Doctoral thesis: Consumers' buying decision affected by their sense of colour
Doctoral thesis: Consumers' buying decision affected by their sense of colour
In her doctoral thesis, Hanna Kiehelä has investigated how consumers' perception of product colours affects their purchasing decisions and user experiences.
Kiehelä's research reveals that consumers divide product colours into three dimensions: the aesthetic, symbolic and functional. Based on the aesthetic dimension, the consumer decides how visually pleasing a product is. Aesthetic appreciation of colour is personal and varies greatly between individuals. Within the symbolic dimension, the consumer takes account of the symbolic meanings of colours. These meanings are often collective and defined by factors related to the surrounding culture and/or environment. For example, in Western cultures green is often associated with environmental friendliness. The functional dimension concerns the consumer's evaluation of how practical the colour is during product use.
For each dimension, consumers group the colours offered into the categories of desirable, tolerable and unacceptable. Purchasing decisions are strongly based on these groupings. If the available colours are not desirable in all three dimensions, consumers have to compromise between the dimensions when choosing colours. No matter which dimension is in question, an unacceptable colour often ends in the decision not to buy a product.
Kiehelä's research provides a fresh perspective on our understanding of consumer behaviour and demonstrates that product colours play an important role in the consumer experience. In a departure from conventional research on colours and marketing, Kiehelä studied colour as a broad concept rather than focusing on individual colours. On this basis, she developed a conceptual model of consumers' tendency to divide colours between certain mental categories.
Understanding the three-dimensional nature of colours will help product manufacturers to evaluate how consumers react to new colours and will assist retailers in helping consumers to make purchasing decisions. This will strengthen the consumer's intention to buy and improve customer satisfaction.
The research results are based on phenomenological interviews and an online categorisation exercise. A total of 694 Finnish consumers or consumers living in Finland formed the consumer sample.
M.Sc.(Econ.) Hanna Kiehelä defends her doctoral thesis in marketing: "Dimensionality of the Consumer Perceived Value of Product Colour" on 30 May 2014.
Time: 30 May 2014, at 12
Place: Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki
Opponent: Professor Micael Dahlén, Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden
Custos: Professor Veronica Liljander, Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki
For more information, please contact:
Hanna Kiehelä
+358 44 556 3622
hanna.kiehela@hanken.fi
A copy of the thesis can be downloaded here: https://helda.helsinki.fi/handle/10138/45306