Consumer Seduction
The Effect of Displays on the Consumer's In-Store
Behaviour in Self-Relevant, Hedonic Product Categories
Consumer Seduction
The Effect of Displays on the Consumer's In-Store
Behaviour in Self-Relevant, Hedonic Product Categories
Jennifer Meerwaldt University of Groningen
Faculty of Economics and Business MscBA Marketing Management Master Thesis 13-5-2010 Address: xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx Telephone Number: xxxxxxxxxxx Email address: xxxxxxxxxxx Student Number: s1399462
First supervisor: Dr. J.A. Voerman Second supervisor: E.L.E. De Vries, MSc External supervisor: xxxxxxxxxxx
MANAGMENT SUMMARY
The problem in marketing of fast moving consumer goods today, is the overwhelming amount of product exposure in every possible channel. The retail landscape nowadays is filled with point-of-sale materials from different manufacturers that all want to stand out of the crowd and seduce the consumer to purchase their product. But how can they stand out of the crowd? Displays are stated to be the most effective point-of-sale materials, but how can manufacturers create displays that positively influence the consumer's in-store behaviour?
In this research, the effect of displays on the consumer’s in-store behaviour in self-relevant, hedonic product categories is addressed. Instead of a common focus of point-of-sale researches on the retailer’s profitability, this research focuses on the manufacturer, which is of great importance in developing and designing the displays presented in retail stores. Additionally, point-of-sale materials are often addressed as a homogeneous group of materials, while displays have another effect on a consumer's behaviour than sale signs or coupons. Academic literature is used to develop a conceptual model to test this effect of displays. In the conceptual model, display characteristics, consumer characteristics, environment characteristics and the consumer’s in-store behaviour are taken into account. The research is conducted through an online questionnaire to test the influence of several variables per characteristic in the conceptual model on the consumer’s in-store behaviour.
The display characteristics addressed in this research are informative stimuli and visual stimuli. The effect of these variables on the consumer’s in-store behaviour were tested in several hypotheses. The consumer characteristics addressed in the literature study of this research are involvement, goal, promotional proneness, brand familiarity and mood. The last variable, the consumer’s mood, is not tested in the empirical research. The other four variables and their influences on the effect of displays on the consumer’s in-store behaviour are addressed in several hypotheses. The variables addressing the environment characteristics are atmospherics and direct comparability. The influence of the variables measuring the environment characteristics are both addressed in a hypothesis.
PREFACE
This thesis is the conclusion of my master Marketing Management at the University of Groningen. After completing my courses in Groningen, I did an internship at company X. For six months, I got to work on three hair care and styling brands in the consumer division of company X.
During my internship, I learned that the consumer nowadays is hard to address and that there is a great amount of possibilities in in-store marketing efforts. My favourite activities during my internship involved developing in-store materials like displays. The large amount of time, effort and money that is spend on the development and design of displays made me interested in the effects of different displays on the consumer at the store. During the writing of my thesis I developed a conceptual model to test the effects of displays found in academic literature. The results of this research, recommendations for company X and implications for further research are presented in the final section of my thesis.
I would like to thank my colleagues at company X for the learning experience during my internship. And I would like to give a special thanks to my supervisor during my internship at company X, for guiding me through the world of marketing. Additionally, I would like to thank Dr. Liane Voerman, my supervisor at the University of Groningen, for her guidance, insightful conversations on my research topic and support during the writing of my thesis. I would also like to thank my second supervisor, Eline de Vries Msc for the additional feedback to complete my thesis.
Last but not least, I would like to thank all the respondents of my research for taking the time and effort to fill in the questionnaire for my research. I would like to thank all my friends and family for supporting me during the writing of my thesis. And I would like to give a special thanks to my parents for supporting me throughout my study.
TABLE OF CONTENT Management summary Preface Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 Background 1.2 Company Introduction 1.3 Problem statement 1.4 Research questions
1.5 Theoretical and social relevance 1.6 Limitations
1.7 Structure of the thesis
Chapter 2: Theoretical framework 2.1 Consumer's in-store behaviour 2.1.1. Purchasing process
2.1.2. Point-of-sale materials 2.1.3. Point-of-sale objectives
Chapter 3: Research design 3.1 Research method 3.2 Population and sample 3.3 Data collection
3.3.1. Online survey
3.3.2. Design of the questionnaire 3.4 Plan of analysis
3.3.1. Descriptive statistics
3.3.2. Internal consistency reliability 3.3.3. Hypothesis testing
Chapter 4: Results
4.1 Population and sample 4.2 Descriptive statistics
4.2 Internal consistency reliability 4.3 Hypothesis testing
4.4 Overview hypotheses acceptance and rejection
Chapter 5: Conclusions and recommendations
Chapter 6: Limitations and implications for further research References
Appendices
Appendix 1: Research design theory Appendix 2: Outline questionnaire Appendix 3: Questionnaire
Appendix 4: Outline hypothesis testing Appendix 5: Population and sample
Appendix 6: Output descriptive statistics and internal consistency reliability Appendix 7: Output hypothesis testing
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
The retail environment has become a highly competitive environment and retailers are using in-store communication to increase sales (Bezawada et al.,2009). To facilitate this retailer goal, marketers are seducing consumers at the store, using point-of-sale materials like displays to influence the consumer's behaviour. But how do these in-store stimuli effect the consumer's in-store behaviour?
Nowadays everyone, or perhaps just every woman, knows the feeling of going to the store to buy just one thing and then arrive at the register with a whole basket full of products. I do too.
Last week I went to the drug store to buy toothpaste. When I entered the store, I saw the toothpaste I wanted to buy, but I was distracted by the other side of the aisle. I don't know what grabbed my attention, but there, I saw a new shampoo. The bottle was so colourful and it was not just presented on the shelf, but outside the shelf too. It must be a special shampoo or something. Wow! I really needed to have that new shampoo. So I put it in my shopping basket and walked along the other aisles. Of course the shampoo wasn't the only thing that got my attention. The store slowly turned into a jungle and I needed to survive. Around me I saw all kinds of attractive signs and displays in different colours and shapes, and products that needed to end up in my shopping basket. On my thirty minute walk to the register, I picked out a new shower gel, bath foam, body lotion, lip gloss and a new mascara. So yes, eventually I bought a little more than planned, but I really need all those things anyway...
