminine" product and priming an interdependent self-construal with an advertising scenario. Female participants (N=160) evaluated four advertisements for a soft drink with feminine/gender-neutral product design and independent/interdependent self-construal. The results demonstrated a significant positive effect of interdependent self-construal on the attitudes towards the ad. The effect of stereotypical product design was non-significant. These results suggest that indirect approach to gender-specific advertising via priming techniques may be more efficient than direct use of gender stereotypes. NOTE: Not qualified for the best paper award.

Olfactory cues in advertisements can evoke positive consumer emotions and product attitudes, yet ... more Olfactory cues in advertisements can evoke positive consumer emotions and product attitudes, yet including real scent in advertising is not always feasible. This study aimed at investigating whether written scent references could produce effects similar to real scents. Participants in online experiment (N=197) evaluated advertisings for two products (a pen and a soap) with or without scent references. The results demonstrated that the written scent reference had positive effects on consumer emotions and attitudes towards both products. These results suggest that including scent reference in advertising may positively influence attitudes towards a product without attracting consumers' full attention.

The study investigated whether and how advertising claims (taste vs. health benefit) influenced c... more The study investigated whether and how advertising claims (taste vs. health benefit) influenced consumer taste perception and buying intentions of potato chips. Participants (N=154) were exposed to the front of the product package and were invited to taste the product. Taste benefit claims lead to perceiving the chips as more tasty, while health benefit claims reduced the perceived level of tastefulness of the product. The buying intention was higher when the package carried taste than health benefit claims. These outcomes show that advertising claims may alter consumer health-pleasure trade-off and thus play a crucial role in buying decisions

ABSTRACT People perceive the material world around them with their five senses. Information from ... more ABSTRACT People perceive the material world around them with their five senses. Information from different sensory modalities is integrated in the brain to create a stable and meaningful experience of objects, including industrial products that accompany us in our everyday life. Some of the sensory systems play a more important role in product experience than others. Designing pleasurable products can enrich user satisfaction and contribute to the well-being of people and society. While designing products, it is important for designers to be aware of the complex relationships between various sensory product properties. The aim of this research was to understand which sensory modalities are more important for specific product experiences, and how product experience can be influenced by various combinations of sensory stimuli in products. We investigated the relative importance of various sensory modalities at different stages of product usage, for specific product experiences (freshness, naturalness, warmth, and noisiness), and for different groups of users. This thesis has demonstrated that the importance of sensory modalities may depend on the stage of user-product interaction, on the specific experience that designers aim to induce, and on the language differences between users. Other factors (such as individual differences or situational variables) may also play a role in sensory dominance. Therefore, research on this topic should continue in the future.

Materials & Design, 2010

Warmth is an important characteristic for clothes, home interior and some leisure related product... more Warmth is an important characteristic for clothes, home interior and some leisure related products. We used an experimental approach to determine the relative importance of material and colour for the product experience of warmth. We designed products (scarves and breakfast trays) using warm and cold stimuli (colours and materials) in four different combinations and asked respondents to evaluate the warmth and pleasantness of each product. The results demonstrated that both colour and material contribute equally to the judgments of warmth in both products. However, the pleasantness of a product could not be predicted on the basis of the pleasantness attributed to its colour and material. A follow-up interview study distinguished between the literal and figurative meanings of warmth. The literal meaning is related to physical warmth and comfort. The figurative meaning is associated with social interaction, intimacy and friendly atmosphere. The figurative meaning was mentioned more often in association with products than the literal meaning.

