Circular or angular? How nostalgia affects product shape preference

Abstract As an important marketing strategy, nostalgia marketing is widely used by enterprises to attract consumers and influence their decision‐making. Besides, feelings of nostalgia can be easily elicited in people's daily life and exert a great impact on them. Though the effect of nostalgia on consumer behavior has been extensively studied, whether and how nostalgia affects consumer preference for products with certain visual designs remain underexplored. Our research extends this domain by focusing on product shape preference as a new downstream consequence of nostalgia. Five studies (including one field experiment) demonstrate that nostalgia can increase consumer preference for circular‐shaped products, with social connectedness as the underlying driver. Moreover, the indirect effect of nostalgia on circular shape preference via social connectedness is moderated by consumers' current social connections, such that the effect holds true for consumers with a low number of current social connections but is eliminated for those with a high number of current social connections. Together, marketers seeking to increase the sales of circular‐shaped products may use nostalgic elements or cues in marketing campaigns.