Guided by the nose: Impact of olfactory cues on consumers’ purchase behavior in food products

ABSTRACT Sensory marketing, affecting consumers’ perception and behavior via our five senses, has gained a foothold in recent decades both in academia and among practitioners. If vision and audition dominated earlier research, more space is now given for olfaction (smell), gustation (taste), and touch. Despite the increasing research into olfaction and marketing, the link between a sensory stimulus (smell) and its impact on consumer behavior has remained unclear. This thesis seeks to fill this knowledge gap. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the impact of olfactory cues on consumer behavior. Since research is limited in retailing, yet the potential use in practice is vast, the thesis is positioned in a retailing context. The study contributes to the sensory marketing research, utilizing the theory of consumer behavior. In contrast with earlier studies into atmospherics, this thesis focuses on fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG)—food products, in particular. The thesis at hand consists of three scientific publications, each answering a specific research question. The first article studies the potential impact of olfactory cues on actual purchase behavior. It adopts a novel category management approach, addressing potential spill-over and cannibalization impacts on spatially-related product categories. This article sets the premises for subsequent articles by confirming that the presence of an olfactory cue has an impact on consumers’ purchase behavior with no significant cannibalization effect. The findings also suggest that a tight congruence between a scent and targeted products fosters the sales impact, enabling the intra-category guidance of purchase decisions. The findings from the first article provide a catalyst for studying in more detail what the optimal scope is for olfactory marketing. The second article investigates the impact when targeting a single product versus a product category, utilizing theories of selective attention and differentiation (single product), alongside attribute similarity and processing fluency (product category). The findings indicate that both single product and product-category sales can be boosted with a common categorycongruent scent that is easy to process and identify. While the first and second articles focus on scents and their targets, the third article of the thesis focuses on the consumer as a processor of scents. The article investigates whether all consumers are equally prone to the impact of olfactory cues. The article builds upon theories of consumer characteristics and their effects on olfactory abilities. Characteristics include gender and age, and also psychological traits, which have received less attention in the sensory marketing literature. The operationalization of these traits was carried out with the consumer decision-making style (CDMS) literature. The results indicate that consumer characteristics moderate the effectiveness of olfactory cues on purchase behavior. Thus, the results help us to understand the somewhat contradictory results in the earlier scarce literature on olfactory cues and their behavioral impact. The contribution of the three articles is complemented with a broad theoretical review in this compilation, with further emphasis on food-product marketing. The total contribution to the field of sensory marketing is presented as a theoretical framework of olfactory marketing on consumer behavior. In contrast to previous models that have described sensory marketing in general, the framework acknowledges the specifics of olfaction versus other senses and describes the path to actual behavior instead of mere attitudes and intentions. In a novel way, the framework is the first to address how consumers’ individual characteristics partially dictate the impact on their behavior. Methodologically, this thesis carries a novelty value, as all of the experiments were conducted in real shopping environments as opposed to laboratories, utilizing large datasets, and relying on a vast number of observations. Quantitative data and analysis is in the lead role, yet it has been complemented with qualitative support. From a managerial perspective, the thesis encourages retailers and marketers to implement scents as an effective sales promotion tool. Scents can be regarded as a powerful marketing tool thanks to the broad implementation possibilities, demonstrated in this thesis, in the world of retailing. KEYWORDS: sensory marketing, olfactory cues, purchase behavior, FMCG, food products, retailing, in-store marketingTIIVISTELMÄ Aistimarkkinointi – kuluttajiin vaikuttaminen viiden aistimme kautta – on kasvattanut viime vuosikymmeninä suosiotaan niin akateemisessa tutkimuksessa kuin käytännön markkinoinnissakin. Näkö- ja