Metaphor and Symbol, 2010

The present study analyzes metaphors of life, self, emotional states, and relationships in forty ... more The present study analyzes metaphors of life, self, emotional states, and relationships in forty life stories that differ in their communicative situations and narrative goals. Twenty interviews were conducted with people who were seeking psychological help. Another twenty interviews were conducted with Russian celebrities for publication in popular psychology magazines. Metaphors in happy stories were more numerous and diverse than in unhappy stories. Some conceptual metaphors (e.g., "LIFE IS A CONTAINER," "LIFE IS A JOURNEY," and "EMOTION IS A PHYSICAL IMPACT") were found in both happy and unhappy narratives. More specific metaphors demonstrated significant differences between the two types of narratives. The metaphors of life as a "purposeful journey," self as "alive and flexible object," and emotional states as "internal and controlled forces" were used more often in happy narratives. This may reflect higher levels of activity, responsibility, and awareness of the authors of happy narratives. Specific for unhappy stories were metaphors "LIFE IS DEATH" and "SELF IS A DEAD OBJECT," which may indicate a low level of personal well-being and serve as specific markers of personal unhappiness. The results of our study suggest that metaphors may help to construct the subjective reality of happy and unhappy life. By telling their life stories people are able to redefine their past experiences and future perspectives. Specific metaphors play an important part in defining subjective happiness or unhappiness.

Journal of Pragmatics, 2010

When people interact with products, they receive information through all the different senses. Th... more When people interact with products, they receive information through all the different senses. This sensory information is processed in the brain and contributes to the overall product experience that people are aware of and can describe verbally. In describing their experience, people usually use adjectives that reflect sensory properties (e.g., warm, solid, red, loud), adjectives that refer to symbolic properties (e.g., elegant, expensive, modern), and affective evaluations (e.g., good, bad, beautiful, ugly) of the product (see Hekkert and Schifferstein, 2008). All descriptions of product experiences ultimately rely on sensory inputs derived from the product. Nonetheless, information from some sensory modalities may be more important for describing certain product experiences than others. We define ''sensory importance'' as the relative contribution of each sensory modality to the description of a particular product experience. The dominant sensory modality is the modality that has the largest effect on the specific description. In this research we wonder what the role of the senses is in the description of product experiences through different types of adjectives. 1.1. Factors affecting sensory dominance A general and popular belief seems to be that vision is the dominant sensory modality in everyday experience. When people are asked which sensory modality they would miss most if they lost it, the majority is likely to indicate vision (Fiore and Kimle, 1997; Schifferstein, 2006). In addition, when people are asked to describe objects, they primarily use adjectives that refer to the visual (60%) or tactual (32%) modalities (Stadtlander and Murdoch, 2000).

Food Quality and Preference, 2013

During the various stages of user-product interactions, different sensory modalities may be impor... more During the various stages of user-product interactions, different sensory modalities may be important and different emotional responses may be elicited. We investigated how a dehydrated food product was experienced at different stages of product usage: choosing a product on a supermarket shelf, opening a package, cooking and eating the food. At the buying stage, vision was the most important modality, followed by taste. Smell was dominant at the cooking stage, and taste was the most important sensation while eating the food. Analysis of the emotional dynamics showed that ratings for satisfaction and pleasant surprise tended to be lowest during the buying stages. Fascination and boredom ratings tended to decrease gradually over the course of the experiment. Comments mostly reflected responses to sensory qualities, usability aspects, and the nature of the product. At the purchase stage, pre-existing attitudes and stereotypes towards the product group seemed to play a major role in affective reactions, while in the other stages when other modalities were actively involved, participants' emotional judgements reflected mainly their direct sensory experience.

Noisiness is an important product experience that is not restricted to the auditory properties of... more Noisiness is an important product experience that is not restricted to the auditory properties of products; bright colors and cluttered visual patterns can also be experienced as noisy. The aim of this study was to determine to what extent the overall product noisiness is attributed to the sounds that the products make and to what extent is it attributed to the visual appearance of the products. We manipulated the auditory and visual properties of alarm clocks and whistling kettles by combining noisy and quiet stimuli of the two sensory modalities according to a full factorial design. Participants in our experiment assessed the noisiness, pleasantness, and annoyance of the products. The results demonstrated that noisiness and annoyance of the products were generally dominated by the product sound, whereas contribution from visual patterns was insignificant. The noisiness of the sound had a negative influence on the overall pleasantness of the products. The results suggest that in order to create pleasurable product experience, designers need to pay more attention to the auditory properties of products.