1.1 Background
Complete attention of a consumer is hard to get these days. Consumers have the opportunity to choose from all kinds of products in all kinds of categories and the number of options is growing. They are being exposed to enormous amounts of product exposure every day, but the consumer can only notice a small part of all the exposure thrown at them (Heemskerk, 1997). Companies all around the world are trying to seduce the consumer to try out their products, inside the store, or outside the store. Marketing expenses are rising and companies want to spend their money effectively.
Marketing budgets have gone through major changes over the past few years. Where a large part of the budget was usually spend outside the store, an increasing part of marketing budgets is now spend for in-store purposes. Point-of-sale materials are used by retailers and manufacturers to positively affect the consumer's in-store behaviour. Retailers and manufacturers both want the consumer to purchase more products and displays are used as an object to reach that goal. But the amount of displays at the store is increasing fast and manufacturers have trouble standing out of the crowd. The characteristics of a display are assumed to influence the effect of a display on the consumer's in-store behaviour, but there are more variables influencing this relation. The model presented in figure 1 shows the relation of display characteristics and the consumer's in-store behaviour and will be used as a base model for this thesis. In chapter two, the literature framework, the different display characteristics and the other variables influencing the effect of displays on the consumer's in-store behaviour will be addressed and added to the model.
Figure 1. The effect of displays on a consumer's in-store behaviour
1.2 Company Introduction
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1.3 Problem statement
The problem in marketing of fast moving consumer goods is the overwhelming amount of product exposure. Consumers are exposed to products and services wherever they go. At the
Display
Characteristics
retail stores, the consumer is open for product exposure, since they go to the store to purchase products. But the retail landscape nowadays is filled with point-of-sale materials from different manufacturers that all want to stand out of the crowd and seduce the consumer to purchase their product. But how can they stand out of the crowd? Displays are stated to be the most effective point-of-sale materials, but how can manufacturers design displays that get noticed by the consumer? And more importantly, how can manufacturers create displays that positively influence the consumer's in-store behaviour?
This research will focus on the effect of displays on the consumer's in-store behaviour in self-relevant hedonic product categories. The purpose of this research is to find out what variables influence this effect and to inform manufacturers so they can design effective displays. The problem statement of this research will therefore be:
“What is the effect of displays on the consumer’s in-store behaviour in self-relevant, hedonic product categories?”
1.4 Research questions
The following research questions will support the answering of the problem statement:
1. What aspects of the consumer's in-store behaviour are influenced by point-of-sale materials?
2. What display characteristics effect the consumer's in-store behaviour?
3. What consumer characteristics influence the effect of displays on the consumer's in-store behaviour?
4. What environment characteristics influence the effect of displays on the consumer's in-store behaviour?
1.5 Theoretical and social relevance
point-of-sale materials, will be the focus of this thesis. The social relevance of this research is to know what variables influence the effect of a display on the consumer's in-store behaviour, which gives manufacturing companies an insight in developing effective displays.
1.6 Limitations
The focus of this research will be on the effect of displays on the consumer's in-store behaviour, but it will exclude the effects of pricing or promotions. This choice is made because the scope of the research would become to wide when including pricing or promotions and the influences of other variables would fade to the background. Displays increase the impact of the brand and reduce the influence of price in the consumer's awareness and consideration of a product (Allenby and Ginter, 1995). The pricing of a product can easily be adjusted, but the other characteristics of a product or brand can not be adjusted easily. This makes it important for manufacturers to know what effect the placing of a display at the store has on their product without including pricing or promotions. Additionally, both pricing and promotions are taken into account through other variables discussed and researched in this thesis. Another limitation of this thesis is the focus on female consumers. The choice of leaving out male consumers is made because of the category this research focuses on; self-relevant, hedonic product categories. The manufacturing companies in these product categories mainly focus on female consumers, which makes it logical to focus on female consumers in this thesis. The last limitation of this thesis is the absence of the in-store location of a display as a variable influencing a consumer's in-store behaviour. A part of the display's in-store location is addressed, but it is too hard to address the prominence of the location of a display in a store through an online questionnaire.
1.7 Structure of the thesis
CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
This chapter will evolve around the academic literature on the effect a display has on the consumer's in-store behaviour. The base model for this research was presented in figure 1, but variables will be added to this model until the conceptual model is presented. In this chapter, the answering of the research questions will be presented. The first paragraph will address the consumer's in-store behaviour, triggered by different point-of-sale materials. Displays will also be taken into account in this paragraph. The second paragraph addresses different display characteristics that effect the consumer's in-store behaviour, the third paragraph will address the influence of different consumer characteristics on the effect of displays on a consumer's in-store behaviour, the fourth paragraph will address the influence of different environment characteristics on the effect of displays on a consumer's in-store behaviour. Each paragraph will consist of corresponding hypotheses with every variable discussed in the theoretical framework and each paragraph will end with a conclusion of the literature found and answering of the research question addressed. In the fifth paragraph, after the answering of the research questions, the complete conceptual model will be presented.
2.1 Consumer's in-store behaviour
The consumer's in-store behaviour exists of different aspects. When the consumer is at the store, different aspects of consumer behaviour will be influenced by displays. To get a good understanding of the consumer's in-store behaviour, the purchasing process, the effect of point-of-sale materials in general, the objectives of different point-of-sale materials and the impact of self-relevant, hedonic products on consumer behaviour will be addressed in this paragraph. The paragraph will end with a conclusion of the literature found, the answering of the first research question and the hypotheses that will be addressed in the research part of this thesis.
exposure, which means that a consumer can be informed about a product without being aware of the product exposure. In addition, consumers in different segments can be driven by different needs and have a different level of involvement with the product (Petty et al., 2001), which makes it hard on marketeers to address the consumers' needs the right way. In the fourth stage of the purchasing process, the consumer has made its decision and the actual purchase will take place. This stage exists of two parts, the store choice and the in-store choice (Blackwell et al., 2006). A consumer that has gone through the first three stages can be influenced by store personnel, product displays, electronic media and point-of-sale advertising , which could change the actual purchase at the store (Blackwell et al., 2006). The decisions a consumer makes in an in-store environment are not always based on logical reasoning (Jansson et al., 2003). At the fifth and sixth stage of the purchasing process, the consumer will find out if the product they bought lives up to their expectations and if their needs are fulfilled (Blackwell et al., 2006). If their needs are not fulfilled, it is not likely that the consumer will repurchase the product (Blackwell et al., 2006). The seventh stage of the purchasing process is the divestment stage, which handles the choice of divestment when the product is no longer needed by the consumer (Blackwell et al., 2006).
