Focus: Multisensual marketing (especially haptic marketing)

Emotions play a major role in consumers' purchasing decisions. Accordingly, emotions are of great importance in marketing in order to trigger transactions and establish transactional relationships with customers. (Positive) emotions are triggered by specifically addressing the sensory organs of (potential) customers. The more sensory organs are stimulated simultaneously by marketing measures, the more intense and rich is the emotional impression on customers. It is important that the various sensory information is as congruent as possible so that it can be absorbed as easily as possible, processed quickly (cognitively), and stored in the customer's memory  for a long time. In marketing practice and science, the examination of visual information processing in the context of brand and communication policy has a long tradition. The investigation of acoustic, gustatory, olfactory and, above all, haptic stimuli or information and their influence on emotional components (e.g., feelings, moods and experiences) and various areas of purchasing behavior (e.g., preference formation, judgment formation, decision-making, recommendation behavior), on the other hand, has been less strongly focused to date. This is precisely where the research interest of the Department of Marketing at the University of Kassel lies.

Topics on the following questions are particularly encouraged:

• How do haptic [acoustic, olfactory] metaphors work as primes in marketing communication?
• How can the Midas effect be implemented in online stores?
• How can an endowment effect be achieved in online stores?
• What influence do shapes [and textures] of products [and packaging] have on quality assessment [and willingness to buy]?
• What influence do negative haptic secondary effects (e.g., social-touch touch aversion, "contamination effects") have on willingness to buy?      
• How do visual [olfactory, acoustic] and haptic stimuli interact during information processing and what are the implications for marketing communication [packaging design, product design]?
• How can haptic features of products be convincingly presented in different communication media (e.g. radio, websites, TV)?

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