2.3.1. Emotions Associated with Beverages
Relatively few studies exist in the marketing field concerning emotions and beverages consumption, and the existing ones mainly report on positive emotions related to beverages consumption focusing on beer and wine [
5,
23]. Following [
19], an emotional association with a beverage or food product could be defined as “
the emotional connotation that reflects what the product is communicating to the individual”. Other authors, such as [
16], report that food and beverage names evoke associated memories of previous eating and drinking occasions; that is, in turn, linked to emotions experienced on these occasions. Likewise, some authors highlight that negative emotions are important to investigate in beverage consumption since beverages benefit from reducing negative emotions and making consumers feel better [
18].
Interestingly, prior research on the topic shows differences in the emotions associated with different types of beverages. For example, [
24] demonstrated that spirits and beer are mainly associated with feeling ‘‘euphoric’’, ‘‘happy’’ and “appealing”. Other studies focused on emotions associated with wine consumption, showing that the two emotional terms associated with wine consumption are “feeling elegant” and “feeling interesting”. Similarly, authors like [
25] showed that the consumption of wine is associated with low-arousal positive emotions such as pleasure, enjoyment, fulfilment or feeling relaxed. Further, [
5] indicated that wine increases pleasant emotions, while there is no evidence that wine decreases negative emotions.
Regarding the consumption of beer, authors like [
26] highlighted that beer shows a strong positive emotional profile, being mostly associated with positive high arousal emotional responses. However, the emotions mainly reported to be associated with beer are “enjoyment”, “feeling peaceful”, “adventurous” and “amusing” [
27]. Finally, regarding coffee consumption, prior research notes that consumers tend not to have unpleasant feelings in coffee consumption [
27]. More precisely, the most relevant emotions associated with coffee are “feeling pleasure”, “feeling energetic”, “feeling active”, “warm”, “comfortable”, and “productive”. Conversely, the negative emotions primarily associated with coffee are “feeling bored”, “disgusted”, “annoyed”, “worried” or “grouchy” [
28]. In this context, the research developed by [
29] found a set of emotional terms specific to coffee that was not previously found to be relevant to other beverages, such as “staying mentally alert” and “focused”, “motivated”, “feeling productive” and “clear-minded”.
On the other hand, prior studies have reported that non-alcoholic beverages are associated with negative and neutral emotions, such as “feeling rational” or “feeling disappointed” [
26]; however, it could be expected that weak positive emotions are associated with non-alcoholic beverages due to the absence of alcohol. On these premises, it is hypothesized that:
Hypothesis 1 (H1). Consumers will associate positive emotions rather than negative emotions to beverage consumption.
2.3.2. Consumer Satisfaction with Beverages
One of the seminal conceptualizations of satisfaction is based on the expectancy-disconfirmation paradigm [
30], which supports that consumers form expectations compared to the real product or service performance. So, individuals’ satisfaction judgments entail an evaluative process in which expectations about a product or service are compared with real performance, thus creating satisfaction or dissatisfaction [
31]. More precisely, if the product or service fails to meet the customers’ needs or expectations, consumers will respond with negative emotions, while if the product or service is perceived as better than expected, consumers will respond with positive emotions [
32]. A vast body of literature reports that emotions are a core component of consumer satisfaction since positive/pleasant emotions and consumer satisfaction are positively linked [
33], while negative emotions are associated with negative affect [
34,
35]. There is a direct relationship between emotions and consumer satisfaction, with the emotions-satisfaction link being valence-congruent [
36,
37].
Regarding products’ consumption, the marketing literature supports that food products have an emotional impact on consumer satisfaction [
20,
34]. Thus, it seems coherent to suggest that feelings of pleasure should positively influence satisfaction and that consumers will experience positive emotions rather than negative emotions derived from food products’ consumption [
11,
16]. Accordingly, the following hypothesis is posed:
Hypothesis 2 (H2). Consumers will experience high satisfaction in beverage consumption.