A Chilling Revelation

3 minute read

Cold weather has been used to convey luxury for a while. Think of diamonds, jewelry, luxury watches and images of snow covered Swiss peaks come to mind. Is this just a geographical coincidence or is there more to this phenomenon? Researchers put this to the test in a series of experiments.

In the first experiment they randomly divided students into two groups and asked them to examine and answer some questions about an ornate vase presented to them. One group was presented a vase at room temperature (Control group) and the other group was presented with a vase that had been placed in a refrigerator for 15 minutes prior to the experiment.

After examining the vase, the students were asked to rate the luxuriousness, sophistication and exclusivity of the vase as well as evaluate the product on a product attribute scale (positive-negative, pleasant-unpleasant, good-bad etc.).

Upon studying the student responses, the researchers found that the students who examined the cold vase were much more likely to give a higher luxury rating (3.33 vs 2.53 on a scale of 7) as well as a higher product evaluation (4.40 vs. 3.75 on a scale of 7) compared to the students who examined the vase at room temperature

These results validated the hypotheses and the belief that colder temperatures tend to elicit greater feelings of luxury as well as favorably impact how the product is evaluated.

Next the researchers tried to investigate whether this phenomenon is restricted to only touch or whether visuals and imagery of cold climates also elicit similar feelings and emotions. To test this, they designed 2 advertisements for a cologne. In the first ad the cologne was placed against a backdrop of spring scenery and in the second ad the cologne was placed in front of winter scenery. The participants of the study were asked questions similar to the first experiment related to luxuriousness of the product and the product evaluation.

The emerging results mirrored the first experiment where the participants exposed to the ad with the winter backdrop rated the cologne significantly higher than the spring backdrop participants on attributes related to luxury, exclusivity (4.09 vs 3.23) and even basic product evaluations (4.91 v 4.50)

These findings can really be leveraged productively by marketers and managers in retail and advertising when trying to communicate grandeur and luxury. So, the next time you walk into a shop with super cold ambient temperature, you know why.

 Original research by Jaewoo Park and Rhonda Hadi

https://myscp.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jcpy.1133