Matters of Preference
Dipayan Biswas wants to know what you like. More to the point, he wants to know why you like it. The associate professor of marketing has studied people’s responses in sampling “experiential” products -- beverages, music, fragrances, and the like – which appeal directly to the senses.
His research into the factors that influence consumer preferences has turned up a surprise: A product’s impression on the taste buds or ear drums matters less than you would expect. More influential, perhaps, is the order in which products are sampled.