Consumer Preferences For Products Research Articles

Self‐improvement or hedonic enjoyment? Effect of romantic experiences on consumer product preferences

AbstractRomantic experiences are positive emotional experiences that significantly affect people's lives and consumption behaviors. Extant research merely conceptualizes romantic experiences as intimate relationships between lovers and investigates their impact on the consumption of specific products (e.g., sweets, movies, and tourist destinations). In this study, we extend the concept of romantic experience beyond romantic love and demonstrate how romantic experience influences consumers' preferences for self‐improvement products based on the broaden‐and‐build theory through four experiments. Specifically, we show that romantic experiences (vs. neutral experiences) increase consumers' preference for self‐improvement products, even in areas unrelated to the initial romantic stimuli (Study 1). This greater inclination toward self‐improvement products is mediated by a heightened sense of meaning in life (Studies 2 and 3). Moreover, the focal effect is moderated by self‐construal (Study 4). These findings complement those of previous studies on how romantic experiences influence consumption choices.

Are consumers still barking up the wrong (palm) tree? Insights into perceptions towards palm oil-related labels and claims

Labels and claims representing inherent health- or environment-related attributes contribute to shaping consumer product preferences and perceptions. Palm oil-related labels and claims foster assumptions about individual, social and planetary health. Although consumers in palm oil-importing countries view this commodity with scepticism, a consumer-endorsed trend towards its elimination may cause unintended shifts in environmental impacts. Instead of eliminating palm oil from industries, scientists often acknowledge the benefits of sustainably produced palm oil as a better alternative. A research gap exists to better explain consumer acceptance or rejection of products containing palm oil. To understand how palm oil-related labels and claims influence the perceived sustainability and healthiness of products, an online study was conducted with German consumers (n = 411). Predictors influencing sustainability perceptions were integrated into a Structural Equation Model to explore how these leverage positive or negative perspectives towards the absence of palm oil or the presence of certified sustainable palm oil. This study reveals that products containing no palm oil are perceived to be healthier and more sustainable. We find that sentiments towards palm oil do not necessarily follow traditional trajectories, but are underpinned by disjoint relationships and previously established judgments. Label heuristics are more influential in shaping these perceptions, making them prone to misinterpretation. A proliferation of ‘free from’ claims haloed with sustainability assumptions compromises the progress achieved within the certified sector. This calls for more sensitivity towards products containing certified palm oil, so that assumptions align with reality and consumer perceptions are not barking up the wrong tree.

Organic dairy farming in Bangladesh: current status, challenges and prospects

Organic dairy farming (ODF) is a method of dairy production that emphasizes the use of natural and sustainable practices, aiming to minimize synthetic inputs, promote animal welfare, and protect the environment. The aim of this review is to elucidate the current status, challenges and prospects of the ODF in Bangladesh. Starting from the current situation, the challenges and future potential of the ODF are presented, as well as strategies to overcome the difficulties are also highlighted. The ODF has the great potential, challenges and opportunities in Bangladesh. This involves the production of milk, meat and dairy products using sustainable and organic practices. Farmers need certification, and challenges include limited awareness, access to organic inputs, and market demand. Government initiatives, training programs, and cooperative models can support the growth of the ODF. Market opportunities and ongoing research are essential considerations. Animals raised in the ODF systems are provided access to pasture or outdoor areas and are fed organic feed, which is free from synthetic additives, antibiotics and hormones. The transition to the ODF is driven by a combination of economic, environmental, and health-related motivations, aiming to produce dairy products in a more sustainable, economically viable and environmentally friendly manner. Organic dairy farmers prioritize the well-being of their animals and advocate for a natural environment, which is integral to animal welfare. The popularity of organic products, including meat, dairy, and value-added items, from these producers continues to rise, driven by the expanding organic market, higher prices for organic milk, and consumer preferences for products from more sustainable production systems. Despite a mammoth of challenges exist in the ODF, farmers need to implement and adhere to strict standards for organic products, animal welfare and the use of organic inputs to gain the full benefits of this sustainable farming system. This review article examines the present status of the ODF industry, emphasizing key considerations, management practices, challenges, and future prospects. It also provides insights into the relevant regulatory authorities, aiming to inform farmers and stakeholders in Bangladesh and beyond about ODF. However, there is a need for future research to concentrate on improving sustainability and efficiency within the ODF sector. Asian Australas. J. Food Saf. Secur. 2024, 8(1), 13-26

