Weigh the Ways You Portray Item Weight

Holding an item usually increases the consumer’s willingness to buy it because it gives a sense of ownership. But the grasp also provides information about the item’s weight, and that could discourage purchase. If the item will be carried around, such as is true with a mobile phone or laptop computer, the perception of substantial heft can be considered negative.
     Researchers at Texas A&M University, University of Kentucky, Seoul National University, and Myongji University were interested in perceptions of weight arising from looking at depictions of an item being considered for purchase. This comes into play with ecommerce when the shopper hasn’t previously held the item. Prior studies have shown that depictions of an object as larger or darker in color produce perceptions of heaviness. Ads for items where low weight is an advantage should avoid closeup images and feature the light-hued model.
     The researchers find that the density of a product display also matters. Consumers shown a smartphone with 90 app icons expressed less interest in purchasing the phone than consumers shown the same phone with 30 app icons. Along with this, the more densely packed display led to perceptions that the phone was heavier. A companion study showed that this difference in purchase interest was not due to judgments that the 30-icon phone was a later model than the 90-icon phone. Maybe consumers would think that a phone loaded with 90 app icons must have been owned for a long time.
     The recommendation, then, is to maintain low visual density in marketing materials for items where portability is a desirable feature. On the other hand, when stability and heft are desirable product features, such as with a home safe, darker colors and more crowded visual displays would be advantages.
     Adding psychological heft also creates preference for, or at least an acceptance of, density in marketing materials. When the researchers prefaced displays by asking consumers to assume that the choice among phones was highly consequential, there was little difference in purchase intentions expressed by those shown a 90-app phone display and those shown a 45-app one.
     The effect works in the other direction as well. Researchers at Chinese University of Hong Kong and National University of Singapore found that people weighed down by experiencing or thinking about heaviness become likely to consider an immediately subsequent purchase decision as more consequential. They’ll probably deliberate longer before agreeing to buy.

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