Running Head: H2V The Impact of Marketing

H2V: The Impact of Marketing

Keanna Caldwell
Gardner-Webb University
In Partial Fulfillment of the requirements for
PSY367, Dr. Naydenova,
April 25, 2016

H2V: THE IMPACT OF MARKETING WATER

H2V: The Impact of Marketing

It has often been discussed how power full marketing and how useful of a tool it is in. It
is important as a consumer and a marketing professional how effective marketing can be. In
todays society people are surrounded by social media outlets and other marketing platforms
where they may be bombarded by advertisement and on a daily basis they are being persuaded
by them. Many things such as presidential candidates to bottled water are constantly being
manipulated to attract the masses. The purpose of this experiment is to see if marketing could
really have an impact on the way things are perceived. If two products that were exactly the same
were presented to consumer and one were marketed it would be probable that the marketed item
would be seen in higher regards than the other.
An article written by Robyn A. LeBoeuf and Joseph P. Simmons says that branding does
alter the affiliation between products and attitude functions (2010). It looks at both attitude
functions connected to a product and the ones connected to brands (LeBoeuf & Simmons, 2010).
To determine whether or not this is so three studies were conducted. From these studies the
authors were able to find this to be true (LeBoeuf & Simmons, 2010).
Four experiments were conducted by Michelle L. Roehm and Brian Sternthal were
conducted to test the persuasive impact that new products containing an analogy (2001). In this
case an analogy serves the purpose of comparing unfamiliar products to a current familiar
product (Roehm & Sternthal, 2001). One of the hypothesis sated in these experiments is that
unaware participants will be more likely to be persuaded by an analogy typically when there are
specific instructions given to focus on the relationship of the resources. This was shown to be
significantly true when a NFC scale was conducted, NFC score (F(l, 27) = 32.39, p < .01)
(Roehm & Sternthal, 2001).

H2V: THE IMPACT OF MARKETING WATER

A study conducted by Kathryn A. LaTour and Micheal S. LaTour focused on mood and
how it may make individuals susceptible to false advertisement (2009). This kind of information
is good to know for this research and people in general because if mood can affect the way a
person is persuaded that is a variable that needs to be carefully monitored. It was found in this
study that people that have a positive mood are more likely to notice information that is false in
advertising (LaTour & LaTour, 2009). It was also found that when a person has a positive
attitude they are like to view a product in more of a positive way also (LaTour & LaTour, 2009).
The results of this study for were found to be significant after conducting a Cronbachs .
In a marketing study conducted by Nathalie Dens and Patrick De Pelsmacker it was
found that the kind of marketing used can impact brand attitude and intent to purchase of a
product (2010). Their results showed when there is positive information and attitude towards a
product versus negative will draw more preference for that product (Dens & Pelmacker, 2010).
To show this they conducted a t-test to compare the score from the positive advertising (M=6.46)
and the negative advertising (5.13) and resulted in significance being found (t(312)=25.854,
p<.001).
Something as simple as water can be something a person is particular about. Many water
companies put a lot of work into the way their product is perceived in order to beat out other
companies. In reality it is just water and many taste the same even though people would go the
extra mile to pay for what seems to be the better product. In this experiment it can be seen just
how affective marketing can be even with such a product as water. This is a great product to use
for this experiment because water is supposed to have no taste and consumer already tend to
have a preference for either bottle water or tap water, or in our case fountain water (Teillet,
Urbano, Cordelle, & Shilich, 2010).

H2V: THE IMPACT OF MARKETING WATER

A study conducted by Eric Teillet, Christine Urbano, Sylvie Cordelle Pascal Schlich
participants found no difference in the comparison of actual bottled water and tap water (2010).
They presented the waters, six type of both tap and bottled, to 389 participants. The participants
sampled the water and gave their preferences (Teillet, Urbano, Cordelle, & Shilich, 2010). The
waters, tap and bottled, that had a medium amount of mineral were preferred regardless of the
source (Teillet, Urbano, Cordelle, & Shilich, 2010). This study was conducted to better
understand the way consumers think about drinking waters, especially that of tap and bottled
(Teillet, Urbano, Cordelle, & Shilich, 2010).

Methods
Participants
The population that was drawn for this experiment were undergraduate college students
from Gardner-Webb University. Their ages, gender, and class ranking varied. The sample that the
participants were chosen form were a convenient sample. Two psychology classes were used to
execute this experiment, a combined 36 students were used as participants. All the participants
were informed that the experiment was voluntary, no incentive was give, and each were required
to sign a consent form before participating.
Apparatus
The materials required for this project included water bottles, disposable cups, a logo,
water bottles, water fountain water, water pitcher, script, survey, and a consent form. In this
experiment it was required that there was some kind of marketing required, so to meet this
requirement a false brand was created. This brand could be found on the water bottle, there were

