SensoGram 15: Are You Adding (+) or Subtracting (-) Value?       When you beef up your product - increase its size, add an inclusion - are you really adding value?  It might seem that way to you, but perhaps your consumers have other ideas.   The study charted above investigated the effect on product liking of (1) increasing product size, and (2) adding an inclusion.  The chart shows the consumer response to a total of six product variants: three sizes (regular, medium, large) at two inclusion levels (with and without). There are two clear findings:   ·              the larger the size, the less the product was liked (the liking scores drop as the size increases).   ·              the products with the inclusion were liked less than the products without the inclusion.   So much for adding value!  This finding, although the exception rather than the rule, does occur more often than you might expect.   The research approach here taps into `Information Integration', a simple yet powerful technique which tells us something about how consumers process information.  Note, for example, that the curves are parallel.  This means that the inclusion has had the same degree of negative effect on all three sizes of product.  In other words, the effect of the inclusion has been to subtract value, in a simple arithmetic way.   So, although liking is an immediate, intuitive response which does not require conscious computation, it seems the brain nonetheless performs simple algebra behind the scenes.  This intriguing finding crops up in many studies of Information Integration and reveals something of mind mechanisms. Next time, before you modify a product, check that it will genuinely add value for the buyer ... and not just cost to the manufacturer.