A New Benchmark for Consumer Visual Tracking and Apparent Demographic Estimation from RGB and Thermal Images

Visual tracking and attribute estimation related to age or gender information of multiple person entities in a scene are mature research topics with the advent of deep learning techniques. However, when it comes to indoor images such as video sequences of retail consumers, data are not always adequate or accurate enough to essentially train effective models for consumer detection and tracking under various adverse factors. This in turn affects the quality of recognizing age or gender for those detected instances. In this work, we introduce two novel datasets: Consumers comprises 145 video sequences compliant to personal information regulations as far as facial images are concerned and BID is a set of cropped body images from each sequence that can be used for numerous computer vision tasks. We also propose an end-to-end framework which comprises CNNs as object detectors, LSTMs for motion forecasting of the tracklet association component in a sequence, along with a multi-attribute classification model for apparent demographic estimation of the detected outputs, aiming to capture useful metadata of consumer product preferences. Obtained results on tracking and age/gender prediction are promising with respect to reference systems while they indicate the proposed model’s potential for practical consumer metadata extraction.

Implementation of clustering technique for analyzing consumer buying behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic: a case in the beauty industry

The global demand for beauty products continues to grow due to raised public awareness of applying cosmetics, with a 1.45 % to 3.34 % growth annually. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 outbreak broke out globally in December 2019, affecting face-to-face businesses such as the beauty industry falling until –7.11 % in 2020. This study aims to analyze the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on Indonesia’s beauty industry and the shift in the beauty consumer segment during the pandemic. This study adopts the react-cope-adapt (RCA) framework to construct the COVID-19 pandemic periodization in Indonesia. The correlation analysis was used to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the beauty industry. In addition, clustering techniques were employed to identify hidden consumer segments and product preferences throughout the COVID-19 outbreak. The study shows that COVID-19 cases positively impact beauty company’s sales during the reacting phase. A strong negative relationship between COVID-19 and company revenue was observed in the coping phase. In the adapt phase, the negative impact of COVID-19 on the company’s sales has decreased. Our finding also confirms the shift in consumer buying behavior during the pandemic. Consumers prefer to buy cosmetics products online than offline during the reaction phase. In the coping phase, consumers slowly begin to purchase in-store. Finally, consumers return to buying cosmetics offline in the adapting phase, similar to before the pandemic. The clustering results showed three hidden consumer segments: the loyal consumer segment, the impulsive consumer segment, and the compulsive consumer segment. In addition, during the pandemic, consumers prefer to buy skincare products over make-up products since government policies forced people to stay, work, and study at home. Our study has theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically, our results support the usefulness of the RCA model and clustering techniques in analyzing the change in consumer buying behavior during a time of crisis, such COVID-19 pandemic. Practically, beauty industries can anticipate this shift by accelerating the digital business transformation and focusing on the most preferred product to sustain their business

What drives or inhibits consumers' preference to consume quietly?

