Context
Since 2012, smartphones have become heavier, mainly to increase their battery capacity and because consumers feels that a bigger screen is more useful for video-chatting, taking photos, watching videos or playing games. However, this increase in smartphone weight is regularly criticized because it affects portability and phones are now nearly too big to manage with one hand. For this type of product, being perceived as heavy affects purchase intent, since heaviness prevents the product from delivering what consumers expect of it (portability, for instance).
To assess product weight, consumers often rely on visual cues. For instance, when presented with the popular riddle “what is heavier, a kilogram of steel or a kilogram of feathers?”, people are often tempted to answer that feathers are lighter because their density is lower, although the mass of one kilogram of feathers or steel are identical. This is called the “weight illusion”. The same goes for advertising: in an article published in 2021 in the Journal of Business Research, Cloe, Lee, Chen and Kim show that visual density impacts perceived product weight, which affects consumer evaluation of the product.
Research questions
Since heaviness is regarded as a negative attribute for smartphones, and since consumers often rely on visual cues to assess heaviness and make decisions, the authors propose to investigate the role of the weight illusion on perceived heaviness and purchase intent. To do so, they manipulate visual density, which refers to how much space visual elements occupy. In the same way that people are tempted to say that one kilogram of feathers is lighter than a kilogram of steel, the authors expect denser visuals to trigger higher perceived heaviness, which leads them to the following research questions:
– Does visual density influence the perceived weight of products?
– Do these perceptions affect consumer behavior?
– What can be done to curb the potential negative effects of such perceptions?
Method
To answer these research questions, the article was based on five studies. All studies were conducted either on undergraduate students or on turkers (using Amazon Mechanical Turk). All informants received monetary compensation for their participation in the experiments. All studies featured scenarios featuring a smartphone as a focal product. Visual density was manipulated in different ways depending on the study, by changing the number or the size of the apps presented on the smartphone screen. Participants were then asked about their perceptions of the product.
Results
– The higher the visual density, the higher the perceived heaviness of the product. The authors even made sure that this result was not caused by any differences in perceived product newness.
– These perceptions of heaviness lower consumers’ purchase intents, which is consistent with the fact that heaviness is a negative attribute for a smartphone.
– The negative impact of higher perceived heaviness can be remedied by highlighting the importance of using a smartphone. Indeed, the negative effects of perceived heaviness decreased for participants who were asked to read a text depicting the smartphone as an important device and to remember one event when they felt it was important to use a smartphone.
Why is this article relevant for researchers?
This paper focuses on the effects of visual density on perceived heaviness and consumer behavior in the specific context of smartphones. Therefore, avenues for future research are wide open to further examine the external validity of these results. First, these results could be confirmed for other product categories in which heaviness is a negative attribute. Second, there could be other ways to manipulate visual density, though many such as the density of details and materials, the size, image, color or shape of objects. Third, this research does not investigate contexts in which heaviness may be a positive attribute for the product. For instance, heavy and sturdy legs are considered a sign of good quality for furniture.
Why is this article relevant for professionals?
This research provides incentives for marketers to diminish visual density in their communications when it is advisable to decrease heaviness perceptions. Of course, this is true of smartphones since they are the focal point of this article, but this paper could also inspire all those who market products for which heaviness in a negative attribute, such as other portable devices. We could draw on this advertisement for the Asus ZenBook Pro Duo that alternates visuals in which the screen is more or less packed: Cloe, Lee, Chen and Kim’s research could be a starting point to reflect on up to which screen density to go without increasing heaviness perceptions.
Moreover, to further curb the negative impacts of heaviness perceptions, the authors advise professionals to highlight the importance of the product. For instance, in a 2017 campaign to entice Android users to switch to iPhone, Apple emphasizes the smoothness and the respect of privacy and personal data provided by its devices.