Felt something, hence it works: Merely adding a sensory signal to a product improves objective measures of product efficacy and product evaluations

Abstract

Product efficacy is an important driver of product evaluation and product usage. This research examines how marketers can improve perceived and actual product efficacy. Given the managerial ease of adjusting product design, we demonstrate that adding a sensory signal (e.g., tingling, cooling, fizzing) to a product that promises positive outcomes would improve product evaluations and actual product efficacy. In five studies (and two additional studies reported in the Web Appendix), we show that sensory signaling (vs. nonsignaling) products elicit actual product choice and improve product evaluations, repurchase likelihood, recommendation likelihood, as well as objective measures of product efficacy (such as consumer performance). This occurs because the sensory signals make consumers feel a greater transfer of benefits to the body during product usage. We further demonstrate that the effect holds even when persuasion knowledge is activated. Together, this research provides important insights on product designs that benefit not only marketers but also consumers.