A Packaging Visual-Gustatory Correspondence Effect: Using Visual Packaging Design to Influence Flavor Perception and Healthy Eating Decisions

Visual elements of packaging design serve as a powerful, cost-efficient tool for manufacturers and retailers alike to communicate sensory features of the product to consumers and influence their consumption behaviors. Based on studies of packaging design, cross-modal correspondences, and food science, this research establishes a “packaging visual-gustatory correspondence effect” whereby the image of a food product placed at the bottom (vs. top) of the package façade enhances consumers’ expectations (Study 1A) and actual perceptions (Study 1B) of the food’s flavor heaviness. Further, this effect carries over to help consumers make healthier eating decisions such as eating less of the food (Study 2) and subsequently choosing a healthier snack (Study 3). This research also shows that the packaging visual-gustatory correspondence effect is moderated by consumers’ processing style such that those who engage in holistic (vs. analytic) processing are more affected by the location of the food image on the package façade (Study 4). Our theoretically novel findings are also conducive to addressing the self-control dilemma: The location of the food image on the package façade can serve to increase flavor perception but decrease consumption quantity.     

Evaluating the urban consumer with regard to sourcing local food: a Heart of England study

This paper critically explores consumer perceptions and trends regarding purchasing locally produced food. Until recently, much of the research in this area largely focused on regional consumers where rural consumers had reasonable access to locally produced food and were usually in close proximity to the producers within, or close to, their immediate community. Here, the objectives of the primary research focused instead on urban attitudes and perceptions of local food within the Greater Birmingham conurbation in the West Midlands region of the UK. Birmingham is by far the most highly populated urban area of the region, and with ample opportunities to promote local food. Consumers, based mainly in Birmingham and Wolverhampton, were questioned on their locally produced food‐buying habits and attitudes in order to determine any differences in urban perceptions and buying attitudes compared with rural counterparts, and also to identify any new and potential opportunities for local food producers. Originally, 1000 questionnaires were obtained from across Greater Birmingham and Wolverhampton. However, for the purposes of this paper, it was decided to focus on two urban city centres – Birmingham and Wolverhampton, with 148 questionnaires. The results indicate that urban consumers are generally confused about what the term ‘local’ food means. The reasons for purchasing local food, while generally consistent with national patterns, differed in that supporting the local producers was not regarded as important. Barriers to purchase were largely unsurprising for an urban area, as the top choices were ‘too expensive’ followed by ‘not readily available’ and ‘no time to find it’. Understanding, information, availability and access to local food emerge as the biggest challenges to urban consumers in buying local food.     

Critical consumer issues in St. Lucia: an examination of consumer challenges and related learning among rural adults according to income levels

Consumer education is a relatively new and growing interest in St. Lucia. Neither the government nor the National Consumer Association has established a consumer education programme to address the growing consumer concerns in the country. The purpose of this study was to examine critical consumer issues, related learning challenges and strategies among rural adults in St. Lucia according to income levels. Rural adult consumers are most disadvantaged in terms of levels of education, income and access to resources, which may help to prevent and mediate consumer concerns. The specific research questions examined were: (1) What is the nature of problems experienced by rural St. Lucian adult consumers in the marketplace? (2) How do rural St. Lucian adult consumers solve the challenges they encounter in the marketplace? (3) What is it like for rural St. Lucian adult consumers as they go about trying to learn to solve the consumer issues they face? and (4) What do rural St. Lucian adult consumers perceive to be the requisites for effective decision making in the marketplace? Data were collected using a questionnaire comprising of 29 questions divided into four sections (problems, strategies, solving consumer problems and making effective decisions) and two biographical questions. A total of 500 rural adult consumers were surveyed verbally through door‐to‐door contact. The findings of this study revealed that middle‐income rural adult consumers experience more problems in the marketplace than those with each lower or higher level of income. Middle‐income rural adult St. Lucian consumers in particular seek more information and are comfortable with using more strategies than the lower‐ and higher‐income rural adult consumers. This research gives us a better understanding of the problems faced by rural adult consumers based on their income. Research results will be useful to the government of St. Lucia and the National Consumer Association when they decide to establish an adult consumer education programme for St. Lucia.     

