What! The fonts on the Coke packaging are plotting against my wallet?

Shop signs have been the soul of a shop's image since ancient times, and fonts are the finishing touch. However, when walking on the street, you may see uniform Microsoft YaHei Bold. Perhaps in the eyes of some planners, it doesn't matter what font you use, as long as it is clear for people to read.

But in fact, fonts also have rich personalities. Some fonts reveal a neat and capable temperament, some fonts are rough and bold, and some fonts are gentle beauties. Different fonts seem to express different contents. For example, which of the following three fonts do you think is most suitable for gyms, dessert shops, and clothing stores?

The fonts in the examples are all Montserrat Alternates. Simply changing the thickness and roundness can give people different psychological feelings. | Image provided by the author

Most people would think that b – a – c is the most suitable choice, because b gives people a heavy and powerful feeling, which easily reminds people of the sturdy body of a fitness coach; a is round and smooth like a delicious cake; and c is tall and thin, which looks like a model of a clothing brand.

The personality of a font not only makes people associate it with a specific product, it can even change their preferences in purchasing behavior. Our latest research found that the roundness of a font can increase consumers’ liking for a hedonic product.

This study [1] was published online in the journal Psychology & Marketing on November 16 last year. The authors are Professor Wang Lei from the School of Management and the Neuromanagement Laboratory of Zhejiang University, and doctoral students Yu Yining and Li Ou from the laboratory.

The font becomes rounder, and Coke is more lovable

In consumer behavior research, commodities can be divided into two categories[2]. One category is commodities that can give people a sensory or emotional enjoyment and are fun, such as delicious cakes. These commodities are called hedonic products. The other category is commodities that can meet people’s daily needs or functional needs and have practical effects, such as bread that fills the stomach. These commodities are called utilitarian products.

Through preliminary experiments, we selected some hedonic products (figures, cola, etc.) and other practical products (suitcases, USB flash drives, etc.) with similar appeal, and designed a set of advertisements with rounded fonts and a set of advertisements with square fonts for them respectively.

Examples of materials used in the experiment. The top is a practical product, a suitcase, and the bottom is a hedonic product, cola. A set of advertisements with rounded fonts and a set of advertisements with square fonts were designed respectively. | Reference [1]

We wanted to know whether rounded or square fonts affect how much people like a product. We conducted an experiment on the online experiment platform "Pavlovia" with 122 participants. Half of them viewed product ads with rounded fonts, and the other half viewed product ads with square fonts. Afterwards, they were asked to rate their liking for each product on a 7-point scale (1 = very dislike, 7 = very like).

The results showed that rounded fonts can increase people's liking for products, but this effect only exists for hedonic products. Hedonic products "decorated" with rounded fonts received an average evaluation score of 4.60, while hedonic products "decorated" with square fonts only received 4.15 points. On the other hand, for practical products, whether the advertisements used rounded fonts or square fonts, the participants' liking for them did not change much.

In another experiment with 110 participants, we gave participants the task of buying hedonic products. The result was that 53.8% of the participants would give priority to products decorated with rounded fonts, while the remaining 46.2% would give priority to products decorated with square fonts.

In summary, in our initial experiments, we confirmed that changing the font type from the default square font to a rounded font not only increases the attractiveness of a hedonic product, but also increases people's willingness to buy it to a certain extent.

Mental simulation is key

So why can rounded fonts increase people's liking for hedonic products? In the next experiment involving 204 people, participants were asked to complete a scale to assess their "psychological relationship" with the product before evaluating their liking for the product. We found that the characteristic of rounded fonts is that they can bring people closer to the "psychological relationship" of hedonic products, that is, rounded fonts are more likely to trigger consumers to simulate their close contact with hedonic products psychologically, such as imagining themselves opening the package and observing the details of the product.

The above process is generally called mental simulation. With a higher degree of mental simulation, consumers will have more positive emotions and a higher degree of arousal towards the product, which will further lead to their preference for it.

Previous studies have found that fonts affect consumers’ taste experience. Rounded fonts make people feel that a food tastes sweeter, while square fonts make people feel sour or bitter[3]. In addition to taste, rounded fonts also make people feel relaxed, and even feel that the content expressed by the font is approachable[4]. Whether it is sweeter in taste or more relaxed in experience, these feelings are similar to the feelings that hedonic products bring to people; it may be precisely because of the consistency between the font and the product that rounded fonts can effectively stimulate consumers’ psychological simulation of hedonic products.

It’s not just the rounded fonts on advertisements, the rounded fonts on packaging bags also have the same effect on hedonic products.

How to use fonts?

What is the use of this research for everyone? It tells us that we should be extra careful about purely environmental factors that have nothing to do with the quality, price, brand, etc. of the product itself when shopping. If you want to buy some delicious candy and find that its slogans and decorative words are all in round and cute fonts, then you should pay attention. Your hedonic preference for these candies may be amplified by these fonts, causing you to buy more candy than you planned. In this case, you need to balance your purchasing desire.

Our research also provides methods for those who cannot control themselves. For example, people who want to lose weight can put some square text labels on delicious food, using square fonts to offset the hedonic nature of the food, thus helping you control yourself to a certain extent.

For businesses, fonts can also be a tool to "assist" sales. Pairing some smooth and linear text or logos with hedonic products may make consumers who originally wanted to buy them more impulsive to buy. The most important thing is that adjusting the font of the text content is almost a cost-free marketing strategy.

In short, our research provides an interesting perspective, allowing people to think about how purely environmental factors that have nothing to do with the products themselves can quietly influence people's purchasing decisions.

One of the study authors secretly said at the end, "If you like our research, please cite it."

Note: The author of this article is Li Ou, a research author and a member of the Neuromanagement Laboratory of Zhejiang University. The laboratory is dedicated to using cognitive neuroscience technology to solve management problems and promote the application of cognitive neuroscience in management.

References

[1]Wang, L., Yu, YN, & Li, O. (2019). The Typeface Curvature Effect: The Role of Typeface Curvature in Increasing Preference towards Hedonic Products. Psychology & Marketing. In Press.

[2] Dhar, R., & Wertenbroch, K. (2000). Consumer choice between hedonic and utilitarian goods. Journal of Marketing Research, 37, 60–71.

[3] Velasco, C., Hyndman, S., & Spence, C. (2018). The role of typeface curvilinearity on taste expectations and perception. International Journal of Gastronomy and Food Science, 11, 63– 74.

[4] Henderson, PW, Giese, JL, & Cote, JA (2004). Impression management using typeface design. Journal of Marketing, 68, 60–72.

Author: Sexy little ankle

Editor: odette