kuulohavaintoihin pohjaava markkinointi oli aiemmin valtavirtaa, mutta nyt haju- maku- ja tuntoaisti ovat nousseet kiinnostuksen keskiöön. Vaikka hajuaistiin ja markkinointiin liittyvää tutkimusta on kertynyt, linkki aistihavainnon (tuoksu) ja kuluttajan käytöksen välillä on puuttunut. Käsillä oleva tutkielma pyrkii tilkitsemään tämän tutkimusaukon. Tutkielman tarkoitus on tutkia tuoksujen vaikutusta kuluttajakäytökseen. Tutkimus sijoittuu vähittäiskaupan kontekstiin, josta aiempaa tuoksumarkkinoinnin tutkimusta on kertynyt niukasti, huolimatta laajoista soveltamismahdollisuuksista. Väitöskirja edistää ja laajentaa aistimarkkinoinnin tutkimuskenttää ammentaen kuluttajakäytöksen teoriaa. Aiemmista tutkimuksista poiketen, tämä tutkielma keskittyy FMCG-tuotteisiin (fast-moving consumer goods), tarkemmin ottaen ruokatuotteisiin. Käsillä oleva tutkielma koostuu kolmesta tieteellisestä julkaisusta, joista kukin vastaa spesifiin tutkimuskysymykseen. Ensimmäinen artikkeli käsittelee hajuaistiärsykkeiden (tuoksujen) mahdollista vaikutusta kuluttajien ostokäyttäytymiseen. Artikkeli hyödyntää tuoteryhmäjohtamisen (category management) teoriaa, huomioiden mahdollisen positiivisen (spill-over) ja negatiivisen (cannibalization) myyntivaikutuksen vierustuoteryhmiin. Tämä artikkeli luo pohjan seuraaville artikkeleille, sillä se vahvistaa tuoksuilla olevan selkeä vaikutus kuluttajien ostokäyttäytymiseen, ilman merkittävää negatiivista vaikutusta (cannibalization) muihin tuoteryhmiin. Lisäksi tutkimus osoittaa, että kongruenssi tuoksun ja kohteena olevien tuotteiden välillä vahvistaa positiivista myyntivaikutusta. Tämä mahdollistaa ostokäyttäytymisen ohjaamisen tuoteryhmän sisällä. Ensimmäisen artikkelin löydökset toimivat katalyyttina seuraavalle artikkelille, kannustaen tutkimaan tarkemmin, mikä on optimaalinen tapa ja laajuus kohdentaa tuoksumarkkinointia. Toinen artikkeli selvittää tuoksumarkkinoinnin vaikutusta ostokäyttäytymiseen, kun kohteena on joko yksittäinen tuote tai kokonainen tuoteryhmä. Tutkimus hyödyntää valikoivan huomion ja differoinnin teorioita (yksittäinen tuote) sekä toisaalta ominaisuuden samankaltaisuutta ja prosessoinnin sujuvuutta kuvaavia teorioita (tuoteryhmä) tuoksua ja sen kohdetta valittaessa. Tulokset osoittavat, että oli myyntivaikutteisen tuoksumarkkinoinnin kohteena yksittäinen tuote tai kokonainen tuoteryhmä, optimaalinen tuoksu on helposti tunnistettava, koko tuoteryhmää kuvaava tuoksu. Kolmas artikkeli kääntää huomion tuoksuista ja niiden kohteista kuluttajiin tuoksujen käsittelijöinä ja tulkitsijoina. Artikkeli selvittää, ovatko kaikki kuluttajat yhtä alttiita tuoksumarkkinoinnin vaikutukselle. Teoriapohjanaan se hyödyntää kuluttajien yksilöllisten piirteiden yhteyttä hajuaistiin liittyviin kykyihin. Näihin piirteisiin kuuluvat fysiologiset tekijät ikä ja sukupuoli, mutta myös psykologiset piirteet, joita aiempi aistimarkkinoinnin tutkimus ei juurikaan ole käsitellyt. Psykologisten piirteiden mallintamisessa artikkeli käyttää kuluttajien päätöksentekokirjallisuutta (consumer decision-making styles, CDMSs). Tutkimustulosten perusteella kuluttajan fysiologiset ja psykologiset ominaisuudet yhdessä vaikuttavat siihen, miten herkästi kuluttaja reagoi tuoksumarkkinointiin ostokäyttäytymisellään. Näin ollen tulokset auttavat osaltaan ymmärtämään, miksi aiempi tutkimustieto tuoksumarkkinoinnin vaikutuksesta kuluttajakäyttäytymiseen on ollut ristiriitaista. Kolmen artikkelin muodostama teoreettinen kokonaisuus täydentyy käsillä olevan kompilaation teoriakatsauksella, joka syventää mm. ruokatuotteiden markkinointia artikkeleita pidemmälle. Väitöskirjan tieteellinen kontribuutio esitetään kompilaatiossa viitekehyksenä, joka kuvaa tuoksujen vaikutusta kuluttajakäyttäytymiseen. Aiemmista aistimarkkinoinnin malleista poiketen, tämän väitöskirjan viitekehys on räätälöity tuoksumarkkinointia varten, huomioiden hajuaistin erityispiirteet ja kuvaillen vaikutusketjua varsinaiseen kuluttajakäyttäytymiseen saakka, pelkkien aikomusten ja asenteiden sijaan. Myös kuluttajan yksilöllisten piirteiden huomioiminen ostokäyttäytymistä selittävänä on uutta aistitutkimuksen kentässä. Tutkimusmetodologisesti käsillä oleva väitöskirja poikkeaa aisti- ja laajemminkinmarkkinoinnin valtavirtatutkimuksesta, sillä koeasetelmat on toteutettu aidoissa kuluttajaympäristöissä laboratorioiden sijaan, runsasta dataa hyödyntäen. Analyysi on kvantitatiivispainotteinen, ja kvalitatiivista dataa sekä analyysia on käytetty tukiroolissa. Tutkielma kannustaa vähittäiskauppaa ja markkinoijia ottamaan tuoksut käyttöön tehokkaana myynninedistämiskeinona. Tuoksuja voikin pitää vaikuttavana markkinointitapana, sillä – kuten tämä tutkielma osoittaa –tuoksumarkkinoinnin käyttömahdollisuudet vähittäiskaupassa ovat laajat ja lupaavat. ASIASANAT: aistimarkkinointi, tuoksut, ostokäyttäytyminen, FMCG, ruokatuotteet, vähittäiskauppa, kuluttajakäyttäytymine