PurposeSecret consumption refers to consumption of a product in a private situation, with the intent or behavior of hiding the consumption from others. This study contributes to the secret consumption literature by identifying the antecedents of secret consumption along with the explaining mechanism and boundary condition.Design/methodology/approachAn online study with experiment design was conducted to examine the impact of extroversion/introversion, self-presentation and product scarcity on secrete consumption.FindingsThe results show that consumer extraverted disposition and the self-presentation motive negatively influence secret consumption intention and suggest this relationship is explained by the self-presentation need. The findings also revealed that perceived product scarcity attenuated the negative impact of extraversion and self-presentation on secret consumption intention.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings provide interesting insights into advertising and retailing. In recognizing that secret consumption is a prevalent phenomenon in consumer behavior that may improve actual consumer product evaluation and preference, retailers or brand managers may encourage consumers to consume secretly.Originality/valueThis empirical study is a first attempt to explore the antecedents, mediating mechanism and boundary condition of consumer intention to engage in secrete consumption. The findings of the study provide important implication to theoretical development and managerial applications in advertising and retailing.

A Feasibility Discussion: Is ML Suitable for Predicting Sustainable Patterns in Consumer Product Preferences?

In the era when product design must meet the needs of consumers, the products preferred by consumers are an important source of design creativity and design reference for product designers to design products. Therefore, how to effectively grasp the products that consumers prefer has become an important issue for product designers. In order to allow designers to have more convenient and accurate consumer preference product prediction tools, this study proposed machine learning (ML) to analyze and predict sustainable patterns in consumer product preferences and conducted a feasibility study on the use of ML for predicting sustainable patterns in consumer product preferences. A total of three experiments were carried out in this study: the KJ method to predict consumer product preference experiment, the AHP method to predict consumer product preference experiment, and ML to predict consumer product preference experiment. This study uses the three experiments to discuss and compare the prediction ability of ML and the current commonly used forecasting tools, namely the KJ method and AHP method. The research results show that no matter what kind of consumer product attribute preference is predicted, the accuracy rate of consumer product preference prediction by ML is much higher than that of the KJ method and AHP method. These research results show that no matter the product attribute dimension, ML has the ability to predict consumer preferences, and ML has a better ability to predict consumer preferences than traditional tools. Therefore, this study believes that ML can be used to analyze and predict sustainable patterns in consumer product preferences. Therefore, this study suggests that product designers can use ML technology to assist in the analysis and prediction of consumer product preferences, so as to improve the grasp of consumer preference products.

Sensory perception and consumer acceptance of commercial and salt-reduced potato crisps formulated using salt reduction design rules

Successful salt (NaCl) reduction strategies are required to reduce the salt content of snacks while maintaining saltiness perception and consumer acceptance. Previous research suggests that particle physicochemical design rules (small particle size, low density, low hydrophobicity, optimised particle shape) can be leveraged to produce salt particles that enhance saltiness perception. This study aimed to validate these design rules by applying optimised model salts to unsalted potato crisps at a 30% reduced salt content to produce prototype products. A selection of commercial products were also chosen to represent the salt content and crisp style of the broader market, with the aim to investigate the potential of other salt reduction strategies including; direct salt removal without compensation for loss of salt content and increasing time in mouth, while exploring the impact of consumer mouth behaviour type on consumer product preference. Nine products varying in salt content (6 standard, 1 crinkle-cut, 1 thick-cut batch-fried, 1 baked reconstituted potato) were subject to descriptive sensory analysis with a trained panel (n = 11). A subset (seven products) were assessed for consumer acceptance (n = 93). A salt reduction of 30% was achieved while maintaining saltiness perception and consumer acceptance using model salts, while direct removal of salt without perceptual impact was only achievable by 15%. To investigate key drivers of liking, consumers were segmented based on product liking and mouth behaviour. Results suggested that whilst salt content was the primary driver, specific texture profiles were polarising. However, mouth behaviour had minimal influence on preference. These results validate previously described physicochemical design rules for developing novel salt particles for salt reduction and inform ingredient design for the food and flavour industries.