A situation in which the purchasing process differs from the usual purchasing process is the situation where the consumer discovers the need when he is already at the store. The consumer will go through the purchasing process in a short period of time and the shopping decision will be triggered by all kinds of point-of-sale materials (Blackwell et al., 2006).
Point-of-sale materials. A retailer's motive is to attract consumers to their store and
audience differs from a television or internet audience; the in-store shopper audience is exposed to continuous parallel massaging and has a 360 degree vision and the ability to turn away whenever they want to (Sorensen, 2009). The consumer's attention has to be grabbed by the manufacturer's point-of-sale material, to actually confront the consumer to the exposed products. But a consumer's attention does not necessarily mean that it effects the brand memory or that the consumer is influenced to purchase the exposed product (Pieters and Warlop, 2002). After obtaining the consumer's attention, the consumer will enter the awareness stage of the decision-making process (Shao et al., 2008). In the awareness stage, there is a difference between informing the consumer and seducing the consumer, where seduction will have a more desirable outcome (Shugan, 1982). The consumer will finally make an in-store purchasing choice after consideration of all alternatives. The consumer can be triggered to purchase a product when the product is on discount (Lam et al., 2001), but the consumer can also be seduced to purchase a product when there is no price promotion involved (Quelch and Cannon-Bonventre, 1983). The four steps the consumer goes through when it is exposed to an in-store stimuli are attention, awareness, consideration and purchase.
Figure 2. The aspects of the consumer's in-store behaviour that are influenced by displays
Point-of-sale objectives. There are several different types of point-of-sale materials
that all have a different effect on consumer behaviour. The types that are addressed in academic literature are displays, digital point-of-sale materials, sale signs, in-store coupons and in-store sampling. All types of point-of-sale materials will be addressed in this paragraph, so all possible objectives of point-of-sale materials will be taken into account.
A display is a presentation in a defined area that is consciously designed to highlight the selected merchandise, which is intended to positively affect the consumer's approach responses (Fiore et al., 2000). The meaning of a display is therefore to grab the consumer's attention and make them aware of the merchandise that is displayed. The display functions as an object to get the consumer to notice the merchandise and the promotion involved (Schneider and Currim, 1991). In addition to the attention effect, Consumer's In-store Behaviour
displays will create consumer desire for the products that are displayed (Cahan and Robinson, 1984) and it is even claimed that displays are responsible for one out of four retail sales (Mills et al., 1995). A characteristic of displays is that the products that are displayed are isolated from the competing products, which forces consumers to consider a brand separately from the the competing brands (Lemon and Nowlis, 2002). It is harder for the consumer to compare products if they are not located together. According to Hsee et al. (1999) and Nowlis and Simonson (1997) the degree to which options in a set can be compared has a great impact on brand choice. The results of the research of Lemon and Nowlis (2002) present that displays have a larger effect on high-tire brands than low tier brands, because when the display isolates the products, the possibility to compare alternatives is smaller and brand will be an attribute the decision is based on. In addition, consumers are having a poor recall of the prices that are charged at the point of sale (Dickson and Sawyer, 1990; Zeithaml, 1982). Some research states that displays positively affect the probability a consumer will purchase a displayed product (Goodstein, 1994), where other research states that displays have a strong positive effect on brand sales (Bemmaor and Mouchoux, 1991; Inman et al., 1990). In addition, Ko and Rhee (1994) state that product displays lead consumers to make impulse purchases. If this information is combined, it can be indicated that displays positively effect the consumer's in-store purchasing choice.
Sale signs are normally used by retailers to show consumers which products are on sale. But there have been multiple researches, that address the stand-alone effect of a sale sign. According to Grover and Srinivasan (1989) consumers will believe that only products with reduced prices will have a sale sign, but this may be assumed incorrectly. In addition, Dickson and Sawyer (1990) found that less than 15% of the consumers that purchase a
brand on sale do not know the depth of the promotional discount. In the research of Inman et al. (1990) and Inman and McAlister (1993) the stand-alone effects of promotional signalling were studied, where they found that even products with sale signs, that were not discounted have increased sales. In addition, McKinnon et al. (1981) found that sale signs that present benefits have better sales results than sale signs with price information on it. So it can be concluded that sale signs have different effects than the purpose they are used for; they are used to communicate discounts, while they positively effect consumer attention and the consumer's purchasing intention. According to Anderson and Simester (2001) sale signs focus consumer attention on the products that have sale signs and that it increases sales, but these effects decrease when there are too much products with sale signs per category.
purchase (Avery and Haynes, 1996). According to Babakus et al. (1998) coupons are more than a discount, because they give the consumer a feeling of pride and satisfaction. In addition, Thompson (1997) states that in-store coupons can increase brand sales by 35%. An increase in brand sales is a positive outcome for sales numbers, but coupons do not strengthen the brands value, do not provide brand differentiation (Slater, 2001) and are mostly redeemed by consumers that already use the promoted brand (Raphel, 1995). It can be concluded that coupons do not increase brand loyalty.
