Consumer Product Choice Research Articles

Sensory description labels for food affect consumer product choice

PurposeThis observational study set out to investigate the effect of sensory description labels on consumer choice of apples in a grocery retail store.Design/methodology/approachAn independent observation study was conducted in a retail grocery store setting. A total of 1,623 consumers were observed over a four‐day period in four different sessions, each using three apple varieties (JONAGOLD, INGRID MARIE, and ELISE). Marketing strategies differed between the sessions as follows: sort name labelling only, sort name and sensory description labelling, sort name and sensory semantic description labelling, and sort name labelling and allowing consumers to taste the apples before choosing.FindingsConsumer product choice was affected by the sensory description labels. When only the sort name was given on the label, the consumers tended to choose INGRID MARIE, which has a strong sort name. With the addition of sensory description labels, the consumer choice shifted to ELISE, which had been chosen with a low frequency when only sort name was given, but was chosen with a high frequency when sensory description labelling was used.Research limitations/implicationsThe study was limited to red apples and one national market.Practical implicationsPractitioners, managers, and marketers may benefit from using proper sensory labelling as a marketing tool for various food products, such as apples, in a grocery retail store.Originality/valueThis study shows the importance and value of sensory description label marketing for food products in grocery retail stores. Little attention has previously been paid to the research area within sensory marketing communication concerning the interplay of sensory perception of food and the formulation of marketing labels, or taste marketing. This paper also addresses the possible interaction between the disciplines of sensory and marketing science.

Measurement of standby power for selected electrical appliances in Australia

High growth in the uptake of electrical appliances is accounting for a significant increase in electricity consumption globally. In some developed countries, standby energy alone may account for about 10% of residential electricity use. The standby power for many appliances used in Australia is still well above the national goal of 1 W or less. In this paper, field measurements taken of standby power and operating power for a range of electrical appliances are presented. It was found that the difference between minimum value and maximum value of standby power could be quite large, up to 22.13 W for home theatre systems, for example. With the exception of home audio systems, however, the annual operating energy used by most electrical appliances was generally greater than the annual standby energy. Consumer behaviour and product choice can have a significant impact on standby power and operating power, which influences both energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions.

Preference for green packaging in consumer product choices – Do consumers care?

AbstractIn this paper, consumer environmental choice is studied by analysing the relative importance of green packaging when compared with other relevant product attributes. The empirical study is based on a choice‐based conjoint analysis of preferences for functional drink products of a sample of 330 consumers using these products. Our choice‐based approach on environmental behaviour brings new insights to previous research, which predominantly relies on attitude models. Results indicate that consumers differ in their preferences for packaging, brand, price and convenience of use of daily products. In addition, various distinctive consumer segments can be identified on the market. Contrary to several previous studies, we found that the largest consumer segment, one‐third of consumers, favoured environmentally labelled packaging as the most important criteria in their choice. The findings emphasize the increasing importance of ethical and environmental dimension in product choices. We also propose that the attention in environmental consumer research should be shifted from general attitude studies towards the study of actual product choices.

Emergence of product differentiation from consumer heterogeneity and asymmetric information

We introduce a fully probabilistic framework of consumer product choice based on quality assessment. It allows us to capture many aspects of marketing such as partial information asymmetry, quality differentiation, and product placement in a supermarket.

