Touch-flavor transference: Assessing the effect of packaging weight on gustatory evaluations, desire for food and beverages, and willingness to pay.

Kristina Kampfer,Alexander Leischnig,Björn Sven Ivens,Charles Spence,Amanda Bruce

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0186121

Abstract

Product packaging serves a number of distinct functions and influences the way in which consumers respond to various product offerings. The research reported here examines whether the haptic characteristics of a non-diagnostic product packaging cue, namely its weight, affects the response of consumers. This article reviews existing research on haptic transference and proposes a conceptual framework to explore how the weight of product packaging affects the flavor of the food or beverages, and, in turn, consumers’ desire for consumption and willingness to pay. Two studies demonstrate that an increase in packaging weight affects both desire and willingness to pay for the product. These effects are serially mediated by perceived flavor intensity and overall flavor evaluation. Based on these insights, implications for the design of food and beverages packaging are discussed.

Highlights

In recent years, sensory marketing, defined as “marketing that engages the consumers’ senses and affects their perception, judgment and behavior” ([1], p. 332), has emerged as an important field of research [2]
The results revealed a significant serial indirect effects of packaging weight on desire through flavor intensity and flavor evaluation with 95% confidence intervals (CI) excluding zero (f1 = 0.13, SE = 0.07, 95% CI {0.033 to 0.306})
The results revealed a significant positive effect with participants rating the flavor of the soft drink consumed from the heavy can as significantly more intense (M = 4.64, SD = 1.60) than those who consumed the drink from the light can (M = 3.90, SD = 1.36) (t(72) = 2.14, p < 0.05, d = 0.50)

Summary

Introduction

Sensory marketing, defined as “marketing that engages the consumers’ senses and affects their perception, judgment and behavior” ([1], p. 332), has emerged as an important field of research [2]. This study formulates hypotheses describing how packaging weight affects consumers’ perception of flavor intensity, flavor evaluation, and subsequently their desire for food and beverages and their willingness to pay. Previous research demonstrates that the weight of a container can influence the evaluation of the food it contains [20] Overall, these results suggest that the haptic properties of a product’s packaging can give rise to a significant sensation transference effect on the experience and evaluation of the product itself, which gives rise to the assumption that touching the packaging of a food or beverage item may affect the perceived taste and flavor of its contents and change consumers’ product experience and response. Haptic product packaging cues may influence gustatory perception, evaluations, and, in turn, the desire for the food and beverages as well as willingness to pay

Key findings

Results

Discussion