At the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, I stopped by a souvenir shop featuring local designers. One product package caught my eye: a candle sealed inside a sardine can. It was one of the most unexpected and playful mismatches between form and function I have seen.
Designs like this stand out. But are they effective? Research suggests that consumer responses to such mismatches depend on the type of product. For functional products, incongruent designs can enhance preference. For experiential products, however, congruent designs are better. In other words, mismatch works best when the product is seen as utilitarian.
Yet this sardine-can candle, clearly a hedonic product, seems to challenge the logic. Despite its experiential nature, the mismatch in form adds charm.
The real question is whether the surprise created by the product package fade after the first glance or continues through the purchase experience. This souvenir suggests it endures. I bought two candles partly to appreciate the creativity the designers put into it. The unexpected packaging not only captures attention but also transforms the ordinary into something curiously extraordinary.
Marketers struggle with how best to position innovative products that are incongruent with consumer expectations. Compounding the issue, many incongruent products are the result of innovative changes in product form intended to increase hedonic appeal. Crossing various product categories with various positioning tactics in a single meta-analytic framework, the authors find that positioning plays an important role in how consumers evaluate incongruent form. The results demonstrate that when a product is positioned on functional dimensions, consumers show more preferential evaluations for moderately incongruent form than for congruent form. However, when a product is positioned on experiential dimensions, consumers show more preferential evaluations for congruent form than for moderately incongruent form. Importantly, an increase in perceived hedonic benefits mediates the former, whereas a decrease in perceived utilitarian benefits mediates the latter. The mediation effects are consistent with the view that consumers must first understand a product’s functionality before engaging in hedonic consumption.