Methods in Consumer Research, Volume 2

Abstract Both consumer researchers and product designers recognize the importance of good design ... more Abstract Both consumer researchers and product designers recognize the importance of good design for the success of products and brands. Consumer researchers are focused on understanding consumer responses to product design. Designers try to adjust products to consumers' needs and enhance product experience by involving consumers in the design process. The complexity of consumer responses to products has prompted both consumer and design researchers to formulate conceptual models of consumer responses to product design. This chapter will give an overview of four different perspectives that are used to describe consumer responses to product design, including the designers' perspective centered on product esthetics, the consumer perspective revolving around product experience, the semiotics perspective on symbolic product meaning, and the managerial perspective stressing consumer satisfaction as most important.

Recent studies emphasize positive effects of congruity in advertising on consumer responses, but ... more Recent studies emphasize positive effects of congruity in advertising on consumer responses, but the effects of different types of congruity remain unclear. This study investigated the effects of visual and ad/self-congruity on consumers’ attitudes toward the ad, perceived product quality and purchase intentions. In a 2x2 between-subjects experiment (N=173), introverted and extroverted participants were exposed to advertisements with introverted/extraverted visual design for extraverted/introverted products. The results demonstrated the positive effect of visual congruity on attitude towards the ad. However, the effect of ad/self-congruity was non-significant. Both introverted and extraverted consumers preferred the congruent combination of the introverted product and advertisement

Multisensory Packaging, 2018

This chapter discusses different strategies to communicate food health benefits to consumers. Cur... more This chapter discusses different strategies to communicate food health benefits to consumers. Currently, health labels and nutrition information are the main tools used to inform consumers about the health benefits of food products. However, consumers often ignore health claims due to a lack of trust, knowledge, and/or awareness. Another strategy is to use multisensory packaging design that influence healthy food choice indirectly, through ‘nudge’-type interventions. The chapter summarizes current research into the effects of multisensory packaging cues (e.g., colour, shape, material, and sound) and informational cues (e.g., health and organic labels) on healthiness perception, taste evaluation, and product choice. The results suggest that congruent health communication, which integrates multisensory packaging design and informational cues, can decrease consumer scepticism towards health claims and by so doing encourages consumers to make healthier food choices.

Frontiers in Psychology, 2018

This study investigates the relative impact of textual claims and visual metaphors displayed on t... more This study investigates the relative impact of textual claims and visual metaphors displayed on the product's package on consumers' flavor experience and product evaluation. For consumers, strength is one of the most important sensory attributes of coffee. The 2 × 3 between-subjects experiment (N = 123) compared the effects of visual metaphor of strength (an image of a lion located either on top or on the bottom of the package of coffee beans) and the direct textual claim ("extra strong") on consumers' responses to coffee, including product expectation, flavor evaluation, strength perception and purchase intention. The results demonstrate that both the textual claim and the visual metaphor can be efficient in communicating the product attribute of strength. The presence of the image positively influenced consumers' product expectations before tasting. The textual claim increased the perception of strength of coffee and the purchase intention of the product. The location of the image also played an important role in flavor perception and purchase intention. The image located on the bottom of the package increased the perceived strength of coffee and purchase intention of the product compared to the image on top of the package. This result could be interpreted from the perspective of the grounded cognition theory, which suggests that a picture in the lower part of the package would automatically activate the "strong is heavy" metaphor. As heavy objects are usually associated with a position on the ground, this would explain why perceiving a visually heavy package would lead to the experience of a strong coffee. Further research is needed to better understand the relationships between a metaphorical image and its spatial position in food packaging design.