The Different Roles of Product Appearance in Consumer Choice*

Product design has been recognized as an opportunity for differential advantage in the market place. The appearance of a product influences consumer product choice in several ways. To help product development managers in optimizing the appearance of products, the present study identified the different ways in which the appearance of a product plays a role in consumer product evaluation and, hence, choice. In addition, the implications for product design of each role are listed, and managerial recommendations for optimizing the appearance of products are given.Based on a literature review, six different roles of product appearance for consumers are identified: (1) communication of aesthetic, (2) symbolic, (3) functional, and (4) ergonomic information; (5) attention drawing; and (6) categorization. A product's appearance can have aesthetic and symbolic value for consumers, can communicate functional characteristics and give a quality impression (functional value), and can communicate ease of use (ergonomic value). In addition, it can draw attention and can influence the ease of categorization of the product. In a large qualitative study (N=142) it was tested whether these roles indeed exist in consumers' process of product choice and whether they are sufficient to describe the way in which product appearance plays a role for consumers. In addition, qualitative insight into these roles was gained. After making a choice between two answering machines, subjects were interviewed about the reasons for their choice and the product information they used to form the judgments underlying their choice reasons.The six appearance roles indeed proved relevant for consumers and were sufficient to describe the influence of product appearance on product choice. The number of ways in which appearance played a role for consumers differed between 0 and 5; most subjects mentioned two different ways in which appearance influenced their product choice. The aesthetic and symbolic roles were mentioned most often.The preferred shape (e.g., rounded or angular), color, or size were found to differ depending on the way in which product appearance played a role for subjects. For example, bright colors may be valued from an aesthetic point of view but may diminish the impression of quality (i.e., functional value). This makes it difficult to optimize all roles and illustrates that the product value that is most important for consumers when purchasing a specific kind of product should be the starting point in the design of the product appearance. Furthermore, the influence of shape, color, or size on a certain kind of product value—aesthetic, symbolic, ergonomic, or functional—differed between subjects. One person may like a rounded shape, while another may prefer a rectangular shape. This means that the value of guidelines indicating how the perception of a specific kind of product value can be engendered by means of shape, color, and size is limited. This is especially the case for aesthetic and symbolic product value, which are very personal. Therefore it is recommended to test the performance of the appearance of a newly developed product on these six roles with the target group of consumers.Insight into the different ways in which appearance characteristics, such as form and color, may influence consumer choice will increase managers' awareness about how to use product appearance as a marketing tool. In addition, distinguishing these six appearance roles will help product development managers to optimize the product appearance better to market needs, as the roles have different and sometimes even conflicting implications for the design of the product appearance.

When Web Pages Influence Choice: Effects of Visual Primes on Experts and Novices

This article extends the idea that priming can influence preferences by making selected attributes focal. Our on-line experiments manipulate the background pictures and colors of a Web page, affecting consumer product choice. We demonstrate that these effects occur for both experts and novices, albeit by different mechanisms. For novices, priming drives differences in external search that, in turn, drive differences in choice. For experts, we observe differences in choice that are not mediated by changes in external search. These findings confirmed that on-line atmospherics in electronic environments could have a significant influence on consumer choice.

The Effects of Temporal Consistency of Sales Promotions and Availability on Consumer Choice Behavior

The importance of consistency of the marketing mix is widely regarded as a key marketing principle. Consistency is commonly understood to apply among marketing mix elements, but it also involves a temporal dimension: Marketing messages and, more generally, marketing mix strategies should achieve some degree of consistency over time. In this article, the authors focus on a particular aspect of marketing mix consistency over time in the context of frequently purchased packaged consumer goods: They investigate the impact of temporal consistency on store promotions, as well as the availability of the product on the shelf, on consumer product evaluations (utilities) and choices. In this specific context, temporal (in)consistency captures the degree of variability of prices, displays, and features, as well as availability over time, for a stockkeeping unit. The authors find that sales promotion mix consistency over time affects both consumer utility mean and scale and thus consumers’ choices and brand shares. Lack of sales promotion mix consistency is generally deleterious to consumer brand evaluations through (1) decreases to average valuations and (2) decreases in scale, both of which can lead to decreases in market share.

The Impact of Mandatory Disclosure Laws on Product Choices: An Analysis of the Salad Dressing Market

The Nutrition Labeling and Education Act (NLEA) requires most food products to include a nutrition label. Prior to the NLEA, labeling was voluntary. This study uses nutrition label information and supermarket scanner data pre‐ and post‐NLEA to examine the impact of moving from a voluntary to a mandatory labeling regime on consumer product choice. The voluntary unraveling of information is shown to be an important market mechanism. Prior to the NLEA, all low‐fat salad dressings had a nutrition label, while the majority of the higher fat dressings did not. However, there remained large variation in fat content among dressings that did not voluntarily label. Those with the highest fat levels experienced a significant decline in sales after they were required to disclose. The results indicate that even in markets with credible, low‐cost mechanisms to disclose, mandatory labeling can have an impact on consumer behavior and health.

Branded pork consumption in Taiwan: Analysis of market and product choice

This article studies branded pork consumption behavior in Taiwan. Because branded pork is only available in some markets, the consumer decision process involves two stages: the first relates to a consumer's choice of market, and the second is the consumer's product choice (frozen branded pork vs. fresh pork). The results of a two-stage consumer choice model are presented along with discussion of consumer preferences and purchase habits. The implications for developing branded, certified food products in rapidly developing Asian markets are discussed. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.