Embodied Product Perception: Effects of Verticality Cues in Advertising and Packaging Design on Consumer Impressions and Price Expectations

Abstract

As consumers increasingly turn to luxury brands and associated benefits, brand managers face the question how to convey luxury perceptions via marketing communications such as packaging and advertising design. Inspired by theories addressing embodied cognition and symbolic meaning portrayal, this paper argues that visual cues inspiring verticality perceptions (i.e., camera angle and advertising background orientation) affect luxury perceptions and, consequently, consumer evaluations and price expectations. Across three experiments, verticality cues fostered perceptions of product luxury but differentially affected price expectations and purchase considerations depending on product type. Moreover, findings show that effects of vertical orientation are more pronounced for participants high on sociable dominance. Implications of these findings for visual brand management are discussed.

Product Packaging Metaphors: Effects of Ambiguity and Explanatory Information on Consumer Appreciation and Brand Perception

“…Philips & McQuarrie, ). In line with this suggestion, a recent study (Van Rompay, De Vries, Bontekoe, & Tanja‐Dijkstra, ) showed that visually incorporating the embodied metaphor linking power‐related constructs (e.g., luxurious ) to verticality (as exemplified by linguistic phrases such as “upscale,” and “high‐end”) induced perceptions of the target product as more luxurious . Such findings show that (different types of) metaphors may serve different marketing communication purposes, with marketing strategy dictating whether brand personality perceptions, specific product attributes, or both should be highlighted.…”

A Match Made in Heaven or Down Under? The Effectiveness of Matching Visual and Verbal Horizons in Advertising

“…Shifting the horizon in a panoramic picture is different from cropping a panoramic picture because the relative height of the horizon might remain the same after cropping. It also is distinct from taking a different camera angle (see Appendix ): Downward‐angle pictures are taken from high places (e.g., top of a canyon or staircase; Slepian et al., ) and/or represent the view from above (Aggarwal & Zhao, ; Cian, ; Van Rompay, de Vries, Bontekoe, & Tanja‐Dijkstra, ), whereas upward‐angle pictures are taken from low positions (e.g., at the foot of a tree looking up at the leaves; Slepian et al., ) and/or represent the view from below (Aggarwal & Zhao, ; Cian, ; Van Rompay et al., ). In contrast, panoramic pictures that present the horizon at different heights might be taken from exactly the same spot, without requiring any vertical change in position.…”

Light as a feather: Effects of packaging imagery on sensory product impressions and brand evaluation

“…, attract consumer attention in cluttered store environments (e.g., Schoormans and Robben 1997), and communicate symbolic product and brand qualities (Creusen and Schoormans 2005;Huettl and Gierl 2012;Van Rompay, De Vries, Bontekoe, and Tanja-Dijkstra 2012). Hence, when shopping for everyday products at the supermarket, consumers may base their purchase decisions on the product's visual appearance (Bloch 1995;Crilly, Moultrie, and Clarkson 2004), as when buying a "special design edition" bottle of mineral water (aesthetic delight), an eye-catching chocolate bar (consumer attention), or a "glamorous" shampoo bottle (symbolic meaning).…”