Effekte semantischer Kongruenz olfaktorischer und visueller Stimuli auf die Wahrnehmung von Produkten: Eine implizite und explizite Herangehensweise

The thesis focused on advancing the cross-modal research, in particular on the usage of scent in product packages,using implicit and explicit approaches. The implicit approach using an IAT is new in sensory marketing and has never been used before. It proved to be a good method to measure semantic congruence of cross-modal stimuli. Study 2 and 3 use an explicit approach. The results show that the usage of a semantic congruent scent on a product package can enhance purchase intention in comparison to a package without a scent

Retirement on the Line: Age, Work, and Value in an American Factory

[Excerpt] The motivations for and experiences of working in retirement are varied and contradictory. This book explores what work means for people in the United States who are of conventional retirement age. To examine issues of aging, work, meaning, and purpose, I focus on Vita Needle Company, a family-owned factory that produces stainless steel needles in the Boston suburb of Needham. As of this writing, in May 2011, the median age of the roughly forty production floor employees is 74 and the eldest is Rosa Finnegan, a 99-year-old former waitress who joined the factory when she was 85. As a cultural anthropologist, I immersed myself in life at Vita Needle for nearly five years (more intensively in some years than in others) in order to learn what, on top of a paycheck, Vita Needle provides its employees. The story I tell is based on interviews but also on my own work on the shop floor. The distinctive research method of cultural anthropology is participant observation : we immerse ourselves in the societies we study in order to understand experiences and meaning-making from an insider\u27s perspective. Sometimes we study our own societies, sometimes societies quite foreign to us, but even when we study our own, we remain outsiders and can never fully access an insider viewpoint. Though as anthropologists we can get quite close, and we use research methods and narrative techniques to bring out the insider perspectives, our stories always reflect our own priorities and perspectives that come from our personal biographies and professional positions. I was drawn into Vita Needle and became part of the story itself, and so these pages include my personal reflections on the complexity of a research design that required my own immersion in order to explore lives and dreams and situate them within the context of a broader analysis. It is my hope that readers will discover as much about their own views on aging and retirement as they do about people at Vita Needle

Personal archaeology : an autoethnographic illumination of a late-blooming feminist artist