Food Quality and Preference, 2016

In the global market, consumers are exposed to multiple brand names in unfamiliar languages. Even... more In the global market, consumers are exposed to multiple brand names in unfamiliar languages. Even meaningless words can trigger certain semantic associations. This phenomenon is known as sound symbolism, i.e., the direct link between a sound and a meaning. Sound symbolism helps consumers to form product expectations based on unfamiliar brand names. Product expectations can be also formed based on various elements of packaging design, including colours, shapes and materials. This study investigated the effects of unfamiliar brand names (“Asahi” vs. “Ramune”), package shapes (round vs. angular) and product types (muesli cookie vs. butter cookie) varied in perceived healthiness (low vs. high) on perceived product healthfulness, product evaluation, taste expectations and purchase intention. General health interest (GHI) was used as the moderating variable. The results showed that package shape and product type significantly influenced the perceived product healthfulness of the two experimental products. Brand name alone did not affect consumer responses. However, the congruent combination of product shape and brand name (round “Ramune” cookie) was preferred to incongruent combinations. Furthermore, the congruent combinations (“Ramune” butter cookie and “Asahi” muesli cookie) were expected to taste better and were more likely to be purchased compared to incongruent combinations. These results suggest that congruency between the type of product, brand name, and package design is important for creating a successful brand strategy. The study also showed that the effects of sound symbolism and congruency on perceived product healthfulness are more pronounced for consumers with low interest in healthy eating. However, further research is needed to generalise our results to other product groups.

Food Quality and Preference, 2016

More and more information labels appear on the front of food packages, increasing the complexity ... more More and more information labels appear on the front of food packages, increasing the complexity of consumer decision-making and enhancing consumer scepticism toward food labels. It is important to evaluate the efficacy of information communicated to consumers. The experimental study among 209 Dutch consumers compared the effect of health and hedonic labels on consumer scepticism toward the labels and consumer responses to food products (apple juice and a chocolate cookie) under three presentation conditions (visual, visual-tactile and multisensory). The results demonstrated that consumers were more sceptical toward the hedonic label than toward the health label. The influence of consumer scepticism on product experience, product evaluation and purchase intention varied for different product categories. For a hedonic product (a chocolate cookie), the hedonic label had a more positive effect on consumer responses compared to the health label. The results also showed that the multisensory presentation reduced scepticism and enhanced product evaluation for the hedonic product compared to the visual and tactile presentations. The results suggest that multisensory experience may alter consumer scepticism toward food labels and thus product evaluation and consumer choice. Our findings can be useful for food manufacturers and policy makers in evaluating the efficacy of food labels and information presented on food packages.

Creating pleasurable products requires understanding of the influence of sensory product properti... more Creating pleasurable products requires understanding of the influence of sensory product properties on affective user experience and symbolic meaning of products. This paper gives an overview of a series of studies, in which we investigated the impact of sensory product properties (color, material, sound, smell, and taste) on affective user experiences (pleasure, annoyance, satisfaction, and surprise) and symbolic meanings of products (freshness, warmth, and noisiness). The results demonstrate that the pleasantness of a product could not always be predicted on the basis of the pleasantness of its sensory properties. The findings also suggest that sensory product properties might be linked to symbolic properties through metaphorical meaning of sensory adjectives.

HERD: Health Environments Research & Design Journal, 2014

OBJECTIVE: This study investigates the influence of ambient scent and music, and their combinatio... more OBJECTIVE: This study investigates the influence of ambient scent and music, and their combination, on patients' anxiety in a waiting room of a plastic surgeon. BACKGROUND: Waiting for an appointment with a plastic surgeon can increase a patient's anxiety. It is important to make the waiting time before an appointment with the surgeon more pleasant and to reduce the patient's anxiety. Ambient environmental stimuli can influence people's mood, cognition, and behavior. This experimental study was performed to test whether ambient scent and music can help to reduce patients' anxiety. METHODS: Two pre-studies ( n = 21) were conducted to measure the subjective pleasantness and arousal of various scents and music styles. Scent and music that scored high on pleasantness and low on arousal were selected for the main study. The field experiment ( n = 117) was conducted in the waiting room of a German plastic surgeon. The patients' levels of anxiety were measured in fo...

