A picture is worth a thousand words! How visual storytelling transforms the aesthetic experience of novel designs

Purpose: This study aims to provide a holistic understanding of how visual storytelling influences the objective and subjective cognitive responses of consumers, namely objective aesthetic impression and subjective aesthetic association, and aesthetic judgments in response to differing levels of novelty in design innovations. Design/methodology/approach: A mixed-factorial experimental study manipulating the novelty of chair designs (moderate/high) and visual design stories (present/absent) was conducted among 263 female US consumers to test the proposed research model. Findings: With respect to the main effects of novelty and visual design stories, consumers had more positive cognitive responses and aesthetic judgments to: product designs with moderate (vs high) novelty; and products with visual design stories than without. A significant interaction effect uncovered that visual design stories particularly aided products with high (vs moderate) design novelty with respect to objective aesthetic impressions. Examination of the structural relationships between the variables revealed that subjective aesthetic associations mediate the relationship between objective aesthetic impressions and aesthetic judgments. Practical implications: To mitigate risk in radical design innovations, marketers should use visual storytelling to communicate product form associations and enable consumers to successfully decode the meaning of novel designs during initial encounters. Originality/value: By examining a holistic model involving both perceptual and conceptual product concepts, this study fills a critical research void to develop insightful implications on bridging the gap between novel product designs and consumer understanding.