Data_Sheet_1_Virtual Terroir and the Premium Coffee Experience.PDF

With its origin-centric value proposition, the specialty coffee industry seeks to educate consumers about the value of the origin of coffee and how the relationship with farmers ensures quality and makes coffee a premium product. While the industry has widely used stories and visual cues to communicate this added value, research studying whether and how these efforts influence consumers' experiences is scarce. Through three experiments, we explored the effect of images that evoke the terroir of coffee on the perception of premiumness. Our results revealed that online images that resembled the broad origin of coffee (i.e., a farm) could influence premiumness expectations of coffee (Experiment 1). Similarly, a virtual reality environment that depicted this broad origin (vs. a control but not a city atmosphere) could enhance the perception of coffee premiumness for non-expert consumers (Experiment 2) and the enjoyment of the experience for coffee professionals (Experiment 3). Importantly, we found that congruence between the coffee and the virtual reality (VR) atmospheres mediated how much non-experts enjoyed the experience (Experiment 2). VR atmospheres also influenced expectations of sweetness and acidity for non-experts (Experiment 2). These findings serve as a steppingstone for further exploration of the effects of congruence between visual cues and product/brand attributes on premiumness expectations and perception, and more generally on consumer experience. From a practical standpoint, this study provides insights into key aspects for the development of immersive virtual product experiences.

精品咖啡行业秉持以产地为核心的价值主张，旨在向消费者科普咖啡产地的价值，以及与农户建立的合作关系如何保障咖啡品质、将其打造为高端产品。尽管该行业已广泛运用叙事与视觉线索来传递此类附加价值，但针对这些举措是否以及如何影响消费者体验的相关研究仍较为匮乏。本研究通过三项实验，探究了唤起咖啡风土特质的图像对高端感认知的影响。研究结果显示，能够唤起咖啡宽泛产地（即农场）特征的线上图像，会影响消费者对咖啡高端属性的预期（实验1）。类似地，能够呈现此类宽泛产地的虚拟现实（VR）环境（相较于未涉及城市氛围的对照组），可提升非专业消费者对咖啡高端感的认知（实验2），同时增强咖啡专业人士的体验愉悦感（实验3）。值得注意的是，本研究发现咖啡与VR场景的氛围契合度，在非专业消费者的体验愉悦度中发挥了中介效应（实验2）。VR场景还会影响非专业消费者对咖啡甜度与酸度的预期（实验2）。本研究的发现为后续探索视觉线索与产品/品牌属性的契合度对高端感预期与认知的影响，以及更广泛层面的消费者体验研究提供了基础框架。从实践层面而言，本研究为沉浸式虚拟产品体验的开发提供了关键维度的参考思路。