The possibility of sensation transference based on brand personality

Abstract

When drinking a beverage, we evaluate its taste taking into account the surrounding sensory information （sensation transference）. In this study, we focus on brand personality （BP）—human personality traits applied to the impressions evoked by a brand’s characteristics and concept—to investigate whether BP can facilitate sensation transference from the tactile thickness of a container to the taste of a beverage. Assuming that the thinness of a container’s opening and the bitterness of a beverage are both associated with high arousal, we hypothesize a thinness-bitterness transfer to be facilitated by activating similarly high levels of arousal due to BP （an excitement dimension）. Experiments 1 and 2 showed a significant association between a visually perceived thin-lip mug and excitement. In Experiment 3, when participants imagined being in a café with an excitement dimension, they anticipated the bitterness of the coffee in a thin mug to be stronger than when no BP was evoked. These results indicate that BP is associated with the thickness of a mug’s lip and that sensation transference from a mug to the anticipated taste of the coffee in a mug may be evoked by a shared arousal representation.