Feeling Good

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Some customers are far more inclined to touch products than others; they test fruit before they buy it and are more likely to squeeze the pack of toilet roll that they pick up. The researchers assumed that these people would be most likely to have their perception of the water influenced by the cup.

But they were wrong.

However, it was those respondents who didn’t have a high need to touch products that were most likely to regard the water in a flimsy cup less favourably than that in a firmer cup.

Had the researchers been aware of the work conducted on subliminal smells perhaps they wouldn’t have been so surprised.  As I discuss in The Secret of Selling, when people are consciously aware of a peripheral environmental factor they are far less likely to be influenced by it.

It’s when the unconscious mind gets information that isn’t passed into conscious awareness that it is likely to be influenced: the conscious mind picks up the feeling and jumps at a conclusion as to why it exists (usually incorrectly). 

In this case the feeling of the flimsy cup creates a feeling that something isn’t very nice, and the conscious mind that is preoccupied with the task of drinking the water assumes it must be the water that has caused that feeling.

When people take note of the cup’s flimsiness they realise they are drinking from a flimsy cup and the water’s taste is considered in isolation.

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Source:  Rutgers University (2008, July 14). Touch Can Trump Taste, Even When It Comes To Selecting Mineral Water. ScienceDaily. Retrieved May 15, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2008/07/080713191733.htm

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