Originally seeking personal healing and restoration of balance in life through artistic expression and the creative process, I am enlightened by female precedents and empowered by their work and my own process. An aesthetic sisterhood with a twelfth century visionary, Hildegard of Bingen, informs the content and composition of my art work and provides a model of feminine power. Some connections relating Hildegard’s writings and circular compositions in her illuminations to contemporary global ecumenical, ecological, and feminist understandings are explored. Through Judy Chicago’s writings about The Dinner Party and Paula Harper’s history of the founding of the First Feminine Art Program, I discover a connection to the broader culture and the feminist movement, realizing that my own struggles with weight and body-image are related to the subordination of women in a male dominant culture. The resulting exhibition of art work is in three sections. The first part consists of five large works of construction-grade wall compound applied to plywood panels, imprinted with natural objects as well as patterned and textured materials found in “typical” women’s work. Embedded in the compound are images and messages cut from my food packaging. Paint and stain are added to the surfaces. The second phase of art work is a set of three life-size pastel drawings on brown butcher paper exploring my distorted perception of body image making use of the creative therapy of body-outline drawing. Finally, a triptych of mixed media collages, also life-sized and on various papers, explores the concept of “You Are What You Eat” by using personal food packaging to create images of anatomical systems, again using my actual body outline and the circle. Through autoethnography, a form of arts-based research, I discover that I am a microcosm of the macrocosm of present-day woman’s obsession with dieting and body image and I seek to offer personal insights to challenge outdated beliefs and stereotypes. Further, I come to believe that women’s weight and body-image struggles are rooted in the logical, analytical, linear thinking and design of the dominant culture which is hindering the attainment of gender equality. By allowing myself to consider a personal cosmology inspired by “Other” and pre-patriarchal worldviews, I embrace a cyclical notion of time and a more holistic daily existence. I achieve a sense of balance and empowerment and hope to share this illumination through the exhibition of my art and through my writing and teaching. The artist, researcher, and teacher are roles through which there are implications for further inquiry. Future directions for my art practice include three-dimensional, tape-cast body outlines of self and the use of wall compound as a way of casting positive relief imagery into paper-pulp and clay. Research avenues include ecological concerns in art with particular interest in sustainability--using trash and recycling in place of more traditional art materials. Directions of inquiry for the teacher include designing units to encourage problem-solving and discovery using unconventional, no or low cost materials such as personal trash. More in-depth study of Hildegard of Bingen’s prescriptive uses of plants and other natural objects for balance and healing is of interest. New insights into the differences between the dominant, patriarchal structure of school and the classroom will help me as the teacher to be sensitive to and accommodate the feminine, Native (as one third of my students are members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians), and all “Other” cultural values when they conflict. Also, encouragement to young women to research and use historical precedents in their own art work will help empower them and make progress toward gender equality. Lastly, communicating that the creation of art can be a therapeutic practice for individuals and communities is of value

Aging and Fermentation as Adaptive Food Management Strategies in the Arctic

This dissertation is composed of three papers: one published article, one article under review for publication, and one published commentary. Chapter 1 provides an introduction to the dissertation as a whole – a work that investigates food aging and fermentation techniques in an indigenous Yup’ik Alaskan community, proposes an adaptive explanation for these strategies in the circumpolar north, and explores the potential importance of them cross-culturally and evolutionarily. Chapter 2 is a paper that describes the seal poke storage system – an indigenous food preservation and storage technique that Yup’ik Alaskans used to manage food security up until approximately one generation ago. Chapter 3 is a detailed study of ninamayuk – an indigenous Yup’ik food that involves processing and preservation techniques that are exemplary of the strategy adopted throughout the North American and Eurasian arctic and subarctic to ensure annual food security. Chapter 4 briefly summarizes an article published in Current Anthropology on indigenous aged and fermented foods in the Bering Strait region to which the published commentary (Chapter 5) is in response. Chapter 6 elaborates on the main points made in the commentary. Chapter 7 links the previous chapters to the findings in the papers of Chapter 2 and, particularly, Chapter 3 with its broader implications for understanding the evolution of the human diet. Chapter 8 discusses the implications of this research for the direction of future work in the field of Anthropology; specifically, the importance of continued ethnographic work and experimental archaeology with contemporary indigenous communities and the potential contribution of this for developing theories about prehistoric human dietary practices and modern-day diet-related health problems

Influences of Contexts on Consumers\u27 Visual Attention towards Food Images: Eye-tracking Studies

