The “ins” and “outs” of product and services marketing: The influence of consonant wanderings in consumer decision‐making

Abstract

The established preference for words featuring consonants ordered inward in the oral cavity—the in–out effect, may assist marketeers when naming new products and services. To investigate the conditions under which this effect may affect consumer preference we conducted four experiments (N = 818) examining the influence of consonant wanderings in the evaluation of different professionals and food products. While inward articulation direction selectively biased warmth judgments about workers who are perceived as relatively neutral on both warmth and competence, for professionals traditionally associated with either a warmth or a competence dimension inward‐wandering usernames systematically presented a competitive advantage. In the same way, hypothetical food products with inward‐wandering names were judged as more hedonic and more utilitarian. The present evidence supports the potential of the in–out effect to market products and services and highlights the relevance of exploiting this and other oral kinematics phenomena as an asset for managerial practice.

The articulatory in-out effect: Driven by consonant preferences?

“…Our findings imply that the original research has actually studied a valid theoretical concept of articulation trajectory preferences, and not just an epiphenomenon of consonant preferences. Thus, we find support for a theoretical idea that has been the basis for a considerable amount of research (for example, Garrido et al, 2019; Gerten & Topolinski, 2020; Godinho et al, 2019; Godinho & Garrido, 2016, 2020, 2021; Ingendahl et al, 2021; Körner et al, 2019; Lindau & Topolinski, 2018b; Maschmann et al, 2020; Rossi et al, 2017; Silva & Topolinski, 2018; Topolinski et al, 2014, 2015; Topolinski & Bakhtiari, 2016; Topolinski & Boecker, 2016a, 2016b).…”

“…Still, both the oral approach/avoidance and the fluency theory assume that it is the preferences for the articulation trajectories that lead to the empirical in-out effect. And even though some predictions of these theories and their specific processes were not supported in later studies, the crucial role of articulation trajectories in preference formation was never questioned (Bakhtiari et al, 2016; Garrido et al, 2019; Godinho et al, 2019; Godinho & Garrido, 2020; Ingendahl et al, 2021; Körner et al, 2019; Maschmann et al, 2020; Topolinski & Bakhtiari, 2016).…”

When vowels make us smile: the influence of articulatory feedback in judgments of warmth and competence

“…Extending the AFH to the social perception domain, we examined how the bodily feedback provided by vowel-articulation may affect judgments about the "Big Two" dimensions (Paulhus & Trapnell, 2008) of person perception (namely across cultures, e.g., Judd et al, 2005). Previous evidence has already shown that approach and avoidance motivations (e.g., Freddi et al, 2014), even when induced by consonantal-articulatory manipulations (Garrido et al, 2019), were informative for warmth but not for competence related judgments (c.f., Godinho & Garrido, 2020), confirming that warmth evaluations are sensitive to affective cues. However, we expect that, since the articulatory manipulations of the ZZM and the OOM convey general affective cues able to contaminate overall mood, vowel-manipulation will be relevant for judgments in both warmth and competence dimensions.…”

Is TripAdvisor still relevant? The influence of review credibility, review usefulness, and ease of use on consumers’ continuance intention

“…Prolific has a pool of over one hundred thousand participants whose level of activity is monitored every three months, and recruiters can apply various screening criteria to select research participant, such as sociodemographic characteristics; mental health; physical health; political, religious and personal beliefs; and the like. Numerous scholars have already used Prolific to collect data and have published their studies in leading international journals in economics (Marreiros et al , 2017), service marketing (Godinho and Garrido, 2020), psychology (Callan et al , 2017) and finance (Palan and Schittera, 2018).…”

“…Numerous scholars have already used Prolific to collect data and have published their studies in leading international journals in economics (e.g., Marreiros et al, 2017), service marketing (e.g. Godinho and Garrido, 2020), psychology (e.g., Callan et al, 2017), and finance (e.g. Palan and Schittera, 2018).…”