Consumer Decision Making Regarding a “Green” Everyday Product

One of the techniques marketers use to convert low‐involvement products into high‐involvement ones is adding an important product feature. A case in point is the common practice of adding a “green” or environmentally friendly product feature to an everyday product, something which is often assumed to elevate consumer involvement in the choice of the product. However, there is a lack of research investigating whether adding such a “green” product attribute actually makes any difference to how consumers make choices. Does the way in which consumers make decisions about groceries change when both “green” and conventional alternatives are available? Does it make them deliberate more or do they just develop another, simple choice heuristic? Based on observation and follow‐up interviews of consumers at the milk counter in two supermarkets which stock both organic (a “green” attribute) and conventional milk, it is concluded that, rather than changing the way consumers make decisions when buying this type of product, the availability of a “green” alternative seems to make “green” consumers develop a new, simple choice heuristic that allows them to do their shopping as effortless and time‐efficient as consumers buying conventional products.     

Perceptions of older consumers regarding food packaging as a prerequisite for its improvement: A case study of Polish market

In many societies, the scale of demographic change associated with increased longevity has the potential to influence the market for consumer goods. As a result, continuous improvement in packaging design that takes into account the needs of older people should become an important challenge for both packaging producers and product manufacturers. Due to the fact that there is limited research concerning the design of food packaging for older people, the aim of the study was to identify the expectations of this group of consumers in this respect. Milk packaging was selected as a model subject of study. Factors influencing older consumers and their buying patterns when purchasing milk have been thoroughly examined. The research was conducted among people over the age of 60 with the use of three methods: a questionnaire (600 subjects), an in‐depth interview (60 subjects) and eye tracking (30 subjects). The results of the study show that older consumers have specific preferences regarding packaging type and design. When considering milk packaging, for example, they prefer glass bottles, simple graphics and font and subdued colours. They most frequently look for information concerning the product's expiration date, its producer's name and its composition. Eye tracking revealed that the older the consumers are, the more problems with finding expiration date they have. The time required to find such information, however, strongly depends on where exactly the expiration date is printed on the packaging. The preferred place in this case is the top of the bottle. Older consumers identify product's brand with the name of the producer. Moreover, the absence of the term ‘ingredients’: on the milk packaging oftentimes causes confusion among older people, who are concerned about potential food additive content.     

Organizational buying behaviour for perishable-food packaging in grocery retail

This qualitative study investigates the structure of the buying centre, the buying process, and the factors that influence buying decisions for perishable-products packaging. This empirical investigation is based on the case study of a major Quebec food retailer. We show that the purchase of packaging changes significantly depending on whether the product is considered more or less strategic for the organization, which determines the required level of packaging customization. Buying centre structure becomes more complex as packaging customization increases. Given the multi-functionality and the interdisciplinarity of packaging, we propose a multi-criteria analysis grid to improve buying decision efficiency and to streamline communication between the various levels of the buying centre.     

How green is your packaging—A comparative international study of cues consumers use to recognize environmentally friendly packaging

Consumers have grown increasingly aware of the impact of packaging on the environment. Therefore, interest has grown in more environmentally friendly packaging, but we wondered how consumers recognize ‘green’ as distinct from ‘grey’ when evaluating packaging. We asked over 3,000 respondents from Germany, France and the United States how they recognize environmentally friendly packaging. To solicit responses that we may not have anticipated, we used an open‐ended format, which we then followed with a closed‐ended format so that we could compare the two sets of responses. Not surprisingly, in both sets of responses, we found labelling to be the attribute consumers rely upon most, as well as evidence of misleading labels. We also found consumers in Germany and the United States relied on information on the packaging and named searching for information as one of their preferred ways to decide whether packaging is environmentally friendly. French consumers seemed less trusting of published information and more trusting of the look and feel, especially the material, of the package. Our results point to the importance of cultural influences in the acquisition of perceptual cues by the consumer.     

