Studying the subconscious

Daniel Blatt is SVP, research services, at Q Research Solutions, Old Bridge, N.J. Michelle Niedziela is scientific director at HCD Research, Flemington, N.J.

The introduction of applied consumer neuroscience in consumer product research is a relatively new yet rapidly growing field. The need for understanding the emotional responses in sensory and consumer studies has become more and more frequent and necessary in the last 10 years. 

When a consumer approaches a product on shelf, she may pop open the top to sniff it. Does she like it? Probably; it was a well-designed fragrance. But is that enough to drive purchase? And when consumers experience a product, they do so five-dimensionally via the five sensory systems: taste, touch, sound, sight and smell. Each of these senses becomes an opportunity for communication of a product’s concept, branding and even higher-order benefits (such as stress relief, moisturization, etc.). These sensory communications become part of the overall product and brand messaging as well. The product experience is more than just a hedonic experience; there is also an emotional and functional experience which must be considered. 

It is important to assure there is alignment of product sensory attributes with brand and product concepts to ensure a positive and cohesive product experience. For example, the emotional qualities of the fragrance should be aligned with the emotional communications of the package, the brand and the advertising. In addition to understanding how much consumers like a product, we also need to assess attributes such as feeling comforted, energized, refreshed, happy, etc., to understand if the product will meet all the needs of the consumer beyond liking. When these pieces are not cohesive, it can contribute to consumer dissatisfaction and negatively impact consumer liking.

What is well-liked and why

Product research traditionally assesses explicit – conscious and deliberate – reactions to stimuli, providing useful information for product development about what is well-liked and why. While extremely valuable, some research disciplines have advanced beyond explicit methods to try and understand consumer subconscious reactions, those that the consumer may not even fully appreciate yet influence many of their behaviors. For example, the field of advertising research has been an early adopter of applied consumer neuroscience, which measures the physiological response to stimuli, to understand these System 1, subconscious reactions.

In a study using traditional explicit methodology for consumer product research, participants provide their opinion of the smell or taste using a rating scale or a check-all-that-apply attribute list. The consumer responds to how they feel about the product, as a considered answer with time allowed to construct and rationalize their opinions. Yet we know that emotions occur quicker than our cognitive system, so valuable data is likely not captured. Using applied consumer neuroscience, we can measure how the brain reacts in the fractions of a second after fragrance exposure, possibly giving new insights into the consumer’s emotions and future purchase behavior.

Could product testing adapt applied consumer neuroscience and get a deeper understanding of emotions and help guide product and concept development? Would the non-cognitive responses provide valuable additional insights for development of product concepts and features and help provide predictions about buying behavior? 

Q Research Solutions (Q) wanted to examine the value of incorporating neuroscientific measurements in consumer product research and so conducted a study employing neuro-physiological measurement to see if and how the neuro-physiological testing would result in enhanced emotional profiles, better understanding of consumer preferences and subsequently provide better guidance for product development. The questions which the study explored were: 1) If we can measure the System 1 responses of subconscious reactions, could there be valuable additional insights? 2) How could going beyond measuring pleasure, or hedonics, to understand experiences – which are not verbalized by consumers – help guide product development?

Q decided to conduct the study with four different tropical-scented plug-in air fresheners, chosen because it is a lead olfactive direction within a well-developed category. The consumers were female, aged 18-60, who had purchased tropical- or exotic fruits-scented plug-in oil air fresheners in the past six months. 

The panelists were tested for both cognitive and subconscious responses to the four different products – identified here as Product A, Product B, Product C and Product D. The consumers tried the four products in a sequential monadic two-stage study following ASTM protocol over two days. The fragrances were presented in eight identical airflow-controlled booths, which have positive airflow to eliminate cross-contamination. 

In the first stage, consumers entered a pre-fragranced booth and provided ratings on liking, fragrance intensity and other explicit measures. For this traditional explicit stage, 10 attributes – happy, contented, comforted, refreshed, sexy, energized, irritated, relaxed, sad and bored – were assessed via a check-all-that-apply list. These were selected to cover positive and negative valence as well as high and low arousal. Check-all-that-apply data was analyzed using a simple frequency table so that we could see the percent of consumers who selected each attribute per fragrance. The higher the percent of consumers who selected an attribute, the better that attribute described the fragrance. Hedonic and intensity measures were analyzed using an analysis of variance with a Fisher LSD post hoc test.

In the second stage neuro-physiological procedures involved measuring physiological responses from electrodes placed on the consumer’s face (facial EMG), hand (galvanic skin response) and wrist (heart rate variability). They entered the fragranced booth while wearing nose clips in order to avoid fragrance exposure until prompted; once seated, they were instructed to remove the nose clip to start the test. Consumers were asked to sit and breathe normally for 15 seconds while physiological responses to the fragrance exposure were captured. They then moved on to the next fragrance booth and repeated these steps. 

Guidance from other measures

The fragrances examined all scored well hedonically. In fact, there was a parity for “liking” all the fragrances. This is a very common result in flavor and fragrance testing. The consumers rated most of the products as making them feel happy and refreshed. It was clear, therefore, that product development guidance would need to come from measures other than the explicit. By layering on a neuro-physiological approach, we uncovered additional understanding of emotional valence. Three of the four fragrance profiles included negative valence with attributes such as irritation and annoyance. 

Physiological results also revealed how the emotional reactions changed over the time course of fragrance exposure. Being able to measure how the fragrance changed consumer perception over time based off of physiological measures has allowed us to better understand the consumer experience. 

In the case of one fragrance, we were able to measure how the response which was initially neutral became more approachable or welcoming towards the end of the experience.

For Product A, the experience, as revealed by the neuroscientific approach, was fairly neutral, even boring. There was a positive valence at the beginning which began to significantly decrease over the period of exposure. The testing of Product A also showed a moment of significantly decreased negative valence. 

With Product B, there was a decrease in positive valence immediately, followed by a decrease in negative valence. In other words, this fragrance was arousing, but not immediately. The responses indicated some disengagement with the fragrance with a combination of increased arousal and decreased attention. 

Product C was found to be arousing up front and for most of the experience. This was negative as well as positive, however, resulting in a tension between the two responses. At the same time the consumers found this fragrance to be less approachable, suggesting some distraction or disengagement. 

Product D had an overall negative valence reaction and the arousal was sustained for half of the experience. The fragrance was initially aversive, becoming more approachable and welcoming over the period of exposure, signaling that this product would perform well over longer exposures in an in-use environment. 

Valuable data points

From our work we have seen how applied consumer neuroscience can be a potentially important tool in product and consumer research, providing valuable data points for decision-making. While first impressions are very important to the consumer, understanding how perception and experience change over time allows us to differentiate similar test samples in ways that traditional research cannot. These nuances can reveal large differences between samples, differences in experience that consumers may not even be aware of or able to articulate but that influence their overall perception of the product.

The best methodology for each study needs to be considered and it is definitely not a case of having this be part of every study. At the same time, there is tremendous scope for further refining the application of biometric testing in this area. This novel holistic approach to consumer science will provide product developers and consumer scientists with a sensitive and efficient way to better understand consumer behavior and emotion, differentiate changes to product attributes and make more informed product design decisions.