Bundle Variety and Preference: A Neuromarketing Study Using Event-related Potentials

Bundling has raised many interests for decades (e.g., Hansen & Martin, 1987; Janiszewski & Cunha Jr, 2004), but very few studies have been conducted to systematically examine the relationship between bundle variety and bundle preference. With the development of consumer neuroscience, three event-related-potential components, namely the P1, P2 and N2, have been linked to consumer preference for single products (Goto et al., 2017; Guo et al., 2016; Mickleborough et al., 2014; Telpaz et al., 2015; Zhang et al., 2011). However, it remains unclear whether these early components could reveal consumer preference for product bundles, and if so, how the component variety of bundles might modulate this effect. The present study addressed this issue to shed some light on the neural underpinnings of consumer’s responses to product bundles. In the present study, we chose bundles consisted of three cups of yogurt in fruit flavors as experimental stimuli, because variety seeking behavior was found to be more likely to occur with hedonic products (Baltas et al., 2017; Inman, 2001). We first run an online survey on 79 naïve participants to determine which yogurt flavors to use in the main experiment. Based on these results, we decided to use strawberry and yellow peach as two popular flavors (PFs), seaberry and water chestnut as two unpopular flavors (UFs), as well as coconut, mulberry, and cherry as three flavors with moderate popularity (MFs). We used four types of bundles, including the 3PF, 3UF, 2P1U, and 3MF bundles. Importantly, the 3PF and 3UF bundles were identical bundles, whereas the 2P1U and 3MF bundles were coded as bundles with lower and higher variety, respectively. Twenty young healthy participants took part in the main experiment which consisted of a pre- and a post-test survey, a wanting test, and a selection test. At the beginning of the experiment, the participants chose which one of the two popular flavors they preferred more, and which one of the two unpopular flavors they preferred less. The chosen flavors were then presented in the following tests for each participant. In both of the pre- and post-test surveys, participants were asked to indicate their liking of each bundle. The EEG signals were recorded during the wanting test in which participants viewed the picture of each bundle and used the mouse to pick a number from 0 to 100 to indicate their desire for it. Each participant completed two blocks of 120 trials each, while equal numbers of different types of bundles were mixed and presented in a random order. After the wanting test, participants were presented with pairs of bundles in the selection test, and they were asked to choose the preferred ones.