Antecedents of rural and urban consumers' propensity to outshop and product specific outshopping behaviour

Retail sector survives in the face of severe competition caused especially by outshopping activity. Outshopping involves residents—urban or rural—of one area travelling to another area, usually larger retail developments, to buy goods. This practice is of special concern to retailers particularly when consumers outshop even if the product is available locally. This study aims to understand how psychographics influence the propensity to outshop among urban and rural consumers, and more specifically to find out which products they purchase. It analyzes a quota sample of 298 usable responses from urban and rural areas of northern Gujarat. A structured questionnaire was administered through survey approach. From an exploratory analysis, six factors were extracted and regressed with a propensity to outshop among consumers, followed by the analysis of variance to determine which products were outshopped by consumers. The study demonstrates that rural consumers’ propensity to outshop is influenced by factors such as outlet prone, local involvement, and time saving opinions, urban consumers’ propensity to outshop is influenced by travelling oriented, outshopping interests, and time saving opinions. Additionally, rural consumers outshop for sports goods and flooring materials, while urban consumers outshop for children's clothing and fancy items for women’s use. This study can help retailers to tailor-make their communication strategies for rural and urban consumers. In addition, it can contribute significantly in understanding the retail flow for specific product categories, which in turn, can help retailers in designing marketing mix strategies for expanding their customer base.     

How product aesthetics cues efficacy beliefs of product performance

Aesthetics of package design is an important consideration when consumers make purchase decisions. We argue that this is particularly the case for purchase decision of products in the beauty category. This paper advances current understanding of the role of packaging in product purchase behavior by identifying heuristic cues exhibited in packaging (i.e., that beautiful packaging is more effective at making the consumer more beautiful). Across a pilot field study and four lab studies, we demonstrate that package aesthetics informs inferences of how well the product can perform, which, in turn, drives purchase decisions. Importantly, we show that in the presence of a diagnostic cue such as a brand name, or an explicit promise (e.g. tagline of an advertisement), this effect is attenuated and rendered irrelevant. Further, we show that this effect is rendered ineffective to a category to which beauty is irrelevant. Hence, by signaling product efficacy, the beauty-in-a-bottle heuristic appears to inform purchase decisions.     

Customers' judgment of the customer service in appliance sales departments in an emerging economy

Evidence that consumers in emerging economies are more tolerant of ineffective customer service (CS), instigated an investigation into controllable elements of the service offering in a specific context in South Africa, namely, appliances sales departments in retail stores. The research aimed to identify possible shortcomings in CS amidst evidence that consumers are exposed to sophisticated merchandise that they have limited experience and understanding of. The intention was to suggest initiatives to augment the service offering so that it becomes more conducive for informed, responsible buying decisions. Household appliances represent a category of complex, durable and expensive merchandise that require more extensive information search before concluding buying decisions. A survey was done in 2007 through a pre‐tested structured questionnaire. Several branches of five prominent department stores were involved through liaison with industry. A store intercept method was used to recruit respondents: 296 questionnaires were filled in on the spot under supervision. Three sections of the questionnaire are relevant for this report: (1) consumers' satisfaction with CS; (2) a product knowledge test; and (3) demographic information. Factor analysis revealed a reduction of the original five elements of CS in the scale to three distinct elements that were labelled Personnel, Processes and Value for Money, and Product Presentation. The simpler scale suggests a less intricate judgment of CS in the context of this research. Means indicated that consumers were generally satisfied with all elements of CS, i.e. the service offering coincided with their expectations. Analysis of variance indicated no significant differences in the interpretation of any of the elements of CS by gender. A significant inverse relationship between satisfaction with CS and years of experience occurred for respondents with more than 25 years of experience in terms of Personnel (Element 1) and Processes and Value for Money (Element 2). Findings of the product knowledge tests were meant to verify consumers' CS judgments. However, scores were disappointingly low for all appliances across all respondent categories. Consumers' product knowledge could therefore not have supported informed buying decisions, despite prior experience and the opportunity to acquire additional product information during the in‐store encounter. Consumers' positive CS judgments suggest that they not necessarily realize their lack of crucial product knowledge. In the interest of informed and responsible buying decisions that have consequences for proper use and maintenance of appliances in the long term, retail stores that serve a broad customer base are encouraged to attend to in‐store customer assistance during the pre‐purchase phase, notwithstanding positive CS judgments. Non‐formal consumer education by competent, well‐trained salespeople is recommended to encourage evaluative rational product judgments. It is also suggested that store displays are designed to encourage consumers to be more inquisitive during store visits.     