Effect of front-of-package labels on consumer product evaluation and preferences

Front-of-Package (FOP) labels highlight important nutrients and help consumers make informed decisions about food purchases. In this study, we investigated consumer comprehension, opinion, and preference associated with two different formats of FOP labels and compared consumer shopping behavior and general trends related to nutrition labeling. Consumer eye-tracking was used for measuring perceived understanding of nutritional information objectively. Results revealed that a color-coded FOP label would garner more attention than a black and white FOP label. Subjects found color-coded FOP labels more straightforward than black and white labels. Participants used the information provided on the FOP for shopping goals. Still, FOPs did not affect objective consumer attention to labels, and labeling schemes did not significantly affect participants' decisions. Participating subjects did use FOP labels instead of the nutrition facts panels. Still, FOP groups scored lower on a nutrition literacy quiz, indicating that their perceived and actual understanding of nutritional information differed. Our findings suggest that subjects pay attention to FOP labels but do not make decisions.

The impact of information asymmetry on animal welfare-friendly consumption: Evidence from milk market in Japan

As the consumption of dairy products continues to increase, consumers are increasingly paying attention to farm animal welfare (FAW) and its relationship with intensive production methods. Specifically, consumers of dairy products are becoming increasingly concerned about making socially responsible purchases. This study considers the nuances of this trend in Japan, which is an interesting market for analysis, as it lags other developed countries in terms of FAW but typically leads consumption of livestock products among Asian countries. We examine consumer demand for milk produced by an ecological, or extensive, production method that carefully considers FAW using a nationwide web questionnaire. First, we clarify how consumer knowledge and experience of dairy farming affects their purchasing behavior using a generalized linear mixed model. Next, we use a randomized controlled trial and choice experiment to analyze how eliminating information asymmetry impacts consumer product preferences. The results show that consumer knowledge and experience greatly influence consumption behavior. In addition, we find that there is potential consumer demand for FAW labeling. Importantly, the potential demand for labeling can be stimulated by providing truthful information about dairy production sites. We clarify the causes of information asymmetry in Japan and discuss the policy implications of our results.

When self-threat leads to the selection of emotion-enhancing options: the role of perceived transience of emotion

Purpose This study aims to examine whether consumers’ lay theories of emotion play a moderating role between self-threat and their choice of threat-coping strategies (direct resolution and escapism) and product preference. Design/methodology/approach The present research uses the methods of experimental design and surveys to collect data and verify the hypotheses we assumed. Findings Study 1 indicates that in self-threatening situations, people who perceive emotions as fleeting (lasting) are more likely to use a threat-coping strategy of direct resolution (escapism). Study 2 demonstrates that people who believe emotions are fleeting are more likely to choose problem-solving products; people who believe emotions are lasting are more likely to choose emotion-enhancing products. Study 3 further demonstrates that the direct resolution (escapism) strategy plays a mediating role between the interaction effect and consumer preference for problem-solving products (emotion-enhancing products). Study 4 replicates the results of Study 2 by incorporating the manipulation of lay theories of emotion transience in a product evaluation context. Research limitations/implications A limitation of the present research is that this paper puts focus on exploring the effects of self-view threat (e.g. intelligence and competence) on consumer product preferences. Another issue for future research is the extent to which emotion-transience theories hold for specific emotions. Given that distinct emotions of the same valence differ in their antecedent appraisals and that specific emotion could lead to different subsequent behaviors (Lerner and Keltner, 2000), future research may need to explore the roles of specific negative emotions triggered by self-threat in consumers’ product choosing behaviors. One potential direction for future research is to examine whether the perceived locus of control affects consumers’ choice of threat-coping strategies and product preferences. Practical implications Marketers could use product tactics for motivating consumers to restore their self-perceptions on the threatened attributes and address the self-threat, such as product attributes, advertising copy or promotional appeals that insert people who are more motivated to directly resolve the threat. Marketers can nudge consumers toward a direct resolution strategy by posting prompts such as, “I can do it!” For example, the slogan of Nike – “Just do it” and the 2012 award-winning campaign by Nike Spain have told consumers: “If something is burning you up, burn it up by running” (Allard and White, 2015), which suggests that consumers experiencing self-threat may resolve the negative self-discrepancy through the acquisition of the products in the advertisement. Another important implication suggested by the findings is that product consumption can be a way of helping consumers escape from self-threats. For example, the slogan of Coca-Cola – “Taste the feeling” resonates with consumers and stimulates their basic hedonic needs. Originality/value First, this research extends previous research by demonstrating that lay theories of emotion serve as a motivator of the selection of threat-coping strategies. Second, this research is conducive for literature to examine how differences in lay theories of emotion affect consumers’ product-choosing behaviors to cope with self-discrepancies. Third, the present research extends the broad marketing literature by differentiating problem-solving products from emotion-enhancing products.

