New UB study finds visual depiction of products influences consumer perception

Getting a sense of how a product is put together makes consumers more confident that the product will deliver its core benefit — and they’ll be more likely to buy it — according to new research from the School of Management.

Available online ahead of publication in the Journal of Marketing, the study found that businesses can use anatomical depictions — a way of displaying the product which shows how its inner components assemble together — in their advertisements as a cost-effective way to boost consumer confidence in product performance and increase the perception of product worth.

“Ever since Leonardo da Vinci pioneered the drawing technique that shows the interior of machines, this form of technical drawing has been used for various practices, including visual representations of consumer products in do-it-yourself furniture instructions and car repair manuals,” says study co-author Arun Lakshmanan, associate professor of marketing.

The researchers conducted nine studies with varied consumer samples across a variety of brand and product categories to analyze how people perceive advertisements, product usability and product worth, and documented how visually communicating a product’s inner structure to customers offers benefits to companies.

“Imagine you are shopping online and see a picture of noise-cancelling headphones. One picture shows the headphones just like you would see them in the box at the store, while another shows all the little parts of the headphones laid out, so you can see everything inside: ear pad, speakers and battery,” says Lakshmanan. “This technique of marketing using anatomical depiction — where an object’s components are presented in a spatially arranged, layer-by-layer single visual — enhances what potential customers are willing to pay.”

The research also provides information to companies about which customers are most receptive to this type of visual. Targeting consumers who are inclined to adopt technology is beneficial, but for people who are highly anxious about technology or are not interested in how something works, seeing the inner workings of a product may not have the same effect.

Lakshmanan collaborated on the study with UB graduates Seo Yoon Kang, assistant professor of marketing at University of New Hampshire, and Junghan Kim, assistant professor of marketing at Singapore Management University.