Samples are meant to get consumers introduced to a product. This could mean that sampling is used as a tool to introduce a new product (Jain et al., 1995), or to introduce an established product to a new consumer group (Bettinger et al., 1979). The percentages of sampling funds across types of products are on average; 34% of all samples are for new products, 38% for established products and 28% of samples are for product extensions (Donnelly, 1992). Samples are often called free trials in the industry, because they get the consumer introduced to a small amount of the promoted product for free, to reduce the consumer's cost of trial (Ailloni and Cheros, 1984). In addition, samples are indicated to have a greater effect on sales than advertising does, because samples give the consumer a direct experience with the product, compared to the indirect experience advertising offers (McGuinness et al., 1992). Once the consumer tried the product, it takes consumers several more trials to start purchasing the product (Rothschild and Gaidis, 1981), which means that consumers have to start purchasing the product, to try more of the product after they have tried a sample. On this part there are different results found in sample research. According to Gilbert and Jackaria (2002) samples had no significant influence on the consumer's intended purchasing behaviour, while other researches have presented results that show otherwise (Fill, 2002; Shimp, 2003). Although results in the literature are divided, retailers are more likely to support a product when it is supported by sampling (Shermach, 1995), which is why manufacturers often use in-store sampling as a marketing tool (Heiman et al., 2001).
while in-store sampling increases the consumer's goodwill towards the product's brand and is supported by retailers to boost sales. Marketers can therefore choose the type of point-of-sale material that fulfils their goals. If all information from the literature is evaluated, it can be indicated that displays have the most positive effect on consumer behaviour, because they give the manufacturer the opportunity to gain attention, promote their brand, inform consumers about their product and pricing, and create trial and unplanned purchases, which increases sales.
Point-of-sale objective
Type of point-of-sale material
Display
Digital point-of-sale
material Sale sign Coupon Sample
Providing product/brand information + ++ +
Interaction with consumers ++
Providing price information + + ++ +
Gain attention ++ + ++
Create goodwill ++
Create brand loyalty -
-Create trial + ++/-
++/-Sales increase ++ + +
- Not qualified + Qualified ++ Very qualified
Table 1. Point-of-sale materials and their objectives
In addition to the differences between the addressed types of point-of-sale materials, the type of product category a product belongs to can influence the consumer's behaviour. Consumer products can be separated in different categories. A way to categorize products is by different consumer needs; utilitarian or hedonic needs. The effect of point-of-sale materials on the consumer's in-store behaviour can differ between these product categories; products that belong to the more hedonic product categories are more likely to be purchased unplanned (Inman et al., 2009).
Self-relevant, hedonic product categories. According to Voss et al. (2003) the
cars, women's apparel, perfumes, games and entertainment services (Lee and Hyman, 2008). While non-hedonic, functional products are more likely to be inexpensive and fundamental necessities such as facial tissues, wooden pencils, paper towels, and distilled water (Lee and Hyman, 2008). Although most definitions of hedonic products, product categories and consumption are based on feelings of arousal, affect and emotion, hedonic value is experienced at both affective and cognitive levels, while utilitarian value is only experienced at cognitive levels (Spangenberg et al., 1997). This brings consumers involved in hedonic consumption in a state where emotional desires compete with utilitarian motives when choosing what to purchase or consume (Spangenberg et al., 1997). This internal debate is part of the consideration stage of the decision-making process (Shao et al., 2008). According to Hirschman and Holbrook (1982) there is a strong link between a consumer's involvement and hedonic consumption. Involvement, defined by Zaichkowsky (1985) as “a person’s perceived relevance of the object based on inherent needs, values and interests”, is defined by others as a result of personal relevance (Krugman 1965; Park and Young 1986; Petty and Cacioppo 1979). However, consumers differ in the degree of involvement with self-relevant products. Some consumers may have great interest in, for example, a body lotion, facial cream or shampoo because they have dry skin, wrinkles or difficult hair, while other consumers are not that involved with that certain product. For the consumers with less interest in a product, a body lotion, facial cream or shampoo is still a product that is self-relevant. An example of a hedonic product that is not a self-relevant product is a painting. The strong link between personal relevance and hedonic consumption supports the choice for self-relevant hedonic product categories in researching the effect of displays on the consumer's in-store behaviour.
Conclusion. The academic literature shows a positive reaction of point-of-sale
materials on consumer behaviour, where displays have the greatest effect. The model presented in figure 2 reflects this effect of displays on the consumer's in-store behaviour. The aspects of the consumer's in-store behaviour that manufacturers are trying to influence positively with their displays are attention, awareness, consideration and purchase. Further on in this chapter, the different characteristics of displays and other variables influencing a consumer's in-store behaviour will be added to the model.
2.2 Display characteristics
The second paragraph of chapter two will be about the characteristics of displays. Retailers are trying to attract consumers and communicate a message through point-of-sale materials, flyers and websites (Puccinelli et al., 2009). Displays are an often used medium in this process, which increases the importance of the manufacturer that has to develop displays with certain characteristics, that will make consumers pay attention to the merchandise presented and make the consumer fully aware of the product to consider purchasing it. According to Ward and Davis (1978) different types of point-of-sale materials have proven to effect the consumer's behaviour. Getting consumer attention and getting a brand noticed is necessary for selling a product to a consumer (Valenzuela and Chandon, 2009). This is of importance with displays as well. Consumers that are making in-store decisions behave in reaction to the processing of information surrounding them. This information processing is described by Petty and Cacioppo (1979) in the Elaboration Likelihood Model. The Elaboration Likelihood Model describes two routes of processing; the central route to persuasion that focusses on persuasion by arguments and the peripheral route to persuasion where the consumer gets persuaded more passively by associative and suggestive cues (Petty and Cacioppo, 1979). The route the consumer will take is dependent on the consumer's motivation to process information. According to Schneider and Currim (1991) information that is presented to a consumer inside a store is more influential with information processing then information presented outside the store, which indicates that displays are important in the consumer's awareness and consideration of products. But what display characteristics effect the consumer's in-store behaviour? The variables described in academic literature are informative stimuli and visual stimuli and will be addressed in this paragraph.
importance for the consumer to process it. Providing negative messages that focus on problem avoidance can be irritative for consumers when they see the message too often, because it is unpleasant to think about these things (Aaker and Bruzonne, 1981). In addition, manufacturers have to place the right amount of information on the display because if it is too much or too little, the consumer will not be persuaded by it (Shugan, 1982).
Information is not always presented to consumers in a textual form. If consumers get an overload of information in textual form, they will not be able to process it (Tegarden, 1999). If a manufacturer wants to present large amounts of information, it is therefore best to provide this information in the form of visual stimuli to enlarge the consumer's information processing capacity in the awareness and consideration of products presented in a display (Tegarden, 1999).
