Executive Summary
Marketers commonly use product sampling to generate consumer interest. Despite the growing popularity of product sampling, food and beverage sampling poses a dilemma for marketers. On the one hand, such sampling is considered an integral part of the promotion mix. On the other hand, common intuition and a survey conducted with marketing experts suggest that food and beverage sampling could satiate consumers’ appetite and thus reduce their subsequent consumption-related behaviors.
Contrary to common intuition and market wisdom, however, recent extensions of a well-documented phenomenon known as alliesthesia suggest otherwise. Alliesthesia refers to the notion that physiological motivational states (e.g., thirst) can increase the incentive value (i.e., the liking) of rewarding consumption cues, such as water. An emerging body of research suggests that this relationship between motivational states and high-incentive-vale consumption cues could work in the opposite direction as well. According to this notion, which the authors refer to as “reverse alliesthesia,” sampling a tasty bit of food or beverage is likely to intensify rather than satiate consumer’s appetite and therefore increase subsequent consumption-related behaviors.
Across four studies, the authors provide support for the notion of reverse alliesthesia. Specifically, the authors show that a consumption cue high in incentive value (e.g., an appetitive drink) activates a general motivation state, such that sampling an appetitive drink (Hawaiian Punch) not only enhances consumption of another drink (Pepsi) but also leads to an enhanced desire for anything rewarding, such as a massage or a vacation to Bora Bora. Moreover, the authors find that these effects are stronger for people who are high compared with those who are low on behavioral activation system (BAS) because high-BAS people tend to show enhanced motivation to engage in subsequent reward-seeking behaviors. Furthermore, the authors demonstrate that these effects are attenuated when the activated motivational state is satiated in an intervening task. In the final study, the authors show that both gustatory consumption cues and nongustatory consumption cues, such as appetitive olfactory cues, can lead to reverse alliesthesia effects. Notably, they show that just as an appetitive consumption cue can enhance subsequent reward0seeking behaviors, an aversive consumption cue, such as an unpleasant olfactory cue, can reduce subsequent reward-seeking behaviors.
The reverse alliesthesia effects documented in this research have broad marketing implications. The results suggest that sampling an appetitive food or beverage item in a grocery store is likely to increase the purchase not only of the sampled food or beverage items but of rewarding items in general. Moreover, the findings suggest that appetitive olfactory cues can also enhance purchase of rewarding consumption items. Finally, the results show that sampling an unpleasant cue, such as the smell of a cleaning agent, is likely to suppress the desire to engage in subsequent consumption behaviors. Thus, the findings imply that the strategic placement of sampling stations can help maximize the likelihood of sale of other products.
Biography
Monica Wadhwa is a doctoral candidate in Marketing at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. She received her bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Delhi University and her master’s degree in Human Resources Management from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. Her research interests focus on the appetitive motivational system and reward-seeking behaviors, nonconscious mental processes in consumer decision making, and emotion regulation.
Baba Shiv received his doctoral degree from Duke University. He is an associate professor in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. His current work focuses on the role of affect in decision making, the neurophysiological bases of emotions, and nonconscious mental processes. His articles have been published in Cognitive Brain Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Letters, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, and Psychological Science. He serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Consumer Psychology and Journal of Marketing Research and serves as associate editor of Journal of Consumer Research. He was invited to the first Marketing Science Institute Young Scholar program in 2001. He was named Outstanding Faculty in BusinessWeek Guide to the Best Business Schools (6th, 7th, and 8th eds.) and was voted by MBA students at the University of Iowa as the best teacher of the year for seven consecutive years (1999 to 2005).
Stephen M. Nowlis is AT&T Research Professor of Marketing in the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. His research focuses on decision making, choice, and consumption. He is the winner of the 2001 William F. O’Dell Award, was a finalist for the 2002 William F. O’Dell Award, and is the winner of the 2001 Early Career Contribution Award from the Society for Consumer Psychology. His work has been published in Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Science, Marketing Letters, Journal of Consumer Psychology, and Annual Review of Psychology. He is on the editorial review boards at Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Marketing, and Marketing Letters and is an associate editor at Journal of Consumer Research.
Journal of Marketing Research, Volume 45, Number 4, August 2008
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