Measuring consumers' product associations with emoji and emotion word questionnaires: case studies with tasted foods and written stimuli

Measurement of emotional associations to food/beverage stimuli and consumption situations provide consumer insights that extend beyond hedonic responses. The aim of this research was to compare emoji, a novel approach in product-focused emotion research, with emotion words, an established approach. Focus was directed to questionnaires, which are popular in this field of research. The questionnaires were overall comparable in the meanings conveyed by the emoji/emotion words, and matched for length. Eight studies with a total of 1121 consumers in New Zealand and China were conducted with tasted foods and written stimuli. The studies were diverse and compatible with an explorative research strategy. While emoji, overall, were more discriminative than emotion words, the findings were highly study specific. When tasted foods with medium/large sample differences were used, emoji and emotion words showed similar performance overall, although emotion words better discriminated between the most liked samples and emoji better discriminated between the lesser liked samples. When samples were more similar, emoji generally were more discriminative, although emotion words still discriminated well for the pairs of most liked samples. Among Chinese consumers, there was some evidence to suggest less suitability of emotion words to characterise and discriminate written stimuli that elicited negative emotions. Emoji profiles, on the other hand, fitted expectations, and this difference could be linked to the influence of national culture. Taken together, the results from this research suggest that emoji questionnaires can have some advantages. However, their multiple meanings can be an obstacle. Overall, practitioners are advised to not select emotion questionnaire method independently from other experimental factors, but make an informed study-specific decision as to the choice of emoji or emotion word questionnaires. Additional research that eliminate some of the differences between the studies in this research are recommended to corroborate the present conclusions.