Food neophobia, the avoidance of novel foods (Birch & Fischer, 1998), can be seen as a potent... more Food neophobia, the avoidance of novel foods (Birch & Fischer, 1998), can be seen as a potential barrier for the introduction of new food products (Tuorila et al., 2001). This study investigates how slogans in a food product advertisement can facilitate product acceptance by two consumer groups, food neophobics and food neophilics. Food neophobia can be measured by the Food Neophobia Scale (FNS) with five positive and five negative items regarding foods and food-related situations (Pliner & Hobden, 1992). With this scale consumers can be classified as either neophobic towards food, someone who avoids unknown foods, or as neophilic, someone who embraces novel foods (Veeck, 2010). Slogans have been shown to influence brand awareness, to effectively convey certain product attributes and to make them more prominent in the minds of consumers (Kohli et al., 2007). For instance, slogans were used to prime various attributes of soup (Boush, 1993). Pryor and Brodie (1998) provided further empirical evidence that slogans can be used as vehicles for priming certain key attributes to a product. We suggest that slogans embedded in a product advertisement can be used to employ a certain loading of familiarity or newness associated with the presented novel food product. By changing the perception in a favorable way (as being more familiar for food neophobics and as more new for food neophilics) we expect to promote the acceptance of a novel food product. Food neophobics may react positively to a slogan that conveys familiarity rather than newness. Providing taste or “it tastes like...” information may result in a higher willingness to try novel foods in this group (Pelchat & Pliner, 1995). For neophilics, on the contrary, the perceived newness should be stressed. They perceive unusual foods in a positive light and embrace situations involving new foods (Veeck, 2010). Therefore, we expect food neophilics to react positively to a slogan that conveys newness rather than familiarity. According to the MAYA (Most Advanced Yet Acceptable) principle (Hekkert, Snelders, & Van Wieringen, 2003), success of any innovation depends on a careful balance of typicality and novelty. In the current study we test whether this principle is also true for the domain of food neophobia by using a slogan that send a mixed message conveying familiarity as well as newness. We expect a slogan combining familiarity and newness to appeal to both groups (neophobics and neophilics) simultaneously. The data analysis showed significant effects of food neophobia on Taste Expectation [F (215, 1) = 7.084, p = .008], Intention to Try [F (215, 1) = 13.222, p .05). Interaction effects of slogan manipulations and food neophobia were significant for Taste Expectation [F (215, 2) = 3.750, p = .025] and Intention to Try [F (215, 2) = 3.128, p = .046] and marginally significant for Attractiveness [F (215, 2) = 3.012, p = .051] and Intention to Buy [F (215, 2) = 2.675, p = .071]. Pairwise comparisons showed that food neophobics had an overall lower preference for the product than food neophilics (see Figure 3). Slogan manipulation affected neophobics and neophilics differently. For neophilics, the slogan conveying newness significantly increased perceived product Attractiveness, Taste Expectation, Intention to Try and Intention to Buy compared to familiarity slogan. Significant differences between mixed and familiarity slogan were found only for Taste Expectation. For neophobics, the slogan stressing familiarity of the product did not increase their acceptance of the product on any of the four measures. The mixed slogan also did not show any significant effect.

ABSTRACT The main challenge in successfully communicating health and/or taste benefits is to actu... more ABSTRACT The main challenge in successfully communicating health and/or taste benefits is to actually meet consumers’ expectations generated by the information provided on the front of the package. The current study addresses this challenge by manipulating the presence of health label (present vs. absent) and advertising claims (health vs. taste) on the front of the package of cereal bars and potato chips, representing respectively, healthy and less healthy product category. After being exposed to one of the packages, respondents had to taste the product. Attention to the information displayed front-of-pack, and consequent effect on actual taste evaluation, health product perception, and buying intention were measured. For healthy product category, taste and health benefit claims performed equally well. By contrast, for less healthy product category, taste benefit claim influenced positively the taste perception and consequent buying intention, while health benefit claim reduced the perceived tastefulness and healthfulness of the product, and thus intention to buy the product. These results show that consumers’ expectations could be easily backfired, as perception of the food products’ healthfulness and tastefulness seems to be a “barometer” for the credibility of information communicated to consumers at the point of sale. The findings are crucial for enhancing the understanding of health and taste benefit information effects, and thus, resuming the discussion on the establishment of standards to avoid the use of unjustified and potentially misleading information displayed on the front of food packages.

