Impacting the Sensory Experience of Products (eBook)

Dr. Christine Cowen-Elstner received her doctorate at the Institute of Innovation Marketing at the Hamburg University of Technology under Prof. Dr. Christian Lüthje. She presently works as a marketing specialist. 

Foreword 6
Preface 8
Table of Contents 10
List of Figures 13
List of Tables 15
List of Abbreviations 16
List of Symbols 17
1 Introduction 18
1.1 Research Question and Scope 18
1.2 Methodology and Structure 21
2 Conceptual Background 24
2.1 Quality 25
2.1.1 The Concepts of Quality and Perceived Quality 25
2.1.2 Influences on Perceived Quality 28
2.1.3 Consequences of Perceived Quality 32
2.2 Sensory Marketing 35
2.2.1 What is Sensory Marketing? 36
2.2.2 The Five Senses 39
2.2.2.1 Vision 40
2.2.2.2 Haptics 42
2.2.2.3 Taste 44
2.2.2.4 Audition 45
2.2.2.5 Smell 47
2.2.3 Measuring Sensory Characteristics 48
2.3 Unconscious Consumer Influence 51
2.3.1 Priming 53
2.3.2 Embodiment 59
2.3.3 First Impression 61
2.3.4 Assimilation and Contrast 62
3 Empirical Study 1 67
3.1 Research Origins 68
3.1.1 The Environment as Source of Customer Perception 68
3.1.2 The Aircraft Cabin as Research Object 72
3.2 Pilot Studies 73
3.3 Mock-up study 74
3.3.1 Procedure 74
3.3.2 Results 77
3.4 Online Study 81
3.4.1 Procedure 81
3.4.2 Results 82
3.5 Conclusions from the Preliminary Studies 84
3.6 Derivation of Hypotheses 85
3.6.1 Impression of Cabin Quality 86
3.6.2 Impression of Cabin Spaciousness 90
3.6.3 Impression of Cabin comfort 91
3.7 Method of the Main Experiment 92
3.7.1 Pre-Test 92
3.7.2 Virtual Reality as the Test Environment 95
3.7.3 Procedure of the Main Experiment 97
3.7.3.1 Participants 97
3.7.3.2 Stimuli 99
3.7.3.3 Process 102
3.8 Results of the Main Experiment 104
3.8.1 Results of the VR-Scale 104
3.8.2 Results of Cabin and Component Perception 105
3.9 Discussion 108
4 Empirical Study 2 116
4.1 The Importance of Product Appearance 117
4.1.1 Product Schema and Categorisation 118
4.1.2 New Product Design 120
4.1.3 Product Packaging 122
4.2 Explorative Study 127
4.2.1 Methodology 130
4.2.2 Results of Explorative Study 131
4.2.3 Discussion of Explorative Study 136
4.3 Hypotheses for the Main Experiment 140
4.3.1 Influence of the Package Newness 140
4.3.2 Influence of Category Information 143
4.3.3 Interaction of Category Information and Newness of Packaging 147
4.4 Methodology of the Main Experiment 147
4.4.1 Stimuli 147
4.4.2 Pre-Test 149
4.4.3 Procedure 151
4.5 Results of the Main Experiment 154
4.5.1 Manipulation Check 155
4.5.2 Assumptions and Missing Values 156
4.5.3 Measures 157
4.5.4 Results for the Hypotheses 158
4.5.5 Additional Analysis 161
4.6 Discussion of the Main Experiment 162
4.7 Post-Test 165
4.7.1 Procedure of the Post-Test 165
4.7.2 Results and Discussion of the Post-Test 166
4.8 General Discussion 168
5 Conclusion 176
5.1 Summary of the Results 176
5.2 Discussion 178
5.3 Recommendations for Future Research 181
References 184
Appendix 218
1 Study 1 219
1.1 Flyer from Online study 219
1.2 Demographic Questionnaire 220
1.3 Questionnaire VR-Reality 221
1.4 Questions Regarding Cabin components and Cabins 222
2 Study 2 224
2.1 Explorative Study 224
2.2 Main Experiment 228