Applying natural language processing algorithm for predicting consumer product preferences in retail stores

Technology has changed the way retailers predict and understand consumer behaviour. One such technology that can enable retailers to understand consumer preference is Natural Language Processing (NLP). Social media content including the opinions and interests of the customers is recognized as a valuable source of information for businesses. This study aims to perform a semantic analysis of tweets with the use of an NLP algorithm. This study focuses on building an intelligent application capable of predicting the category of goods a customer would most likely buy in a retail store. This study focuses on analysing social media data with NLP to predict what a customer would buy in a retail store. In this study, we measured a 0.3 increase in accuracy when only various forms of nouns were extracted and analysed. Further research may include Named-Entity Recognition (NER), especially for proper nouns. The researchers believe that this study will contribute to changing the trajectory in which NLP is applied in the retail industry. Therefore, the methodology and design used herein will improve the existing approaches that have already been employed concerning NLP and social media data analysis.

Consumer product preference prediction towards online shopping

Nowadays E-commerce plays a major role in a business organization. People prefer online shopping rather than offline shopping which helps them to purchase their product from anywhere around the world through mobile phones and laptop. Online shopping websites help people by saving time and product order can be done easily by clicking the product. Online shopping websites are built using the Single Page Application (SPA) framework and the objective of this research is to find the customer preference product prediction by tracking the frequent clicks of the product by the customer. By tracking the clicks of customer we can find their product choice and helps retailer to add the products according to user preference.

Influence of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Food Attributes on Consumers' Acceptance of Reformulated Food Products: a Systematic Review.

IntroductionReducing the salt, sugar and fat content of food is recognised worldwide as one of the strategies available for reducing the incidence of obesity and non-communicable diseases. The food industry has a major influence on achieving these goals by preserving intrinsic (chemical and sensory properties) and modifying extrinsic (food packaging and other external information) food attributes that can influence purchasing decisions. This article is a literature review of studies that analyse the influence of intrinsic and/or extrinsic attributes on consumer product preference and purchasing decisions.MethodsA keyword search for relevant studies was conducted using Web of Science, an interdisciplinary electronic resource. Articles from other sources were also included and systematically reviewed.ResultsThe search string identified 266 results. Thirty-eight articles were included in the final analysis and coded according to intrinsic and extrinsic food attributes, reformulated nutrient, food category, condition, research methods, consumer response, study location and sample size. There are several authors investigating the effect of intrinsic rather than extrinsic product attributes. Most research deals with processed foods in the category of milk and dairy products, followed by sweetened fruit juices, meat products, sweets and bread. Salt content is the attribute most often reduced, followed by sugar and fat.ConclusionsConsumers find it hard to swap potential health benefits for hedonic attributes. When evaluating products in expected conditions, they usually rate the reformulated product more highly than the conventional one, while in informed conditions they usually choose the regular product. When products are labelled with a traffic light or nutritional warnings, consumers opt for a reformulated product, even in informed conditions. This review highlights the heterogeneity between food groups, and the fact that many factors influence consumers’ product preferences and purchasing decisions. The product should be analysed as a whole and tested in blind, expected and informed conditions, as each individual factor represents a phase of the consumer purchasing decision. The extent of nutrient reduction should be determined by calculating the difference threshold, and the industry should reformulate products gradually based on how consumers detect the reduction.