ABSTRACT Gender-specific marketing gains importance as women become more influential as consumers... more ABSTRACT Gender-specific marketing gains importance as women become more influential as consumers. The study investigated an efficiency of two approaches to gender-specific marketing: designing a stereotypically "feminine" product and priming an interdependent self-construal with an advertising scenario. Female participants (N=160) evaluated four advertisements for a soft drink with feminine/gender-neutral product design and independent/interdependent self-construal. The results demonstrated a significant positive effect of interdependent self-construal on the attitudes towards the ad. The effect of stereotypical product design was non-significant. These results suggest that indirect approach to gender-specific advertising via priming techniques may be more efficient than direct use of gender stereotypes. NOTE: Not qualified for the best paper award.

Olfactory cues in advertisements can evoke positive consumer emotions and product attitudes, yet ... more Olfactory cues in advertisements can evoke positive consumer emotions and product attitudes, yet including real scent in advertising is not always feasible. This study aimed at investigating whether written scent references could produce effects similar to real scents. Participants in online experiment (N=197) evaluated advertisings for two products (a pen and a soap) with or without scent references. The results demonstrated that the written scent reference had positive effects on consumer emotions and attitudes towards both products. These results suggest that including scent reference in advertising may positively influence attitudes towards a product without attracting consumers' full attention.

The study investigated whether and how advertising claims (taste vs. health benefit) influenced c... more The study investigated whether and how advertising claims (taste vs. health benefit) influenced consumer taste perception and buying intentions of potato chips. Participants (N=154) were exposed to the front of the product package and were invited to taste the product. Taste benefit claims lead to perceiving the chips as more tasty, while health benefit claims reduced the perceived level of tastefulness of the product. The buying intention was higher when the package carried taste than health benefit claims. These outcomes show that advertising claims may alter consumer health-pleasure trade-off and thus play a crucial role in buying decisions

ABSTRACT People perceive the material world around them with their five senses. Information from ... more ABSTRACT People perceive the material world around them with their five senses. Information from different sensory modalities is integrated in the brain to create a stable and meaningful experience of objects, including industrial products that accompany us in our everyday life. Some of the sensory systems play a more important role in product experience than others. Designing pleasurable products can enrich user satisfaction and contribute to the well-being of people and society. While designing products, it is important for designers to be aware of the complex relationships between various sensory product properties. The aim of this research was to understand which sensory modalities are more important for specific product experiences, and how product experience can be influenced by various combinations of sensory stimuli in products. We investigated the relative importance of various sensory modalities at different stages of product usage, for specific product experiences (freshness, naturalness, warmth, and noisiness), and for different groups of users. This thesis has demonstrated that the importance of sensory modalities may depend on the stage of user-product interaction, on the specific experience that designers aim to induce, and on the language differences between users. Other factors (such as individual differences or situational variables) may also play a role in sensory dominance. Therefore, research on this topic should continue in the future.

Materials & Design, 2010

Warmth is an important characteristic for clothes, home interior and some leisure related product... more Warmth is an important characteristic for clothes, home interior and some leisure related products. We used an experimental approach to determine the relative importance of material and colour for the product experience of warmth. We designed products (scarves and breakfast trays) using warm and cold stimuli (colours and materials) in four different combinations and asked respondents to evaluate the warmth and pleasantness of each product. The results demonstrated that both colour and material contribute equally to the judgments of warmth in both products. However, the pleasantness of a product could not be predicted on the basis of the pleasantness attributed to its colour and material. A follow-up interview study distinguished between the literal and figurative meanings of warmth. The literal meaning is related to physical warmth and comfort. The figurative meaning is associated with social interaction, intimacy and friendly atmosphere. The figurative meaning was mentioned more often in association with products than the literal meaning.