H2V: THE IMPACT OF MARKETING WATER

three that were presented in the experiment, and on the survey that the participants filled out. The
survey used in this experiment will be attached. The water bottles use in this experiment were
water bottles from another band and the contents of it dumped out and the logo removed. The
contents of the water bottle was then removed and replace with fountain water and the false logo
was made to look like the label of an actual brand and put on the it. The script used was read by
one of the experimenters and contained false information about the advertised water, and also
contained information about the debriefing, this will also be attached.
Procedure
The participants were informed that involvement in the presentation they were being
asked to be a part of was completely voluntary. Those that agreed to be part of the presentation
were then given an informed consent paper to sign. Then the presentation was given following a
script, which is attached. Small disposable white cups were passed out and fountain water, in a
plain pitcher, was poured into each persons cup. Then surveys were passed out and the
participants were told to try the water and rate it on the survey. Once they were finished fountain
water that was advertised as H2V water, the false advertisement, was poured into the same cups,
they were then asked to drink the water and rate it on the survey also. After doing this the
participants were then debriefed and all the materials were collected. This procedure occurred
twice in two separate classrooms.
Results
According to the results the advertised product was shown more favoritism. The mean of
the advertised product, fountain water, was higher than the unadvertised product. The mean of
the unadvertised product ratings collected by the participants was M=3.25 and the standard

H2V: THE IMPACT OF MARKETING WATER

deviation sd=.770; the mean of the advertised product was M=3.89 and the standard deviation
sd=.785. In order to find this a t-test was conducted and it was found that there was a difference
in the preference of the advertised product versus the unadvertised product (t(70)=-3.487, p<.01.)
The purpose of conducting the t-test was to compare the means of the two variables and see if
there was a significant difference between the two. There was significance found so the null
hypothesis was rejected; this means that the alternative hypothesis that there would be a
significance was retained.
Discussion
The results showed that the marketing of a product can improve the way it is perceived
by consumers. This can be seen in the way that the advertised water had a higher rating than that
of the unadvertised water. By the advertised water having a higher rating showed that the
participants had a better perception.
What this means is advertising could very much affect the way people consume and
invest in certain products. The water that were given to the participants were the exact same
water but the only difference is that one was marketed to be slightly more appealing. None of the
participants asked the credibility of the product, even thought they could have, but instead took
in the false information and eye grabbing logo and assumed it was better.
From the research collected for this experiment it could be seen that marketing does have
some effect on the way a product is received. However there are many factors that play a role in
the way a person may be deceived. Like it was mentioned earlier, it could be possible that a
person could have had a biased opinion of bottle water versus tap water and seeing the water in
the bottle alone could have persuaded a person to prefer the falsely advertised water in the

H2V: THE IMPACT OF MARKETING WATER

experiment (Teillet, Urbano, Cordelle, & Shilich, 2010). Mood was another factor brought up
when considering the persuasion that takes place in marketing (LaTour & LaTour, 2009). Also if
a product is compared to another existing product that is a form of marketing and could change
the way it is viewed too (Roehm & Sternthal, 2001). The research for this paper help provide
insight on some of the many factors that could take place in marketing and made aware of things
to look for in design and execution.
Some of these elements that are some of many factors of marketing are not things that
could be controlled for in this experiment. These elements had to be used to the benefit of the
project in order to be able to execute it. Other limitation that were had on this project is the
population, sample size, time restraint, and lack of professional marketing. The population which
the sample was pulled from was college students. This was the only population readily available
to conduct this experiment. Also because of the population and time restraint the sample size was
not as big as it could have been for more accurate results. The advertisement for the project was
made without the aid of a profession and could have been better produced and had a stronger
effect on the participants.
After conducting the experiment it can be seen that the marketing of a product can be
impactful on the way it is perceived. This can be important for informing individual to not be
deceived by marketing but to be an informed consumer. Marketing is a powerful tool and is
affective in such a way it can convince a person that water taste differently than it really does.
Although marketing a powerful it also has many elements that may be hard to control for. If this
experiment were to be conducted again it may be wise to venture into more of the variable that
marketing has. The human behavior varies greatly and to get a better understanding of how
marketing effects people it would be best to understand and study it from all perspectives.

H2V: THE IMPACT OF MARKETING WATER

References
Dens, N., & Pelmacker, P. D. (2010, June 16). Consumer response to different advertisng appeals
for new products: The moderating influence of branding strategy and product catefory
involvement. Brand Management, 50-65.
LeBoeuf, R. A., & Simmons, J. P. (2010). Branding Alters Attitude Functions and Reduces the
Advantages of Function-Matching Persuasive Appeas. Journalof Marketing Research,
348-360.
Roehm, M. L., & Sternthal, B. (2001). The Moderating Effect of Knowledge andResources on
the Persuasive Impact of Analogies. Journal of Consumer Research, 257-272.
Teillet, E., Urbano, C., Cordelle, S., & Shilich, P. (2010). Consumer Perception and Preference of
Bottle Water and Tap Water. Journal of Sensory Studies, 463-480.