Visual stimuli. Visual stimuli influence the consumer's attention. The first eye fixation of the consumer, can be placed due to stored information, which can be defined as out-of-store knowledge, or because the objects simply stand out due to visual characteristics (Chandon et al., 2008). In addition, eye-fixation research has indicated that a consumer is not always aware of what they are looking at (Pieters and Wedel, 2007), which is why recall of the consumer's visual attention is often used as a tool to see if they really paid attention to what they were looking at (Raghubir and Valenzuela, 2006). But what type of visual stimuli make consumers pay attention to a display, differs depending on the consumer. However, research has been done on the placing of text and images in advertising exposure and the effect these visual stimuli have on consumer attention. There are differences in attention for visual stimuli, divided into quadrants, which will each get another amount of attention from a consumer. Further research on this topic shows findings that the illustration in advertising exposure will always be processed first by consumers, regardless of the positioning of the illustration (Guttman, 1972) and text in advertising exposure can best be placed in the upper left quadrant to attract most attention from a consumer (Garcia et al., 2000). The type of illustration, design or other types of visual stimuli that will attract the consumer's attention is a personal matter. Some consumers like certain colours or shapes and other consumers do not like these things. According to Itti (2005) and Wolfe (2005), the size, shape, colour and luminance of objects in advertising exposure and their contrast with objects positioned close to them stipulates the amount of attention they get from the consumer. Additionally, larger objects that are positioned close to smaller objects tend to “pop out” and attract attention (Treisman and Gelade, 1980). All in all, manufacturers are doing a hard job designing displays that will visually stimulate the consumer into paying attention to it.
like emotions and imagination (Clement, 2007), which are easily addressed by marketers with visual stimuli on displays. Consumers make judgements on products based on the material presented to them, they make judgements based on what they see and value these judgements based on visual stimuli (Folkes and Matta, 2004). Consumers that are aware of a product and consider to purchase a certain product are influenced by visual stimuli that they run into, like on displays, in the absence of enough information to deliberate whether to choose the product or not (Olson and Jacoby, 1972). Compared to the effort consumers put in processing visual stimuli, the effort they put in reading messages on displays and comparing prices is little (Vanhuele and Dreze, 2002). Visual stimuli at the point-of-sale influence the consumer's intention to choose a product and should therefore be considered more important by manufacturing companies (Clement, 2007) that make displays to effect the consumer's in-store behaviour through attention for the products, awareness of product characteristics and consideration of purchasing a certain product.
Conclusion. It can be concluded that the effect of display characteristics on consumer behaviour is not fully predictable. Consumers tend to respond differently to displays, which is strongly dependent on consumer characteristics and the characteristics of the environment. Based on the academic literature available, it is not possible for manufacturers to design effective displays, containing effective informative stimuli and visual stimuli, for a certain consumer group. The following figure, figure 4, presents a model in which the display characteristics addressed in this paragraph, informative stimuli and visual stimuli, are added to the model presented earlier in figure 3. When the literature and model are reviewed, it is expected that displays that are highly visual stimulating have most effect on the consumer's attention. Additionally, displays with high informative stimulation are expected to have most effect on the consumer's awareness. The effect of displays on the consumer's consideration of products and the consumer's purchase of products is expected to be influenced by a combination of informative and visual stimuli; when both types of stimulation are low, low consideration and purchase of the presented product is expected and when one or both types of stimulation are high, a higher consideration and purchase of the presented products is expected.
There are three hypotheses for this part of the conceptual model. These hypotheses will be presented below and will be tested in the research part of this thesis. The three hypotheses are:
H1 High informative stimuli on a display result in a higher consumer awareness for this certain display than for another display.
H2 High visual stimuli on a display result in a higher consumer attention for this certain display than for another display.
H3 A combination of high informative stimuli and high visual stimuli on a display result in a higher consideration and higher purchase of the presented products in this display compared to displays with low informative and low visual stimuli.
The next two paragraphs will address the consumer characteristics and environment characteristics that influence the effect of displays on a consumer's in-store behaviour.
2.3 Consumer characteristics
This paragraph will address several consumer characteristics. The characteristics described, being involvement, goal, promotional proneness, brand familiarity and mood, are the consumer characteristics that are indicated to influence the effect of displays on a consumer's in-store behaviour. Whereas a consumer's degree of involvement with a product or product category influences the display characteristics used in elaboration (Petty and Cacioppo, 1979), a goal will focus the consumer's attention on a certain product or product category and therefore influence the consumer's in-store behaviour (Janiszewski, 1998; Puccinelli et al., 2009). These variables, involvement and shopping goal are variables that are dependent on the consumer's needs for a product or product category, while the consumer's degree of promotional proneness and brand familiarity are more stable variables that are not likely to differ in different shopping occasions. The consumer's mood is a variable that will differ in shopping occasions that can not be influenced previously to exposure to a display, but is indicated to influence the consumer's in-store behaviour when exposed to a display with certain characteristics. The named variables and their effect on the consumer's in-store behaviour when exposed to displays will be further addressed in this paragraph.
involved (Puccinelli et al., 2009). The consumer's involvement with a product or product category drives the consumer's motivation to pay attention to the retailer's and manufacturer's communications (Puccinelli et al., 2009). In addition, Bloch et al. (1986) describe the consumer's ongoing search with a product, which means that the consumer unconsciously thinks about a product and searches for it, which will result in attention for the product when they see it. A consumer's ongoing search for a product is triggered by the degree of involvement (Bloch et al., 1986); when the consumer is highly involved with a product, it will be looking out for it unconsciously and pay attention when the product is found. Additionally, involvement is an influencing variable in the effect of displays on the consumer's in-store behaviour in their awareness and consideration of a product. The consumer's degree of involvement influences the type of message a consumer looks at. This can be concrete information if it involves durable goods, or light-hearted cues if it involves convenience goods (Puccinelli et al., 2009).
