Anna Fenko

The role of nutrition labels and advertising claims in altering consumers' evaluation and choice

Despite policy efforts, consumers well-informed healthful choice is a challenge. Due to increasing number of benefit claims advertising taste or health front of pack (FOP), consumers face the dilemma to trade taste for health. To understand the mechanisms underlying food evaluation, this study investigates the health-pleasure trade-off and its effect on consumers choice. 240xa0EU consumers took part in a taste experiment, after being presented with the product FOP. Half of the products carried a nutrition label FOP, respectively, reduced fat for potato chips, reduced sugar for cereal bars. Further, one third of the products carried health benefit claim, one third taste benefit claim, and one third no additional claim FOP. Attention to information and its effect on experienced taste, health perception and the buying intention were measured. The results show that the message displayed FOP altered consumers evaluation and choice. The effectiveness of the FOP message further depended on consumers health motivation and the healthfulness perception of carrier products. The outcomes are summarized in a framework of health-pleasure trade-off. Current findings call for the establishment of standards to avoid the use of misleading information FOP.

Using the theory of planned behaviour to understand brand love

Purpose n n n n nBrand love is perceived as one of the main objectives in brand management. Nevertheless, research into the factors influencing brand love are scarce. This paper aims to apply the theory of planned behaviour to the context of brand love and investigate the influence of several factors on brand love, including attitude towards loving a brand, subjective norm and perceived control factors, namely, the propensity to anthropomorphise and the affordability of the brand. Further, the influence of brand love on brand forgiveness is proven. Additionally, this research investigates the influence of involvement with the product category on the proposed relationship. n n n n nDesign/methodology/approach n n n n nA survey (N = 274) was used to test the model in the context of fashion industry with the help of a convenience sample. Exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and (multi-group) structural equation modelling techniques assessed the proposed model. n n n n nFindings n n n n nResults show that the proposed model gives valuable insights to brand love, where involvement serves as a moderator. While the attitude towards loving a brand has a strong influence on brand love for both high and low involved consumers, affordability only plays a minor role for experiencing brand love. Subjective norm is found to facilitate brand love for high-involved consumers, while propensity to anthropomorphise leads to higher brand love for low involved consumers. n n n n nOriginality/value n n n n nThis paper demonstrates the applicability of the theory of planned behaviour to a consumer–brand relationship context. This adds to a deeper theoretical understanding of the managerially relevant construct of brand love. Further, the study demonstrates that brand lovers are more forgiving in times of disappointment. Introducing involvement into the research model provides valuable insights into the processes underlying brand love.

Toward a Sustainable Faucet Design Effects of Sound and Vision on Perception of Running Water

People form their judgments of everyday phenomena based on multisensory information. This study investigates the relative impact of visual and auditory information on the perception of running tap water. Two visual and two auditory stimuli were combined to create four different combinations of high and low volumetric flow rate of tap water (the volume of water which passes through a faucet per time unit). Participants in each condition were asked to judge how long it would take to fill up a one-liter water bottle. The results demonstrate that the judgments were significantly influenced by visual and auditory information. Our data suggest that auditory information can play a significant role in everyday experience of running tap water even though participants are normally unaware of the effect of audition. These findings open the door to the idea of using auditory feedback of products in the context of proenvironmental behavior.

How strong is your coffee? : The influence of visual metaphors and textual claims on consumers' flavor perception and product evaluation

This study investigates the relative impact of textual claims and visual metaphors displayed on the product’s package on consumers’ flavor experience and product evaluation. For consumers, strength is one of the most important sensory attributes of coffee. The 2 × 3 between-subjects experiment (N = 123) compared the effects of visual metaphor of strength (an image of a lion located either on top or on the bottom of the package of coffee beans) and the direct textual claim (“extra strong”) on consumers’ responses to coffee, including product expectation, flavor evaluation, strength perception and purchase intention. The results demonstrate that both the textual claim and the visual metaphor can be efficient in communicating the product attribute of strength. The presence of the image positively influenced consumers’ product expectations before tasting. The textual claim increased the perception of strength of coffee and the purchase intention of the product. The location of the image also played an important role in flavor perception and purchase intention. The image located on the bottom of the package increased the perceived strength of coffee and purchase intention of the product compared to the image on top of the package. This result could be interpreted from the perspective of the grounded cognition theory, which suggests that a picture in the lower part of the package would automatically activate the “strong is heavy” metaphor. As heavy objects are usually associated with a position on the ground, this would explain why perceiving a visually heavy package would lead to the experience of a strong coffee. Further research is needed to better understand the relationships between a metaphorical image and its spatial position in food packaging design.

Consumer-Driven Product Design

Abstract Both consumer researchers and product designers recognize the importance of good design for the success of products and brands. Consumer researchers are focused on understanding consumer responses to product design. Designers try to adjust products to consumers needs and enhance product experience by involving consumers in the design process. The complexity of consumer responses to products has prompted both consumer and design researchers to formulate conceptual models of consumer responses to product design. This chapter will give an overview of four different perspectives that are used to describe consumer responses to product design, including the designers perspective centered on product esthetics, the consumer perspective revolving around product experience, the semiotics perspective on symbolic product meaning, and the managerial perspective stressing consumer satisfaction as most important.