Food perception is influenced not only by sensory properties of the food itself, but also by individuals- or environment-related contexts. Visual cue appears to be the most dominant factor in modulating food perception. This research aimed to determine whether individuals\u27 visual attention towards food images can vary as a function of contextual variables such as hunger/fullness (Chapter 3), chronic stress (Chapter 4), and culture (Chapter 5). In Chapter 3 and Chapter 4, participants were asked to freely view visual slides, including four different images per slide, shown on the monitor. Using eye-tracking techniques, participants\u27 visual attention towards food images (e.g., high- and low-calorie food images) was compared either between fasted and fed states (Chapter 3) or between high and lows level of chronic stress (Chapter 4). Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 showed that participants\u27 visual attention towards the food images were increased when they were hungry or highly stressed compared to when they were satiated or mildly stressed. In Chapter 5, North American and Chinese participants were asked to view pictures of food menu with varying saliency level of background contexts. Chinese participants, in comparison to American participants, were more attentive to the background contexts. By contrast, American participants focused more on the food image than Chinese counterparts. However, the culture-induced visual attention to the food image disappeared when the pictures of foods which were surrounded by medium and high levels of background saliency were presented. Our findings provide empirical evidence that visual attention towards food images can be changed by contextual factors including hunger/fullness, chronic stress, and culture. Furthermore, this thesis suggests that the eye-tracking technique can be applied to measure the reducing effect of food products on individuals\u27 hunger

Implant-prosthetic therapy failure in smoker and nonsmoker patients

Introduction: Implant-prosthetic therapy has predictable success, and the complications are associated with a lot of factors. Smoking cigarettes is reason for different oral diseases, bone loss, loss of soft tissue and teeth, appearance of periimplantitis and implant loss. The corellation of smoking and implant-prosthetic therapy failure was examined in the clinical study. Materials and method: Fifty patients with FDP on 61 implants in frontal and molar region were investigated. They were divided in two groups: smokers and nonsmokers. Thirty four patients were smokers, and sixteen didn’t smoke cigarettes in the last two years. Criteria data for the success of the therapy were mobility of the implant, pain, peri-implant bone loss higher than 1.5 mm, absence of technical complications and function and aesthetics appeal. Control checkups were made after six months, one and two years. Patients had questionnaires, clinical examination and X-ray. Results: There is a statistically significant difference between smokers and nonsmokers in the failure rates of dental implants. During first year 0,5 mm of bone was lost around eleven implants, and 0,05 mm next years.Total seven implants failed, five in smoker group at the beginning of the first year, and 2 in nonsmoker group during second year. Conclusion: Results showed that smoking habit can increase the risk of early implants loss two times more often in smokers. For some complications like periimplantitis, local factors have greater influence. Smoking does not increase the risk of late implant loss, but the implants at patients with smoking habit, in correlation with several different local risk factors, is contraindicated. Early complications are results of smoking, while quality and quantity of surrounding bone are responsible for late complications.The results from the investigation, also give informations for proper treatment planning, and patient education for quiting their harmfull habit. Keywords Implants, therapy failure, smoking, periimplantitis

A Whole Woman Strategy and Action Plan to Raise National Awareness About Osteoporosis

The University of Maine Center on Aging, in partnership with the Maine Center for Osteoporosis Research and Education, was one of three grantees taking part in a U.S. Administration on Aging-funded project to develop a national osteoporosis awareness and action plan targeting postmenopausal womenThe University of Maine Center on Aging’s portion of the research entailed several phases of activity. Initially, focus groups were conducted with 147 ethnically and racially diverse older women around the country (Maine, New York, Pennsylvania, California, and Kansas) to determine where older women obtain their health information, what they consider reliable and unreliable informational sources, and where they’ve gotten information in the past that has resulted in changes in their health behavior. The second phase focused on researching existing osteoporosis education programs and previous or ongoing campaigns to ascertain what programmatic elements have been most and least effective. Phase three entailed obtaining feedback from 13 focus groups with 122 ethnically and racially diverse older women around the country (California, Illinois, Georgia, Maine, and New York), concerning mock brochures, graphics, and messages for the campaign as well as ideas about spokespeople and promotional items.The report concludes by making a series of recommendations for implementing a nation osteoporosis education program based on the data gathered through the three research phases