In addition to the influence of involvement on the type of message, involvement also influences the way a consumer elaborates. When a consumer is looking at a low-involvement product, which can be described as products that are frequently bought with a minimal level of thought and effort, consumers are stated to be more responsive to promotional tools (Ndubisi and Moi, 2006). Additionally, consumers tend to have a limited information search and less precisely defined consideration sets in low-involvement product categories (Allenby and Ginter, 1995), which indicates a more superficial awareness and consideration process. The peripheral route to persuasion, with light-hearted cues on the display is therefore best suited when a manufacturer is trying to seduce the consumer into purchasing a low-involvement product (Petty et al., 2001). With high-involvement product categories, consumers put more effort in their information search (Chaudhuri, 2000), which indicates a more thorough awareness and consideration of a product. The reading time of a high-involved consumer will be higher and their will be more effort put in information processing (Pratkanis and Greenwald, 1993). When a consumer puts more effort in their information search, it is more likely that they uncover products, brands and information about products and brands that they would otherwise not be aware of (Chaudhuri, 2000), which provides opportunities for less well known brands and products. In the case of high-involvement products, a manufacturer can therefore best design a display to persuade the consumer via the central route to persuasion, using arguments and facts about objective features of the product (Petty et al., 2001). In addition to the type of product, being either high-involvement or low-involvement, the consumer's involvement in the awareness and consideration of a product triggered by displays is influenced by goals (Puccinelli et al., 2009). A consumer that has the goal of finding a product is more involved in finding the right product (Puccinelli et al., 2009).
Goal. The consumer's appreciation of the environment they are in can have different
fulfilling their goal, which blinds them for other point-of-sale stimuli (Pratkanis and Greenwald, 1993). Additionally, Chandon et al. (2008) state that consumers with a goal in mind think that a product with a prominent position in the store is more important and therefore considered as a better product to purchase, which makes displays important for consumers that have a goal during their shopping trip.
Displays also effect the consumer's in-store behaviour, because they gain interest of consumers that are highly promotion prone. Consumer that are highly promotion prone tend to be more influenced by displays than low promotion prone consumers. The degree of promotional proneness of a consumer has an influence on the effect of displays on the consumer's in-store behaviour.
Promotional proneness. Consumers can have a different proneness towards
display is therefore proven as a necessary promotional tool to gain the greatest product trial with high promotion prone consumers (Ndubisi and Moi, 2006). In addition to the consumer's degree of promotional proneness, the degree in which a consumer in familiar with a brand influences the consumer's in-store behaviour when it is exposed to a display.
Brand familiarity. When a consumer is at the store, wanting to purchase a product or
just browsing through the store, the consumer has brand preferences and familiarity with certain brands. The effectiveness of a display on the consumer's attention for a product and the awareness and consideration of a product will increase when the brand is already considered by the consumer in an earlier shopping trip, or when the consumer is familiar with a brand because of previous use of a product or brand (Chandon et al., 2008). The consumer will have a decreased search time when it is familiar with a brand, because information and exposure of irrelevant brands will not be elaborated (Pratkanis and Greenwald, 1993) and products of a brand that the consumer is familiar with will get attention more easily and the consumer will need less information or persuading cues in their deliberation process. In addition, Buchanan et al. (1999) have shown that consumers perceive products that have a prominent position in a store or at a display as more important brands that will have an increased possibility of being considered. Which indicates that if products are placed in displays more often, the consumer will be more familiar with the brand.
In addition to the consumer's degree of involvement, the consumer's shopping goal, degree of promotional proneness and brand familiarity, a consumer's in-store behaviour as a response to displays is influenced by the consumer's mood during a shopping trip.
Conclusion. The degree of consumer involvement, shopping goal, the degree of
promotional proneness, brand familiarity and the consumer's mood are consumer characteristics that are indicated to influence the effect of a display on the consumer's in-store behaviour. When a consumer is exposed to a display containing products of a self-relevant, hedonic product category, the consumer characteristics mentioned in this paragraph have different effects. The effects of these variables will be addressed below accompanied by the corresponding hypotheses. First, the consumer characteristics addressed in this paragraph are added to the conceptual model presented earlier in figure 4.
Figure 5. The influence of consumer characteristics on the effect of displays on a consumer's in-store behaviour
Consumers that are interested in purchasing a self-relevant, hedonic product, are mostly low-involved consumers. Low-low-involved consumers are indicated to respond to light-hearted cues in point-of-purchase materials in comparison to highly involved consumers that respond better to arguments and information about the self-relevant, hedonic product. Relatively high-involved consumers are therefore expected to respond more positive to a display with high informative stimuli.
H4 Consumers are relatively low-involved with self-relevant, hedonic products and are therefore more influenced by displays with high visual stimulation and low informative stimulation.
H5b Consumers that are relatively low involved with self-relevant, hedonic products are influenced more by displays with high visual stimuli.
When consumers are shopping with a defined shopping goal of purchasing a certain product, the consumer is not open to the environment it is in. Consumers that have a highly defined goal are therefore less interested in displays and will not be effected by it even if they like the display. Additionally, the degree of goal directed search does not influence the choice of which display the consumer likes or dislikes.
H6 The degree of goal-directed search of a consumer does not have a significant influence on the choice to like or dislike a display.
H7 Consumers with a highly defined goal will be less influenced by the appearance of a display to purchase a product from a display.
The degree of promotional proneness is expected to have a positive relation with the effect of displays on in-store behaviour. But a highly promotional prone consumer is attracted by a display irrespective of the appearance of the display. It is therefore expected that a highly promotional prone consumer's in-store behaviour is influenced evenly by displays with different characteristics.
When a consumer is highly promotion prone, it is more likely that the consumer's attention for displays will be influenced. It is therefore more important to expose highly promotional prone consumers to displays with high visual stimuli, because it will easily grab there attention. On the other hand, highly promotional prone consumers are expected to respond to displays irrespective of their appearance, because these consumers see a sales promotion or discount instead of publicity for a product when they look at displays. Consumers with low promotional proneness will feel less attracted to displays and will therefore pay less attention to a display.
H8 The in-store behaviour of a highly promotional prone consumer will be less influenced by the appearance of a display compared to low promotional prone consumers.
