The Different Roles of Product Appearance in Consumer Choice^*

Abstract

Product design has been recognized as an opportunity for differential advantage in the market place. The appearance of a product influences consumer product choice in several ways. To help product development managers in optimizing the appearance of products, the present study identified the different ways in which the appearance of a product plays a role in consumer product evaluation and, hence, choice. In addition, the implications for product design of each role are listed, and managerial recommendations for optimizing the appearance of products are given.Based on a literature review, six different roles of product appearance for consumers are identified: (1) communication of aesthetic, (2) symbolic, (3) functional, and (4) ergonomic information; (5) attention drawing; and (6) categorization. A product's appearance can have aesthetic and symbolic value for consumers, can communicate functional characteristics and give a quality impression (functional value), and can communicate ease of use (ergonomic value). In addition, it can draw attention and can influence the ease of categorization of the product. In a large qualitative study (N 5 142) it was tested whether these roles indeed exist in consumers' process of product choice and whether they are sufficient to describe the way in which product appearance plays a role for consumers. In addition, qualitative insight into these roles was gained. After making a choice between two answering machines, subjects were interviewed about the reasons for their choice and the product information they used to form the judgments underlying their choice reasons.The six appearance roles indeed proved relevant for consumers and were sufficient to describe the influence of product appearance on product choice. The number of ways in which appearance played a role for consumers differed between 0 and 5; most subjects mentioned two different ways in which appearance influenced their product choice. The aesthetic and symbolic roles were mentioned most often.The preferred shape (e.g., rounded or angular), color, or size were found to differ depending on the way in which product appearance played a role for subjects. For example, bright colors may be valued from an aesthetic point of view but may diminish the impression of quality (i.e., functional value). This makes it difficult to optimize all roles and illustrates that the product value that is most important for consumers when purchasing a specific kind of product should be the starting point in the design of the product appearance. Furthermore, the influence of shape, color, or size on a certain kind of product value-aesthetic, symbolic, ergonomic, or functional-differed between subjects. One person may like a rounded shape, while another may prefer a rectangular shape. This means that the value of guidelines indicating how the perception of a specific kind of product value can be engendered

Relationship between meanings, emotions, product preferences and personal values. Application to ceramic tile floorings

“…In this study, nine semantic factors belonging to the functional, aesthetic and symbolic fields were extracted, which corresponds to the types of meanings, product messages (Monö, 1997), roles (Creusen and Schoormans, 2005) or communicative functions (Bürdek, 1994) mentioned in the introduction. On the other hand, emotion has been identified as only one factor, which means that all emotions are almost the same, at least for this product and the emotions considered here.…”

The effect of context attractiveness on product attractiveness and product quality: the moderating role of product familiarity

“…Consumers make inferences about numerous product attributes, including functional attributes such as product quality, through a product's visual appearance (Bloch 1995;Creusen and Schoormans 2005). A positive relationship between stimulus attractiveness and product quality has been found in several contexts such as websites (Wang et al 2011) and retail stores (Richardson et al 1996).…”

Evoking premiumness: How color-product congruency influences premium evaluations

“…Although some studies rely on color preference and appropriateness as dependent variables (Bottomley & Doyle, 2006;Miller & Kahn, 2005), other studies show that color preference does not necessarily do justice to explaining consumer choice (Creusen & Schoormans, 2005). Given that color has been shown to affect price perception and perceived quality (Ampuero & Vila, 2006;Ares & Deliza, 2010;Labrecque & Milne, 2013;Loose & Szolnoki, 2012), this study combines the impression of high price and quality by investigating premiumness as the dependent variable in an exploratory manner.…”