Consumers’ Preferences for Eco-labels on Plants: The Influence of Trust and Consequentiality Perceptions

The primary objective of this research was to investigate the role of trust and consequentiality perceptions on consumer preferences for products with eco-labels. Consumer preferences and willingness-to-pay (WTP) were estimated for fruit plants with and without eco-labels using choice experiments from an online survey. Respondents were randomly assigned to different consequentiality treatments which indicated the organization (policy makers or horticulture industry) that would receive the study results when considering policies related to eco-labels. Respondents’ trust in the organizations behind the eco-labels and their perceptions of the study's consequentiality were measured. In general, eco-labels and perceived consequentiality increased respondents’ utility for the products. Respondents’ utility for eco-labeled products was amplified when participants were informed that policy makers would receive the results. Trust in the organization improved utility, suggesting trust plays an important role in consumer preferences and valuation of credence attributes.

Leveraging consumer behaviors for product recommendation: an approach based on heterogeneous network

Consumer behaviors (e.g., clicking products, adding products to favorites, adding products to carts, and purchasing products) play important roles in inferring consumers’ interests for product recommendation. Although studies have been conducted to incorporate the consumer behaviors for product recommendation, the heterogeneity of the behaviors and their composites were seldom explored for product recommendation. There is a need to capture the heterogeneity of the consumer behaviors and reveal their importance in the product recommendation because the behaviors indicate different consumer preferences for products. To bridge the gap, this research proposes a heterogeneous network-based approach to leverage the consumer behaviors for product recommendation. The proposed approach represents consumers and products as different types of nodes and behaviors as different types of edges. Meta paths that describe behavioral relationships between the consumers and products are used to calculate their similarities, which are further used to generate recommendations. To select informative meta paths for product recommendation, a heuristic selection mechanism is proposed. Besides, the research uses a non-negative matrix factorization method to learn the weights of the selected meta paths and then makes personalized recommendations for consumers. Experimental results based on real-world data demonstrate that the proposed approach not only helps to understand the roles of different consumer behaviors in product recommendation, but also achieves better recommendation performance than several baseline methods.

Research on Multi-Period Closed-Loop Supply Chain Network Equilibrium Based on Consumers' Preference for Products

This paper comprehensively analyzes the impact of consumer preference for products in a multi-period closed-loop supply chain network (CLSCN) equilibrium. This paper is based on the multi-period CLSCN equilibrium model of remanufacturers' recoveries and multiple planning periods. The consumer preference for products at multiple planning periods are respectively divided into dynamic and static conditions. Moreover, the intervention of government is considered. Meanwhile, the variational inequalities are employed to separately depict the optimal behaviors and equilibrium conditions of the supply chain network. The results show that when the consumer preference for new products is static, the impact of consumer preference for new products has a significant impact on the multi-period CLSCN. If consumer preference for new products is dynamic, at the preliminary planning period, the impact of consumer preference for new products on the multi-period CLSCN will be better defined.

Assessing the Role of Food Related Lifestyle in Predicting Intention towards Edible Insects.

