Exploring the intriguing correlation between geographical distance and consumer affection, we delve into the question - Does distance truly make the consumer's heart grow fonder? Unravel the complexities of consumer behavior in the context of spatial separation.
New research finds that how far we’re standing from a product changes what we think of it
There’s no single ideal distance between consumers and products: the right distance depends on the image the brand conveys
- Effective use of spatial distance is not a one-size-fits-all strategy
A Real-world Test of Distance and Brand Image
Researchers wanted to see how the relationship between distance and brand image would play out in a real-world setting
- They partnered with an e-commerce site in China for a field experiment
- The researchers hired a professional web designer to create four versions of an email ad touting a new brand of home fragrance diffuser
- Half of the ads promoted the diffuser as a premium product with the tagline “Luxurious lifestyle, prestigious choice,” while the other half portrayed it as the popular choice
- Premium/close, premium/far, popular/close and popular/far
- Outperformed the premium/close ad, with three percent of recipients claiming the coupon compared to 1.43 percent for the other three
Lessons for Ads and Displays
While the experiments don’t show exactly why consumers associate distance with luxury and popularity with proximity, Lee has a few theories:
- We use a lot of physical attributes to describe emotions and abstract concepts
- Height often makes people or products seem more impressive
- This close linkage between physical and emotional traits may explain why different products feel better from different distances
- The relationship between distance and brand image is one marketers can leverage in ads, window displays, or store designs
How Brand Image Affects Perceptions of Distance
To investigate how consumers evaluate products at different distances, the researchers devised an experiment involving a print ad for a fictitious brand of chocolate
- Study participants (128 students from an executive education program in Taiwan) were told the brand was either premium or popular
- They were asked to place an image of a box of chocolates anywhere within a mock ad for the brand, which featured a model near the edge of its frame
- The two brand images yielded different ad designs
- Participants who believed the chocolate was from a popular brand placed the box nearer to the model than those who believed it was premium
Close and Popular, Far and Luxurious
The researchers looked at the question the other way around, asking participants to infer a product’s brand image while standing at different distances from it.
- In the first part of the experiment, 120 participants were randomly assigned to stand either three or five feet from a premium leather backpack and were asked to rate its prestige, as well as how much they liked it, and a similar product (a trendy canvas backpack).
- Participants who stood five feet away from the backpack viewed it as more prestigious and liked it more than those who stood three feet from it, reinforcing the association between distance and luxury.