Consumer confusion from own brand lookalikes: An exploratory investigation

Lookalikes are a new generation of own brand products that have similar packaging and labelling characteristics to leading branded products. Their current success and proliferation (in Britain) has raised ethical and legal issues about whether they confuse consumers. A set of factors that foster or inhibit consumer confusion adapted from a framework on consumer confusion, were tested on a sample of 50 shoppers at the end of their shopping visit. No incidents of consumers having falsely bought a lookalike product were identified. However, low‐price products subject to impulse buying were found to be more likely to confuse shoppers. Additionally, elderly and impulsive shoppers appear to be more susceptible to confusion. Thus, effective brand identification or confusion‐protection strategies are more important for the above sets of products and shoppers. However, future research should concentrate on what extent consumers infer “misleading” that the original brand attributes are similar to the lookalike brand attributes and how this is linked to their choice.     

Neural Correlates of Impulsive Buying Tendencies during Perception of Product Packaging

Research has shown that people differ in their susceptibility to impulsive buying. The appeal of product packaging has the potential to trigger impulsive buying even for consumers with no intention to make a purchase. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether individual differences in consumers’ impulsive buying tendencies affect unconscious neural responses during the perception of product packaging. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was applied to measure neural responses to the perception of product packages in participants with different impulsive buying tendencies. The results of the study support and expand prior research in impulsive and reflective information processing and behavior. First, attractive versus neutral packages evoked more intensive activity changes in brain regions associated with an impulsive system. Second, attractive and unattractive versus neutral packages led to less intensive activity changes in regions associated with a reflective system. Third, attractive packages activated regions associated with reward, whereas unattractive packages activated regions associated with negative emotions. The results suggest that there is indeed a corresponding relationship between stronger impulsive buying tendencies and activity in brain areas associated with impulsive and reflective processes.     

Visual influence on in-store buying decisions: an eye-track experiment on the visual influence of packaging design

This article describes the impact of visual attention on consumers' in-store buying behaviour. Through an eye-track experiment, it demonstrates the advantage of a behaviour model that addresses visual attention and an increase in visual stimuli during the process. It reveals that consumers exhibit a muddled search strategy where packaging design influences the decision process in several phases. Five phases were found in an in-store decision process, and the post-purchase phase seems to be essential for even low-level in-store decision processes. Further knowledge on packaging design elements is needed for a broader understanding of visual influence during in-store purchase decisions.     

Telecommunications deregulation and rural consumers: the impact on decision-making

Deregulation of the U.S. telecommunications industry has made a major impact on the consumer decisions of both urban and rural telephone consumers. This article focuses on rural consumers and examines their relative satisfaction with local and long-distance service, attitudes toward and knowledge about deregulation, and use of information in specific local service and equipment decisions. Implications for consumer educators are identified.     

A purchase decision support model considering consumer personalization about aspirations and risk attitudes

Ranking alternative products to help consumers make better purchase choices is a valuable research topic. Most previous decision support models cannot be well applied to heterogeneous consumers. This paper focuses on establishing a personalized interactive model to assist consumers make better buying decisions with less effort. For the alternative products provided by consumers, we collect online reviews and parameter configurations of alternative products and then obtain the fusing evaluative information. As consumers are dominated by bounded rationality, they only provide partially key attribute weights, based on which, we construct an optimizing model to obtain the optimal attribute weights of customers for products. Then, a satisfaction function is proposed by uniting aspiration levels and risk attitudes of consumers and a compensatory decision rules is established to rank and recommend the brands to consumers. Finally, practicability of this study is illustrated with a real car purchase case. Through the case study, it can be seen that the proposed decision support model generates a personalized list of alternatives based on consumer's own utility function about risk attitudes, aspiration levels, and preferences for product attributes, which further confirms that the proposed model can capture the personalized needs of consumers. Theoretical and managerial implications of this model as well as advantages are further illustrated.     

