Multimodal packaging design: How human motivations moderate the success of a multimodal stimulation

• Package liking can be positively influenced by a congruent multimodal stimulation.
• Need state activation by package design can also positively impact liking.
• We analyzed the moderating effect of need states in a multimodal stimulation.
• Respondents with a high need state like need state congruent stimulations best.
• Among respondents with low need state, congruency has no effect.

This study aims at better understanding the effect of a multimodal stimulation on liking. So far, most product design and product presentation related research on multimodal stimulation focused on congruence of stimuli intensity or message congruence only. Next to a multimodal stimulation, the product’s ability to activate human motivations/need states can positively influence product liking, too. By taking these insights into consideration, the survey was designed to investigate the effect of a need state congruent stimulation on liking moderated by the target group’s need states. For this purpose, an experiment was carried out in which 360 respondents evaluated face lotion packages. The stimuli combination followed a factorial design, including the sensory modalities optics, haptics, acoustics and olfaction. One half of the stimuli were designed to activate the need for affiliation, the other half to address the need for achievement – both basic motivations to use face lotion. For both need states a moderating effect can be observed, i.e. best results can be stated for need state congruent stimulations that were rated by respondents with a high specific need state.