H9 Consumers with high brand familiarity prefer displays that contain high informative stimuli.
The last consumer characteristic that influences the effect of displays on the consumer's in-store behaviour is the consumer's mood. When a consumer is in a good mood, the effect of displays on consumer behaviour is expected to be more positive than when a consumer is in a bad mood. This influence is indicated in this paragraph, but will not be researched in this thesis. The available resources for this research are not sufficient to examine the influence of the consumer's mood in this framework.
2.4 Environment characteristics
The store environment is indicated to influence the effect of displays on the consumer's in-store behaviour. Two characteristics of the environment that influence this effect are atmospherics and direct comparability. The consumer can sense the store atmosphere through visual dimensions being colour, brightness, size and shape; the aural dimension through volume and pitch; the olfactory dimensions through scent and freshness; and the tactile dimensions through softness, smoothness and temperature (Kotler, 1973-1974). The other environment characteristic that influences the effect of displays on the consumer's in-store behaviour is direct comparability. Consumers that are confronted with a display do not have the possibility to compare products presented to them directly, which influences the consumer's in-store behaviour. Further influences of the environment characteristics will be addressed in this paragraph.
more positive influence on sales compared to fast music (Soars, 2009). If consumers at the store feel relaxed because the music played does not rush them, they will spend more time at a store and brows through the store, which influences the amount of time spend on displays at the store. Another dimension of sense in an in-store environment is the olfactory dimension. Spangenberg et al. (1996) stated that aromatic marketing influences can positively effect consumer in-store behaviour. Additionally, Soars (2009) presents that scents can have a positive influence on the consumer's purchase intentions, which increases if the scent is adjusted to the gender of the consumer. The last sense, triggered by atmospherics, that influences the consumer's in-store behaviour is the tactile dimension, which has a great influence on consumers' decision making and behaviour in an in-store environment (Soars, 2009). If consumers have the opportunity to touch the products presented to them, they will be more willing to purchase a product. Additionally, displays trigger consumers to touch the products presented to them, because the consumer's attention is grabbed. This makes the combination of displays and the tactile dimension a positive influences on the consumer's in-store behaviour and willingness to purchase (Baker et al., 1992).
Conclusion. According to the academic literature, atmospherics and direct
comparability are characteristics of the environment that influence the consumer's in-store behaviour when a consumer is exposed to displays at the store. The environment characteristics are added to the model shown in figure 6.
Figure 6. The influence of environment characteristics
Atmospherics are subjective and consumers will respond differently to certain characteristics of the atmosphere they are in. In can be stated, that atmospherics will have a positive influence on the consumer's in-store behaviour when the consumer defines the atmosphere as a pleasant atmosphere and therefore a pleasant environment to be. Atmospherics have a wide scope of influences on the consumer at the store, but the influences all have an impact on the consumer's decision to approach or avoid a certain environment. This leads to the ability of the consumer to look at a display, or that it means that they avoid the environment and will not have the opportunity to be exposed to the display at the store. Consumers will choose stores to purchase their products based on the atmosphere. A store environment where the consumer is familiar will be seen as a pleasant environment and will therefore have a positive effect on the influence of displays on their in-store behaviour.
H10 Consumers are influenced more by displays in a familiar store environment.
The second environment characteristic is direct comparability. This variable influences consumer's behaviour through the extent in which a consumer can compare alternative products. If the environment is designed that the display is not located near the shelf where
the products of the exposed product's category is located, the consumer will not have the possibility to compare products directly, which influences the consumer's in-store behaviour. When it comes to self-relevant, hedonic products, it can be indicated that consumers will look at the brand and differentiated characteristics of the product, which makes the absence of direct comparability a positive influence. Displays of high-tire brands of self-relevant, hedonic products can best be located further away from the shelve to have a greater influence on the consumer's in-store behaviour.
H11 Consumers shopping for self-relevant, hedonic products prefer displays that are located further away from the shelve that presents similar products.
2.5 Conceptual framework
In the first four paragraphs of this chapter, the consumer's in-store behaviour, display characteristics, consumer characteristics and environment characteristics are addressed. In the end of every paragraph, a model containing all addressed characteristics, a conclusion and corresponding hypotheses are presented. In the figure below, figure 7, the complete conceptual model will be presented.
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH DESIGN
In chapter three, the explanation of the research design of this research will be addressed. Additionally, an overview of the different ways of conducting research according to Malhotra (2004) will be addressed in appendix 1.
In this research, both exploratory research and a single cross-sectional research will be conducted (Malhotra, 2004). The exploratory research is conducted in chapter two, to get a better insight in the effect of displays on the consumer's in-store behaviour, addressing the variables influencing this effect. In a single cross-sectional research, the hypotheses presented earlier in chapter two will be tested. The research method, population and sample, method of data collection and the plan of analysis will be addressed further on in this chapter.
3.1 Research method
In this research, both secondary data and primary data are used. Secondary data is data that has already been collected for another purpose than the problem at hand and primary data is data that is originated by the researcher for the specific purpose of addressing the problem at hand (Malhotra, 2004). In this research, secondary data from books and academic literature will be used for exploratory research and primary data will be obtained by an online questionnaire for descriptive research. The problem at hand in this case, is the effect of displays on a consumer's in-store behaviour in self-relevant, hedonic product categories. This problem will be tested in an online survey using company X's shampoo brand brand X as a case study. Because obtaining primary data can be expensive and time consuming, an online questionnaire is used to obtain data. In the next paragraph, the population and sample of this research will be addressed.
3.2 Population and sample
3.3 Data collection
The exploratory research was conducted in chapter two. Information from academic literature and books was used to get an insight in the effect of displays on the consumer's in-store behaviour and the variables influencing this effect. The data obtained for this exploratory research can be defined as published secondary data (Malhotra, 2004). The obtained information is used to define the relations between the addressed variables and added to the conceptual model. The completed conceptual model was presented earlier in figure 7. Additionally, several hypotheses defining the expected relations between the variables in the model were presented in chapter two.
For the descriptive research, quantitative secondary data is obtained through an online survey. Quantitative data seeks to quantify the data and applies some format of statistical analysis (Malhotra, 2004). In this research, the presented hypotheses will be tested through statistical analysis of the data obtained by the online survey.
