Communication in relief: should we embosse the brand or the product?

Our communication focuses on the impact of relief vs smooth advertising poster by manipulating the relief element: the brand and/or product picture. Adding relief on an advertising medium should lead to more haptic contacts with the medium and increase persuasion its impact. Moreover, a food product picture in relief should increase the desire to eat while the relief brand should enhance brand recall. The presence of relief on a product causes more haptic contacts with the advertising medium but this is not the case when the brand is in relief. Adding relief on the product or the brand leads to more haptic contacts with smooth advertising media competitors. Via an experiment (n=193) we show that the presence of relief on a product causes more haptic contacts with the advertising medium but this is not the case when the brand is in relief. Adding relief on the product or the brand leads to more haptic contacts with smooth advertising media competitors. Adding relief to the product image seems to be the best choice. Indeed, it enhances brand preference. At the opposite, the relief brand decreases the consumed quantity of product and incites touching competitive smooth media without enhancing brand preference or recall. Moreover our results do not conclude to a reinforcement effect between relief product picture and relief brand name, inviting to relief only one of them.