Material Distortion of Economic Behaviour and Everyday Decision Quality

Misleading information and unfair commercial practices have to be viewed against the background of what consumers otherwise do, i.e., what their purchase decisions look like when no misleading information or no unfair commercial practices are in place. This article provides some of this background by studying how consumers sample information when making an in-store purchase decision. This was done by an eye-tracking study which reveals to what extent consumers succeed in purchasing the products that best meet their purchase intentions when only a representative amount of misleading information is present. The study shows that decisions were suboptimal in relation to what the consumers claimed they wanted to purchase. Only in one product category did consumers in this study actually look at products that were slightly better than average, and as a result, they mainly selected products that were just as often poor as good. If the proportion of bad purchase decisions based on misleading information is small enough, perhaps it might be better to direct the authors’ attention to other ways of improving the decision environments that consumers encounter. In addition, the eye-tracking study provides some insight into how consumers sample information when making an in-store purchase decision. The present data show that consumers invested on average of less than 1 s to look at products.     

Low involvement,low price and low quality image renegotiated – a case study of staple food package design

The food sector is identified as one of the fastest growing industries introducing package innovations and new package designs. This article is based on a packaging development project of a food company producing eggs. The case presents the company's first-time engagement with package development. The materials generated during development project serve as a starting point for an interpretive single case study. The units of analysis are three perspectives identified by the various research as essential for the packaging development project. These are the food company's, an outsourced branding and packaging consultants' and that of the consumers'. This study is motivated by how the package attributes are perceived as meaningful in the particular context and by how the package attributes are created when a low involvement primary food product package is developed. The exposition of case study findings is organised according to a theory-led literature review outlining the essential package attributes and a project-led case describing how these attributes were created during the project. The results show signs of substantial qualitative differences in contribution of the participants as well as the quality of information they provided for the package development. Moreover, findings on packaging development indicate that the practical interplay between company, external consultancy and information generated by the consumer research provide together a backed up and sharper view on packaging development decisions made during the project.     

Using the Internet to Facilitate Outshopping by Rural Residents: Survey and Implications

ABSTRACT

Outshopping is the behavior of consumers who make retail purchases outside of the community in which they live. Outshopping is most prevalent in rural communities and represents a serious threat to rural retailers. This paper investigates the impact of the Internet on outshopping by rural residents and examines behavior, attitudes, and future intentions. The study results indicate that rural consumers are using the Internet to facilitate outshopping and intend to significantly increase this behavior. These future intentions appear to be driven by high levels of satisfaction with the online buying experience. Implications for rural retailers are discussed.     

Discriminant Analysis of Consumer Interest in Buying Locally Produced Foods

In the wake of Foot and Mouth Disease in the UK, upstream operators in the agrifood sector are being encouraged to undertake more direct marketing of their products. However, little is known about consumer interest in buying local food, and the factors that might influence a positive response. Drawing from the literature on ethical and environmentally responsible consumer behaviour, interest in local food is conceptualised as being related to attitudinal, situational and demographic factors. Discriminant analysis of responses to a survey of shoppers in the north of England finds that attitudinal factors tend to explain variations in local food interest better than demographic factors. In addition, situational factors of urban/rural residency and degree of involvement with farming are also strong discriminators. However, as importance ratings of food choice attributes such as low price and intrinsic quality did not differ significantly according to interest levels in local food, the results imply that even highly interested consumers have pragmatic expectations about local food products that need to be met for marketing strategies to be successful.     

Blending package shape with the gender dimension of brand image: How and why?

We investigate the congruence of brand image and package shape on product preferences, the moderating role of a creative mindset, and the underlying processes. Across four studies, we show that consumers generally prefer products with curved-shaped (versus angular-shaped) packaging for a “feminine” brand and prefer products with angular-shaped (versus curved-shaped) packaging for a “masculine” brand (Study 1a). This effect is mediated by the perceived congruence between brand image and package shape (Study 1b). We further demonstrate that the congruence effect is reversed when consumers adopt a creative (versus less creative) mindset (Study 2), since a creative mindset leads consumers to perceive curved-shaped packaging as more congruent with a masculine (versus feminine) brand and angular-shaped packaging as more congruent with a feminine (versus masculine) brand (Study 3).