Simple SummaryThe unsustainability of food production is still a major contributor to climate change, therefore utilising new and sustainable food sources is a priority. Edible insects have been part of the human diet for thousands of years but not yet accepted in Western societies, despite a growing literature around the subject. In this paper, we used a holistic approach to understand and predict consumer behaviour in relation to food choices and to edible insects, in particular. Through a questionnaire we collected 300 answers from Italian and Danish consumers; after that, using a statistical model, we divided bystanders into 5 different groups in order to single out consumers who are willing to adopt insects as food. The outcomes of this study have shown that the novelty and benefits of insect consumption have generated much interest in edible insects amongst consumers belonging to the “rational” group, or people who are showing an interested and critical behaviour while shopping for food, who showed the highest intention to eat insects. Therefore, pointing to a group of early adopters, as could be the Rational consumers (20% of our sample), can lay the foundation for a broader commercial development of edible insects with a higher degree of acceptance among consumers.Although recent literature has shown that switching to an insect-based diet could provide several relevant advantages—from a nutritional, environmental, economic and ecological point of view—the potential growth of insects as everyday food is still unclear. Despite a growing literature on consumer acceptance and product preference for insect-based food, a segmentation of this future and possible market has never been proposed. Therefore, in the present paper, a market segmentation based on the Food Related Lifestyle Scale (FRLS), was performed in order to predict consumers’ willingness to eat (WTE) edible insects. Moreover, the role of perceived behavioural control is taken into account. Results shows that the novelty and benefits of insect consumption have generated much interest in edible insects amongst consumers belonging to the Rational cluster, who showed the highest intention to introduce insects in their diet, thus confirming the presence of a niche of “early adopters”. In addition, perceived behavioural control was the major driver of intention. Implications for attempts to encourage people to incorporate insect-based foods into their diet are discussed, with special reference to the role of marketing campaigns.

Consumer Preference of Products for the Prevention and Treatment of Stretch Marks: Systematic Product Search

Background Striae distensae, or stretch marks, are a common and distressing condition affecting females two-and-a-half times more frequently than males. Despite the numerous products available for stretch mark prevention and treatment, there have been few studies that consider consumer product preference. Objective The aim of this study was to determine which products were preferred by consumers for the prevention and treatment of stretch marks based on product vehicle and product ingredients. Methods In January 2020, a search was conducted on internet retailer Amazon for products related to stretch marks. The top products were identified as those with 100 reviews or greater and a rating of 4 or higher. The products were classified as either stretch mark–specific or non stretch mark–specific. Price, rating, type of vehicle, and specific ingredients of both product groups were compared. Vehicle-type and ingredients in both product groups were compared with two-tailed two-sample proportion tests to determine if certain vehicles or ingredients were more likely to be found in stretch mark–specific products. P<.05 indicated statistical significance. Results Out of over 10,000 products, 184 were selected as the top products according to the review and rating criteria of which 117 (63.6%) were stretch mark–specific and 67 (36.4%) were non stretch mark–specific. Oil was the most common vehicle (131/184, 71.2%) while vitamin E was the most common ingredient (58/184, 31.5%). Oil, as a vehicle, was more likely to be found in stretch mark–specific products than in non stretch mark–specific products (P=.001). Olive oil (P=.02) and cocoa butter (P=.08), Centella asiatica (P=.01), and shea butter (P=.003) were the ingredients more likely to be found in stretch mark–specific products than in non stretch mark–specific products. Conclusions This study demonstrated that there are many products available for the prevention and treatment of stretch marks and identified specific ingredients in the products preferred by customers. There are few studies investigating the effectiveness of the major ingredients in the stretch mark products that are preferred by consumers. Future studies can focus on the effectiveness of the ingredients found in the products that are preferred by consumers.

Looks Heavy to Me! The Effects of Product Shadows on Heaviness Perceptions and Product Preferences

A significant number of ads showcase products with their shadows cast in the background. Given that shadows are characteristically dark and that previous research documents a positive link between darkness and heaviness, the current work proposes and documents that consumers evaluate a product to be heavier when it is advertised with (versus without) its shadow. Particularly, when heaviness is a desired product attribute, consumers exhibit a greater preference for the product advertised with (versus without) its shadow due to enhanced product heaviness perceptions. However, when heaviness is an undesirable product attribute, presence (versus absence) of the product shadow in an ad lowers consumers’ product preference. Also, the authors show that when heaviness is a desirable product attribute, the positive effect of shadow on consumer product preference attenuates when explicit associations of product heaviness are provided using verbal cues. Findings from the current research provide actionable guidelines for managers to help them use product shadows effectively in advertising for an intended impact on consumer product preferences.