High Need For Touch Research Articles

Can augmented reality satisfy consumers' need for touch?

AbstractConsumers with a high autotelic need for touch tend to experience deprivation because they cannot touch products while shopping online. Augmented reality (AR) in retail allows consumers to explore products virtually as if they were present in the physical environment, except the fact that they are not touchable. This study investigates whether AR can compensate for this lack of touch or whether, on the contrary, these consumers are skeptical because they crave even more real haptic input. The results of four studies consistently show that consumers' autotelic need for touch is associated with benefits that positively impact various managerially relevant outcomes such as store and product attitudes or purchase intentions. However, the results also point to differences between expected and experienced hedonic and utilitarian benefits along the customer journey. Hedonic benefits prevail when consumers with a high need for touch actually experience AR, while they instead expect utilitarian benefits. The findings contribute to the AR marketing and online retailing literature by demonstrating that AR features can mimic touchable features of products. They also highlight the practical benefits of AR as a powerful tool in digital marketing.

Look but Don’t Touch! The Impact of Active Interpersonal Haptic Blocking on Compensatory Touch and Purchase Behavior

This research investigates situations in which frontline employees deliberately restrict customers’ access to touch products on display (active interpersonal haptic blocking), and how this understudied form of sensory blocking may increase customers’ downstream purchasing. While previous research examines the benefits of increased product touch, we temporarily block touch for specific products in display areas and then investigate the subsequent impact on customer behavior. Through four studies, including a retail field experiment, we find that when an employee asks a customer not to touch a product on display, this initiates a serial mediation process which: (1) engenders feelings of psychological reactance that result in (2) increased compensatory touching of subsequently encountered products to counterbalance a loss of sensory freedom, and (3) increased spending and purchasing once the customer leaves the reactance-inducing encounter. Effects are moderated by socioeconomic status (SES) and need for touch (NFT) whereby psychological reactance was significantly stronger for high SES customers with a moderate or high NFT when actively blocked. Results also demonstrate that active interpersonal haptic blocking does not result in more negative attitudes toward retailers, thus retailers might consider implementing this counterintuitive practice to encourage downstream sales.

Sensory stimulation for sensible consumption: Multisensory marketing for e-tailing of ethical brands

Amidst strong competition and lack of resources and functional superiority, ethical brands may seek an experiential approach to marketing online. A between-subjects online experiment (N = 308) shows that ethically-congruent visual and auditory cues, and a tactile priming statement, positively influence consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) for an ethical brand online. Altruistic and Biospheric value-orientation (ALTBIO) and Need for Touch (NfT) were considered as moderators to account for specific segments. For consumers with high ALTBIO, the effects of visual and auditory cues are mediated by Consumer Perceived Brand Ethicality (CPBE). Tactile priming has a significant effect only for consumers with high NfT. However, the interaction between the three cues has a positive effect on WTP irrespective of CPBE, ALTBIO, and NfT. Findings illustrate multisensory marketing's efficacy in fostering sensible consumption (considerate of natural and societal environments and their inhabitants) online for the mass-market and specific segments by creating an experiential customer judgement-context.

Tell me what they are like and I will tell you where they buy. An analysis of omnichannel consumer behavior

In the past, consumers used to go to brick-and-mortar stores to gather information and often concluded their shopping there, with the physical store probably being one of their few sources of product information. Nowadays, with the arrival of digital devices, the number of sources of information has grown. Consumers tend to combine these with brick-and-mortar establishments both to search and buy, leading to the emergence of omnichannel behavior. In this context, there is a lack of research which considers online and mobile devices separately. The aim of the present study is to analyze how two individual traits –impulsiveness and need for touch– influence the use of each device in the omnichannel decision-making process. Results from a sample of 284 real digital (online and/or mobile) shoppers of clothes confirm that personal traits influence omnichannel consumer behavior. Results show that impulsive shoppers make greater use of mobile devices whereas individuals with high need for touch are more predisposed to use online devices in their omnichannel process. Besides, the effect of individual demographics is taken into account. Finally, we discuss the paper's contributions and outline the actions which managers can engage in so as to succeed in omnichannel retail.

