Shoppers often pause while perusing the supermarket shelves, product in hand, mulling their next purchase. Touch has long been considered an important aspect of product evaluation – for instance, in increasing choice of the product – and the reason people touch products is usually down to one of two factors. 

“Either it’s an autotelic issue – so it’s touch as a fun factor – or it’s an instrumental factor, so it provides information for the buyer,” says Mathias Streicher, from the University of Innsbruck, Austria.

But new research conducted by Streicher and Zachary Estes, from Bocconi University, Milan, Italy, shows that grasping a product also affects a person’s choice of other products on display – not just the one being held. Their study found that holding a source product increases the visual fluency of a haptically similar product – so a shopper is more likely to buy a product that is the same shape as the one they holding.

“Haptic research is still one of the most under-researched parts of marketing, so there are a lot of things to learn. Also, the haptic sense is the only sense where we start connecting in a physical way to products,” says Streicher as he explains why they decided to investigate this area.

Building on existing research, Streicher and Estes explored how visual fluency spilled over into other products in the environment – and the results make interesting reading for brand marketers to consider. 

Their first study involved participants gasping a product – either a bottle or a can of Fanta – with their right arm extended straight out to the right or straight behind their back, while viewing and then choosing from products directly in front of them. 

“We have to exclude any other explaining variables or mechanisms. So by getting people to stretch out their arm, and keep their gaze straight to the monitor, we could put an object in their hand without them seeing it. We wanted them to look at the screen or the product display. It allowed us to control the stimuli exposure,” explains Streicher. 

For marketers, the implications are considerable, not least that unique and unusual-shaped product or packing design should be protected by brand leaders and first to market. 

“Take the classic Coca-Cola bottle, for instance; it’s a unique haptic signature and this research is saying that it’s a good thing to maintain those haptic signatures. Once you have created one that is unique for your brand, you should at least trademark it.

“If you look at Red Bull, it pioneered the market for energy drinks, and it was also the first one to use slim cans. Twenty-odd years ago, no-one else used those, but nowadays almost every energy drink brand is in a slim can,” says Streicher. 

He did research five years ago into haptic signals – and researched the slim cans – and found that Red Bull was still strongly associated with that can shape. However, because Red Bull couldn’t trademark the shape, it meant rival brands could copy it. “Nowadays the picture is probably different – other brands are also associated with that slim can,” adds Streicher. 

“So let’s assume that the market leader is touched a lot – shoppers take it in their hand, maybe they’re not really confident with their purchase decision, and as they peruse the shelf they discover those other energy-drink brands. Because they have the Red Bull container in their hand, they start perceiving, visually, those other brands being sold in the same format.

“That can harm brand loyalty for Red Bull because, if you start perceiving something more fluidly, you also start liking it more – and this can sabotage brand loyalty if the copycats are using the same shapes and packaging,” says Streicher. 

Grocery products in the same category typically follow the same design cues – so how should product designers respond?

“It could be a call to product designers that they should use their creativity and that, in the long run, it makes sense to spend more money on unique product packages that are associated – and that you own – as a brand.”

In addition, Streicher and Estes looked at the effect of crowded or sparse product displays. The first part of their research showed that, when people hold something in their hands, the shape becomes loaded in their visual cortex, which affects how they perceive an object – but that is when the visual conditions are clear. What if the visual conditions aren’t clear, such as with a crowded display?

The scientists found that the effect of touch on product choice is accentuated by crowded product displays – they may overload the visual system and so increase reliance on haptic information. 

“The more the visual conditions become poor, the more the haptic sense is being used to compensate for the lack of clear information from the visual system,” says Streicher. “That’s very relevant to marketplaces because they are typically crowded – supermarkets are visually dense. So the haptic shape-priming effect becomes even stronger.” 

‘Multisensory interaction in product choice: grasping a product affects choice of other seen products’, by Mathias Streicher and Zachary Estes, Journal of Consumer Psychology, 2016.