In the Nose of the Beholder: Constructed Product Attributes Drive Olfactory Product Purchases

摘要

What idiosyncratic attributes do consumers construct when choosing among olfactory products, and how do these constructed attributes influence choice? The data for Study 1 is a set of 70,758 fragrance reviews from the website Fragrantica.com. We developed a semantic network of word associations, coded the words as pertinent (e.g., "strawberry") or not (e.g., "I"), and then analyzed the network using a community-detection algorithm to uncover . words that are commonly used together in the reviews. Coders then coded each word as belonging to one of six hypothesized constructed dimensions. Study 2 is a lab experiment utilizing a single-factor, three-level design which simulates a fragrance purchase situation. We manipulated the presence of brand and price information (no information, information first, or information last). Participants were undergraduate students (n = 393).