Effects of need for touch, centrality of visual product aesthetics and gender on channel preference for apparel shopping

The purpose of this study was to examine how apparel consumers' preference for physical or virtual shopping channels is related to gender and consumers' dispositional traits of need for touch (NFT) and centrality of visual product aesthetics (CVPA). A survey was conducted using a convenience sample of 276 US college students. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, MANOVA and ANOVA. Results of this study indicate that participants with high NFT or CVPA had a greater preference for virtual channels than participants with low NFT or CVPA. Gender by itself was not an important influence in preference for shopping channels; however, the results of this study revealed that gender interacted with NFT and CVPA on preference for virtual channels. Men with high NFT or CVPA showed the highest preference for virtual channels, while women with high NFT or CVPA did not differ from other groups in their preference for virtual channels. There were no main effects and no interactions among variables on preference for physical channels. This study is the first to investigate the interactions of gender with NFT and CVPA in preference for apparel shopping channels.

Consumer response to product construction: the role of haptic stimulation

AbstractThis study investigates how consumers are affected by haptic information, that is, the information acquired through the sense of touch, when they take part in the construction or assembly of a product. In order to create value for consumers, marketers must understand how and why haptic information affects the evaluative processes of consumers and whether there are specific segments that are affected differentially by the process. An experimental design with two between‐subjects factors was used to examine consumers' responses to haptic stimulation during the physical construction of a picture frame. The results demonstrate that positive haptic stimulation evoked by the materials used in the product's construction results in an affective response and creates emotional attachment to the finished product. However, the effect is not generalizable to the general population. It depends on the level of autotelic (not functional) need for touch (NFT) that the consumer has. Consumers who have high autotelic NFT are more likely to become attached to and, consequently, enhance their evaluation of the finished product when the product materials used during the construction evoke a positive haptic stimulation.

The effects of sequential combinations of virtual experience, direct experience, and indirect experience: the moderating roles of need for touch and product involvement

This study explored the effects of sequential combinations of consumer experiences. Four kinds of sequential combinations of consumer experiences were designed: exposing to escapist virtual experience preceding direct experience (VEescapist ? DE), exposing to education virtual experience preceding direct experience (VEeducation ? DE), exposing to escapist virtual experience preceding indirect experience (VEescapist ? IDE), and exposing to education virtual experience preceding indirect experience (VEeducation ? IDE). The results indicated that "VEescapist ? IDE" produces the highest product knowledge and brand attitude; "VEescapist ? DE" produces the lowest perceived risk. Additionally, the moderating roles of need for touch and product involvement also explored. For the high need for touch, "VEescapist ? IDE" produces the highest product knowledge and "VEescapist ? DE" produces the lowest perceived risk; for the high product involvement, "VEescapist ? IDE" produces the highest product knowledge and brand attitude and "VEescapist ? DE" produces the lowest perceived risk.

The Mere Exposure Effect in the Domain of Haptics

BackgroundZajonc showed that the attitude towards stimuli that one had been previously exposed to is more positive than towards novel stimuli. This mere exposure effect (MEE) has been tested extensively using various visual stimuli. Research on the MEE is sparse, however, for other sensory modalities.Methodology/Principal FindingsWe used objects of two material categories (stone and wood) and two complexity levels (simple and complex) to test the influence of exposure frequency (F0 = novel stimuli, F2 = stimuli exposed twice, F10 = stimuli exposed ten times) under two sensory modalities (haptics only and haptics & vision). Effects of exposure frequency were found for high complex stimuli with significantly increasing liking from F0 to F2 and F10, but only for the stone category. Analysis of “Need for Touch” data showed the MEE in participants with high need for touch, which suggests different sensitivity or saturation levels of MEE.Conclusions/SignificanceThis different sensitivity or saturation levels might also reflect the effects of expertise on the haptic evaluation of objects. It seems that haptic and cross-modal MEEs are influenced by factors similar to those in the visual domain indicating a common cognitive basis.

The impact of 3d virtual haptics in marketing

AbstractTactile input plays a key role in consumers' evaluation of products' substance properties. Utilization of haptic interfaces and force feedback devices that enable consumers to feel and manipulate three‐dimensional (3D) virtual products is a promising but under‐explored area in marketing and consumer behavior research. This study investigated 3D virtual touch created by Novint Falcon haptic interfaces and its impacts on consumer behavior in the interactive marketing of automobiles. It was hypothesized that consumers' instrumental Need for Touch (NFT) plays a significant moderating role in haptic interfaces. Results from a 2 (nature of tactile stimuli: haptic input with force feedback versus no force feedback) × 2 (haptic orientation: high NFT versus low NFT) full factorial between‐subjects experiment indicated that consumers high in instrumental NFT evaluate products more positively, enjoy the test‐driving experience more, and show stronger brand–self connection when there are force feedback haptic stimuli as opposed to when there is no force feedback. Theoretical and managerial implications of the study are discussed. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.