Metaphor and Symbol, 2010

The present study analyzes metaphors of life, self, emotional states, and relationships in forty ... more The present study analyzes metaphors of life, self, emotional states, and relationships in forty life stories that differ in their communicative situations and narrative goals. Twenty interviews were conducted with people who were seeking psychological help. Another twenty interviews were conducted with Russian celebrities for publication in popular psychology magazines. Metaphors in happy stories were more numerous and diverse than in unhappy stories. Some conceptual metaphors (e.g., "LIFE IS A CONTAINER," "LIFE IS A JOURNEY," and "EMOTION IS A PHYSICAL IMPACT") were found in both happy and unhappy narratives. More specific metaphors demonstrated significant differences between the two types of narratives. The metaphors of life as a "purposeful journey," self as "alive and flexible object," and emotional states as "internal and controlled forces" were used more often in happy narratives. This may reflect higher levels of activity, responsibility, and awareness of the authors of happy narratives. Specific for unhappy stories were metaphors "LIFE IS DEATH" and "SELF IS A DEAD OBJECT," which may indicate a low level of personal well-being and serve as specific markers of personal unhappiness. The results of our study suggest that metaphors may help to construct the subjective reality of happy and unhappy life. By telling their life stories people are able to redefine their past experiences and future perspectives. Specific metaphors play an important part in defining subjective happiness or unhappiness.

Journal of Pragmatics, 2010

When people interact with products, they receive information through all the different senses. Th... more When people interact with products, they receive information through all the different senses. This sensory information is processed in the brain and contributes to the overall product experience that people are aware of and can describe verbally. In describing their experience, people usually use adjectives that reflect sensory properties (e.g., warm, solid, red, loud), adjectives that refer to symbolic properties (e.g., elegant, expensive, modern), and affective evaluations (e.g., good, bad, beautiful, ugly) of the product (see Hekkert and Schifferstein, 2008). All descriptions of product experiences ultimately rely on sensory inputs derived from the product. Nonetheless, information from some sensory modalities may be more important for describing certain product experiences than others. We define ''sensory importance'' as the relative contribution of each sensory modality to the description of a particular product experience. The dominant sensory modality is the modality that has the largest effect on the specific description. In this research we wonder what the role of the senses is in the description of product experiences through different types of adjectives. 1.1. Factors affecting sensory dominance A general and popular belief seems to be that vision is the dominant sensory modality in everyday experience. When people are asked which sensory modality they would miss most if they lost it, the majority is likely to indicate vision (Fiore and Kimle, 1997; Schifferstein, 2006). In addition, when people are asked to describe objects, they primarily use adjectives that refer to the visual (60%) or tactual (32%) modalities (Stadtlander and Murdoch, 2000).

Food Quality and Preference, 2013

During the various stages of user-product interactions, different sensory modalities may be impor... more During the various stages of user-product interactions, different sensory modalities may be important and different emotional responses may be elicited. We investigated how a dehydrated food product was experienced at different stages of product usage: choosing a product on a supermarket shelf, opening a package, cooking and eating the food. At the buying stage, vision was the most important modality, followed by taste. Smell was dominant at the cooking stage, and taste was the most important sensation while eating the food. Analysis of the emotional dynamics showed that ratings for satisfaction and pleasant surprise tended to be lowest during the buying stages. Fascination and boredom ratings tended to decrease gradually over the course of the experiment. Comments mostly reflected responses to sensory qualities, usability aspects, and the nature of the product. At the purchase stage, pre-existing attitudes and stereotypes towards the product group seemed to play a major role in affective reactions, while in the other stages when other modalities were actively involved, participants' emotional judgements reflected mainly their direct sensory experience.