Tasting Without Tasting: The Moderating Role of Sensory Imagery in Multisensory Advertising

This study investigates how multisensory advertising messages shape consumers' taste perceptions in contexts where actual product sampling is absent, with a particular focus on the moderating roles of visual and olfactory imagery. While prior research has shown that multisensory cues can enhance consumer evaluations, most studies have assumed that these effects occur automatically across contexts. Our research challenges this assumption by demonstrating that the persuasive power of multisensory messages critically depends on consumers' mental simulation processes. Across three experiments with different food products, we compared the effects of multisensory versus single‐sense messages on perceived taste. Study 1 established the main effect of multisensory messages by showing that they increase taste perception both with and without physical consumption. Study 2 revealed a significant interaction between message type and olfactory imagery: when participants imagined the scent of the product, multisensory messages enhanced taste perception, but no effect emerged for single‐sense messages. Study 3 replicated this pattern with visual imagery, showing that imagined product appearance similarly amplified the multisensory advantage. These findings extend multisensory marketing literature by identifying sensory imagery as a boundary condition that determines when and why multisensory messages are effective. The results support a top‐down processing framework, where extrinsic cues interact with consumers' stored knowledge and imagination to “fill in” missing sensory input. The study contributes theoretically by clarifying the cognitive mechanism behind multisensory persuasion, and it offers practical insights for designing effective advertising in online, retail, and immersive media environments where direct tasting opportunities are limited.