PhD grant in the area of Marketing / Consumer psychology (Impacts of product design)

Impacts of product design on consumers’ perceptions

In our modern societies, consumers are constantly having to choose products from wide ranges of possible alternatives, but with limited “resources” (in terms of time, motivation, and/or mental capacity). In such a context, the appearance of a product is crucial as it can largely influence consumers’ perceptions “automatically”, without requiring the increased levels of resources typically needed for examining explicit (written) information. This project will investigate how specific product design elements (e.g. shape, images) can influence consumers’ responses (e.g. emotion, health- or sustainability-related thoughts, sensory perceptions) at an “unconscious” level. It will be based on experimental studies carried out in laboratory and using methods drawn from the field of cognitive neuroscience. Example of related reading: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2019.101935