Online survey. Online surveys have several positive and several negative characteristics. Positive characteristics are the flexibility of obtaining data from respondents, the ability to focus on a certain segment of the population, the variety of questions that can be asked to find intergroup differences and the ability to use physical stimuli (Malhotra, 2004). In this questionnaire, females of sixteen years and older are addressed and images of different displays and displays in different environments are used as physical stimuli throughout the questionnaire. But there are also negative characteristics of online surveys. The questionnaire is posted on several internet websites and can be filled in by any person that finds it, which can be a limitation of the obtained data. Additionally, the researcher has to rely on the respondent's self-report, which can be a limitation of the data, because there is a gap between the answers given by respondents and the actual behaviour (Malhotra, 2004). The third negative characteristic of online surveys is that questions can be poorly phrased or samples can be biased.
Additionally, multiple choice questions about the respondents' favourite drug store and shopping related multiple choice questions are added to the questionnaire.
The consumer characteristics, being involvement, goal, promotional proneness and brand familiarity, are questioned through a 7-point Likert scale. The variable mood will not be examined further in the descriptive research, because it is not possible to test the consumer's mood during an online questionnaire. The Likert scale, used in questioning, is an itemized rating scale, that is defined as a non-comparative scale. The Likert scale requires the respondents to indicate a degree of agreement or disagreement with statements about the variables (Malhotra, 2004).
There are several other questions that are asked to the respondents in the online survey. These questions are asked to obtain more information on the demographics of the respondents, but they are also meant to obtain more information for company X, because their products are used in this research.
Design of the questionnaire. The questionnaire is designed to give insight in the effect of displays on the consumer's in-store behaviour in self-relevant, hedonic product categories and to test the hypotheses based on academic literature. All variables and their relations mentioned in the conceptual model will be addressed in specific questions in the questionnaire. An overview of the variables with corresponding questions is presented in appendix 2. The full questionnaire is presented in appendix 3.
The questionnaire is build up in several parts. First there is a short introduction on the content of the questionnaire. This introduction exists of an explanation of the aim of this research, a simple definition of displays, two pictures of displays and information on the time spend on filling in the questionnaire. The second part of the questionnaire exists of light-hearted questions about the consumer's hair type, knowledge of the shampoo product category and knowledge of the different brands in the shampoo product category. These first two parts of the questionnaire are meant to introduce the respondent to the topic of this questionnaire. The third part of the questionnaire exists of questions on the variables that are the basis of this research; the display characteristics and the consumer's in-store behaviour. First, the respondent will get to see three pictures of displays. These three displays, presented below in figure 9, are developed for this research to test the effects of different informative and visual stimuli. The three displays are designed based on the findings from academic literature presented in chapter two. The three displays differ in the degree of informative stimuli and visual stimuli, shown in figure 8.
Informative stimuli Visual stimuli
Display 1 Low High
Display 2 Medium Low
Display 3 High Medium
Display one has a high degree of visual stimuli with a model and a pack shot of the product displayed on it. The degree of informative stimuli is low on this display, because the amount of information is small and the given information is rather subjective. Display two has a low degree of visual stimuli because it only shows the pack shots of the product range and there is no model displayed. The degree of informative stimuli on this display is medium, because of the small amount of rather objective information presented to the consumer. The third display has a medium degree of visual stimuli; there is a model on the display, but there are no pack shots of the product in question presented and a lot of space on the display is used for presenting information. This corresponds with the high degree of informative stimuli on this display. A large part of the display is used to present objective information and facts about the product to the consumer.
Figure 9. The three displays presented to the respondents of this research.
After seeing the pictures of the three displays, the consumers are asked several questions about how the display influence their behaviour in a constant sum design where the respondent has to divide hundred points over the three displays. One question is asked about the awareness, two questions are asked about attention, consideration and purchase. In the end of this part of the questionnaire, the respondent is asked to choose the display that would be of greatest influence on their in-store behaviour.
These store environments are three pictures of well known drug stores in the Netherlands, being the DA drogist, Etos and Kruidvat. The respondent is asked to divide hundred points per question over the three pictures. The four questions asked are about the influence of the store environment on the effect of the display on their in-store behaviour. The images shown to the respondents that chose display one is presented below in figure 10.
Figure 10. The three store environments presented to the respondents of this research.
Secondly, the display chosen by the respondent is placed in two different situations. In one situation, the display is located next to the drug store's haircare shelf, in the second image, the display is located far away from the drug store's haircare shelf. After presenting the images of the two situations, four questions about the influence of these two situations on the consumer's in-store behaviour are asked in a constant sum design, to measure the influence of direct comparability.
Figure 11. The two in-store situations presented to the respondents of this research.
questions. The last question of these five questions is asked as a control question for the variable atmospherics. The last questions of this part of the questionnaire are about the knowledge of the brand in question, brand X.
The last part of this questionnaire consists of demographic questions, in which one is a gender question, to check if the respondent is female. The last question of this questionnaire is an other question about the respondent's hair type.
Before distributing the questionnaire, the questionnaire has been pretested among female friends and family to adjust shortcomings and rephrase questions that were unclear. This pretest was also conducted to prevent problems during the collection of the actual data used for this research.
3.4 Plan of analysis
To analyse the results of the questionnaire, statistical methods are used. SPSS 17.0 will be used to do the analysis. First, the results are described to get some basic information from the data. Afterwords, the results from multiple questions measuring one variable are analysed on internal consistency reliability, to see if they can be combined into one variable. The last part of the data analysis consists of testing the hypotheses presented in chapter two. For the hypotheses testing, several statistical techniques are used. In the next chapter, the results of the hypothesis testing will be presented.
Descriptive statistics. The results from the questionnaire are analysed per question to see if there are remarkable outcomes. As mentioned earlier, some questions are asked for the purpose of this research and other questions are added to the questionnaire to collect information for brand X. In chapter four, descriptive statistics of the questions that describe the respondents of this research will be addressed. The data from the other questions will be addressed in hypothesis testing. The descriptive statistics of all questions of the questionnaire are presented in appendix 6.
