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Volume 9, Issue 2
  • ISSN: 2056-6522
  • E-ISSN: 2056-6530
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Abstract

Rituals are part of the consumer experience of goods, especially food and drink, and can contribute to consumer enjoyment of and fidelity to a specific product. However, we lack detailed description of food/beverage-related rituals and their potential impact on consumer perceptions, in particular whether and how communicating those rituals to consumers influences their attitudes. Here we use coffee as an example of a ritualized product within the UK market to explore this potential relationship and identify opportunities for design. In Study 1, we identified rituals associated with coffee preparation and consumption. In Study 2, we found that several procedural aspects of the rituals identified in Study 1 were not consistently conveyed in coffee advertising, indicating a potential gap in communication with consumers. In Study 3, we showed that communicating such rituals to consumers resulted in significantly greater willingness to pay for coffee, mediated by perceptions of social attention. This work connects growing interest in the psychological mechanisms of ritual with work on consumer perceptions and behaviour and carries significant implications for the design of messaging around food experience.

Funding
This study was supported by the:
  • Nestlé Research
© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Intellect Ltd.
This article is Open Access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC), which allows users to copy, distribute, transmit and adapt the article, as long as the author is attributed and the article is not used for commercial purposes. To view a copy of the licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
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2023-11-24
2025-04-25
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The role of ritual communication in consumption: A consumer coffee experience
International Journal of Food Design 9, 219 (2024); https://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2102/10.1386/ijfd_00067_1
/content/journals/10.1386/ijfd_00067_1
/content/journals/10.1386/ijfd_00067_1
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  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): advertising; communication design; consumer psychology; experience design; perception; ritual design

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