Make It Hot? How Food Temperature (Mis)Guides Product Judgments

Abstract

Despite being a basic food property, food temperature has been largely neglected by consumer research thus far. This research proposes that consumers spontaneously infer that warm foods contain more calories, an unexplored lay belief we named the “warm is calorie-rich” intuition. Eight studies reveal that this deep-seated intuition has powerful implications in terms of guiding (and often biasing) product judgments and consumption decisions. Temperature-induced calorie inferences are rooted in perceptions that warm foods are more filling and tastier than cold ones, which enhance warm foods’ desirability and affect consumer choices. The preference for warm products is mitigated when food energy does not provide utility to consumers though, such as when consumers have a health goal active, and it reverses when consumers purposefully aim to reduce their calorie intake. The “warm is calorie-rich” intuition is important for marketers and managers because warm food temperatures can increase willingness to pay (by 25%) and amount served (+27%), as well as influence consumer preferences. This intuition also has important public policy implications: consumers tend to underestimate the nutritional value of cold foods, resulting in increased consumption of calories (+31%) and fat (+37%).

Experiencing the sense of the brand: the mining, processing and application of brand data through sensory brand experiences

“…Roggeveen et al (2020) suggest that retailers should pay more attention to the impact of trialability on sensory experience. According to consumer behaviour researchers, taste perception heightens hedonic engagement (Crolic and Janiszewski 2016;Yamim et al 2020;Zha et al 2021c). As consumers' gastronomic demand becomes increasingly sophisticated, the role of taste stimulation in a mall's marketing strategy becomes increasingly significant.…”

The shape effect: Round shapes increase consumers' preference for hedonic foods

“…In the context of food consumption, consumers' decision‐making depends on the food‐related goals being pursued (Gould, 1988; Hirschman & Holbrook, 1982; Yamim et al, 2020), and these goals or motives can be classified as instrumental or hedonic (Cornil et al, 2020). Consumers with high hedonic motivations are primarily concerned about their affective feelings about food, whereas those with high utilitarian motivations primarily care for the functionality of the food.…”

“…Our study contributes to the growing research on food consumption and marketing practices. First, we contribute to the literature on food cues that influence consumer reactions (Yamim et al, 2020). Specifically, our work establishes that food shape, a widely ignored food attribute, is a food cue by demonstrating that a round shape considerably increases consumers' preferences for hedonic foods.…”

Making sense of sensory brand experience: Constructing an integrative framework for future research

“…As an emerging marketing topic, research interest within academia has also gathered pace under the umbrella of the construct 'sensory brand experience' (SBE) that has gained traction in both branding (Castillo-Villar & Villasante-Arellano, 2020;Feiereisen et al, 2020;Iglesias et al, 2019) and consumer research (Hadi & Valenzuela, 2020;Krishna, 2012;Yamim et al, 2020). However, this trend poses considerable challenges for SBE research, because to date very little progress has been made in theory and conceptual development.…”