Ana M. Arboleda

Design awareness and purchase intention: an item response theory approach

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effect of design awareness on consumers’ purchase intention. Design/methodology/approach The experiment consisted of showing a new beer package design to 185 participants who evaluated it using a self‐administered questionnaire. Findings Using an Item Response Theory approach, results show that there are two dimensions of consumer design awareness: basic design and differential design. These findings are, to some extent, consistent with the theoretical discussion within design literature. Moreover, a multiple regression model estimates the effect of both dimensions on consumers’ purchase intention, and the paper concludes that both dimensions have a similar effect (p<0.05). The sign of the effects are consistent with the theoretical discussion. Practical implications The design of new products must consider attributes associated to the basic and practical use of a product as well as those attributes that mark a comparative difference in the product cate...

Students' Emotional Experience at the University: An Alternative Approach to Understanding Students as Consumers

ABSTRACT This study offers an alternative perspective to understand students as consumers. This proposition is evaluated by analyzing the relationship between students’ emotional experience at a university and their perception of loyalty to this institution. Students from a Latin-American business school responded to a survey that included the Consumption Emotion Set and a loyalty assessment (n = 1,393). Data was analyzed using Rasch models. The findings show that positive emotions motivate student loyalty, whereas negative emotions harm student loyalty. The students’ experiences should be conceptualized at the institution as a brand and addressed through services and (nonacademic) activities in students’ lives.

The French, German, and Spanish sound of eating fresh fruits and vegetables

A set of onomatopoeic expressions for eating fruits and vegetables is compared across subjects whose native language is Spanish, French, or German. Subjects chose the onomatopoeia that best represented the sound of eating a fruit or vegetable (celery, banana, strawberry, passion fruit, mango, apple, orange, and tomato). Results show there are onomatopoeias that have a higher frequency of response in one language compared to the others. Thus, it is possible to assume that depending on the language there is a better way to express haptic and auditory information associated to fruit and vegetable consumption. Moreover, and considering the three languages, results show there are three categories of responses based on the relative strength of the material (strong and medium strength, and soft). Thus, there is some consistency in the onomatopoeias that represent the sound of eating a fruit or a vegetable. To conclude, results differ by language, but they are consistent within a category of sound.

Subject or object: a product’s scent congruent perspectives

Purpose The purpose of this paper is evaluate to what extent consumers can recognise a scent within a context that is congruent either with the product or with the user, respectively, objects’ quality or subjects’ involvement. Design/methodology/approach This paper consists of two experimental studies. The first study assesses people’s capacity to recognise three scents: leather, synthetic leather, and fabric. The second study assesses the way in which a frame of reference (quality or involvement) affects people’s capacity for scent recognition (leather and fabric). Findings Results confirm the difficulty of scent recognition revealing, in the first study, a low level of consistency in subjects’ responses. The second study shows an interaction between the type of scent and consumers’ framework: subjects who are primed to think about product quality present more accurate scent recognition when they smell leather, whereas subjects who are primed to think about themselves present more accurate scent recognition when they smell fabric. Practical implications These results can be used in brand communication. A scent, such as that of leather, should highlight quality attributes in its communication. If the product is unscented, communication should highlight the subject who uses the product. Originality/value Previous studies show the importance of the consistency between scent and product marketing strategies. This study complements these findings by differentiating the context where a scent is presented considering either the product (the object’s quality attributes) or the individual who uses that product (subject’s involvement).

Consumer Confusion Choosing Me-Too Snack Packages: An Experimental Study

We hypothesize that (a) the presence of a leading brand next to a me-too brand and (b) the presence of the brand on the package prevents consumer confusion. This experimental design includes six categories of snacks (chocolate covered cake, waffle cookies, chocolate chip cookies, crackers, lollypops, and gummy candy); for each we estimate three logit models to determine the probability of (a) behavioral confusion, (b) cognitive confusion, and (c) overall confusion. Results support both hypotheses. Previous studies use cognitive rather than behavioral measures of confusion; we show that the three measures of confusion are complementary. Results yield important practical implications.