Following up the results, the next chapter will discuss some concluding remarks comparing
the findings of this study with the theory. Each hypothesis will be discussed in their own sub
chapter. In the last sub chapter, a conclusion is drawn considering the problem statement:
Does chocolate affect customer experience? This conclusion can be very useful for food
retailers who are searching for ways to create customer value in order to survive the heavy
competition in the supermarket industry.
5.1 The effect of chocolate on cognitive response
Following the results, tasting chocolate does not influence decisions made in a higher-order
cognitive manner. Although, only seeing chocolate does enhance the perception of reliability.
Taking that into account, sampling chocolate on a visible location inside the supermarket will
benefit retailers who want their customers to perceive the supermarket to be more adequate in
offering their services. An example of supermarkets who could benefit from this are C1000
stores which claim to provide value for money both in service as in products. Moreover, the
results imply that a retailer does not have to make customers eat chocolate since only seeing
chocolate will be enough in order to enhance the perception of reliability. Although, the
results have shown a significant difference in one important attribute unfortunately that is not
enough to support the hypothesis. An explanation for the lack of change in the other cognitive
response attributes might be the fact that chocolate has simply no constraining effect on
processing resources. Shiv and Fedorikhin (1999) claim that it is more difficult to objectively
evaluate the environment when the processing resources are restrained. However, the
unconscious processes in the orbitofrontal cortex have obviously not affected the processing
resources. In addition, this outcome confirms the statement of O’Doherty et al. (2000);
Merging this theory with the results, it can be concluded that cognitive responses are not
influenced by processes inside the orbitofrontal cortex which is activated by chocolate.
Therefore, because the effect of sampling chocolate on cognitive responses is not fully
proven, there is no guarantee that the profit from enhanced evaluation of the supermarket will
be higher than the costs of the sampled chocolate. Hence, it not advised to retailers to sample
chocolate in order to enhance objective evaluation because there is no certainty yet about the
strength of the relationship between sampling chocolate and enhancing the cognitive
response.
5.2 The effect of chocolate on affective response
Sampling chocolate did affect affective response of customers inside a supermarket. Both
positive and negative responses were more extreme after both eating as seeing chocolate. This
confirms the statement of Marks and Kamins (1988) who claim that tasting a sample
strengthens attitudes. That seeing chocolate has the same effect on affect as eating chocolate
could be explained by the function of the orbitofrontal cortex. The orbitofrontal cortex is
activated by both tasting chocolate as seeing and smelling chocolate (Kringelbach et al.
2003). Additionally, if ‘seeing the chocolate’ means that the customer has also smelled the
chocolate the theory of Herz (2007) and Kotler (1973) is supported. They claimed that
smelling chocolate has a strong effect on emotions which has proven to be very likely in this
experiment. Because there is no evidence that customers have indeed smelled the chocolate
we cannot draw any conclusions upon this in this study. However, based on the assumption
that seeing chocolate is enough to activate the orbitofrontal cortex the theory of Marks and
Kamins (1988) can be adjusted by adding the function of sight of the sample in order to
strengthen attitudes. In addition, the strengthened positive affect seems favourable for most
retailers. However, at the same time negative affect is enhanced instead of weakened by
sample. Moreover, whether food lifts mood or threatens mood might indeed rely on the
affective state of the customer at that time (Garg et al. 2007). Furthermore, since chocolate is
a fat and hedonic food, happy people might want to navigate away from it (Tice et al. 2001).
This effect might have caused the strengthened negative affect with happy people. If this
effect holds true should be examined in future research. Remarkably, sampling pencils
decreased the positive affective response while sampling nothing did have no effect on
affective responses. This result confirms the assumption that the orbitofrontal cortex is
activated by seeing and eating chocolate since nothing happened when chocolate was
unavailable. Hence, the emotions evoked by seeing and tasting chocolate have been evaluated
in the orbitofrontal cortex which has resulted in significantly more positive and significantly
more negative emotions felt in the supermarket (Bechara et al. 2000; Kringelbach et al. 2003).
The effect of taste and sight of chocolate is supported by the fact that sampling pencils did
affect the mood of consumers only less extremely. Accordingly, since pencils have no taste it
can explain the detail that moods were less extremely formed.
Concluding, the statement of Heiman et al. (2001) is not fully supported since demonstrations
and sampling do not just increase the formation of goodwill of customers. The results from
this research indicate that the effect depends on the characteristics of the product and in this
study only sampling chocolate enables a retailer to influence the formation of goodwill. This
effect works both in a more positive direction as in a negative direction. Sampling a non-food
product as pencils decreases the level of positive affect. Therefore, it can be concluded that
sampling chocolate serves the goal of enhancing the extremity of affective responses inside a
supermarket. However, to what extent this will benefit the retailer for example with improved
5.3 The effect of chocolate on conative response
Conative responses are not affected by sampling of chocolate. In addition, picking a pencil
will negatively influence the willingness to recommend the supermarket to others. However,
since the amount of respondents who have picked a pen is very low, this effect can be
neglected. Nevertheless, the effect of sampling on the extra variable ‘willingness to donate’ is remarkable. The willingness to donate to charity decreases when nothing is sampled. In
return, the willingness increases when the respondents have seen the plateau with the
chocolates or the pencils on it. However, tasting this chocolate or picking the pencil has no
significant effect. Therefore, putting the samples on a visible location will be enough for the
retailer to enhance the generosity of customers towards charity. If the willingness to donate
spreads over towards the willingness to buy it would comply with the theory of Grewal et al.
(2009) who said that favorable attitudes lead to actual sales. Baker et al (1992) confirm this by arguing that affective states influenced by the supermarket environment affect consumer’s willingness to buy. However, only the willingness to donate has increased when chocolate
was sampled while the other elements did not change. For a retailer this means that he should
not sample chocolate when his goal is to enhance word of mouth, liking of the store, and
future shopping intentions. Only when he wants customers to contribute to charity he should
consider sampling chocolate at the same time.
5.4 The effect of chocolate on customer experience
Sampling chocolate influences customer experience in both a positive as a negative manner.
This conclusion can be drawn based upon the past research. Although cognitive – and
conative responses are not altered when chocolate is sampled in the supermarket, positive and
negative affective responses enhanced when chocolate was sampled. This implies that Dutch
retailers can use sampling chocolate in order to enhance perceived pleasure of customers in
store and word of mouth (Pucinelli et al. 2009). However, it is important to also keep in mind
the positive effect of sampling chocolate on negative affective responses. This implies that
sampling chocolate could also negatively influence the feelings of customers and therefore
caution is required when one decides to use chocolate samples as a tool to improve the