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Making a big splash: packaging imagery with implied motion enhances product liking through design appeal and naturalness perception
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate how implying movement in food packaging imagery may affect product liking. Furthermore, the underlying mechanism is investigated by studying the effect of implied motion visuals on design appeal and naturalness perception.
Design/methodology/approach
Two packages of pineapple juice were designed in which the implied motion depicted in their imagery was manipulated, and a tasting experiment was conducted in which two samples of the same juice were evaluated.
Findings
The results show that the effect of packaging imagery on product liking occurs indirectly through both design appeal and the product naturalness perception. The results of a parallel multiple-mediator analysis show that (1) depicting implied motion made the package be perceived as more appealing, (2) the product corresponding to the package depicting implied motion was perceived as being more natural, and (3) both effects equally contributed to the positive effect of visuals depicting implied motion on product liking.
Originality/value
Overall, these findings widen our understanding of the effects of packaging design on product liking and may help both designers and manufacturers design more appropriate packaging for their products.
There has been a noticeable increase of interest in research on multisensory flavour perception in recent years. Humans are visually dominant creatures and a growing body of research has investigated how visual cues influence taste/flavour perception. At the same time, however, several null or limited findings have also been published recently; that is, studies showing either partial demonstrations or else failing to find any evidence in their data for the influence of specific visual cues on taste/flavour perception. By performing a systematic review and a critical evaluation of the literature that has been published to date, the present paper reveals whether and when visual cues (e.g., colour and shape) affect taste/flavour perception: The reviewed research demonstrates that visual cues can significantly affect taste/flavour perception under certain conditions, but that mixed, limited, and/or null results have also been reported in a number of other studies. We discuss potential moderators (the salience/attentional capture of visual cues, the strength of association between visual cues and taste/flavour, the perceived diagnosticity of visual cues regarding the signalling of taste/flavour, the evaluative malleability of food judgments) that might help to explain a number of the inconsistent findings that have appeared in the literature since 2011. Several important areas of future research in this area of inquiry are also identified.
Increasingly, firms are adopting "green packaging" due to regulatory and environmental concerns about packaging waste. The alcoholic-beverage industry has introduced creative paper bottles for their alcoholic drinks. Previous research on sustainable packaging has shown a positive halo effect on the perception of the food contained within. In contrast, our research aims to reveal the negative halo effects of sustainable packaging in the case of paper-bottled alcoholic beverages. Across three studies, the current research explores consumers’ perception towards alcoholic drinks packed in innovative paper bottles. Studies 1-2 demonstrate that consumers hold inferior expectations (i.e., sensory attributes, price, and purchase likelihood) towards alcoholic beverages (i.e., beer and wine) packed in a paper (vs. glass) bottle. Study 3 demonstrates that the enforced messaging and attractive packaging can mitigate the negative halo effect for both self-consumption and gifting. These findings show that alcohol packaged in paper receives negative evaluations due to the associations linked with subpar paper packaging, adding to our knowledge of alcoholic beverages and sustainable packaging. Additionally, we offer suggestions to the manufacturers of alcoholic beverages on how to raise consumer expectations by utilising aesthetically pleasing container designs and including explicit references to the same great taste.
Packaging design is one of the most important visual representations of low-fat foods and is a key factor in the perception of the health of the product. The complexity of packaging induces the automatic processing of relevant concepts by consumers, which affects their attitudes; however, this process is not well understood. We developed a sequential mediation model based on the theories of conceptual fluency and conceptual metaphor to examine the impact of packaging complexity on consumers’ purchase intentions. In this study, 353 volunteers were recruited to participate, and variables were measured using questionnaires on packaging intention, brand complexity, concept fluency, and brand attitude. The results indicated that it was simple to increase consumers’ conceptual fluency and brand attitude; conceptual fluency had a significant predictive effect on brand attitude and purchase intention; brand attitude had a significant predictive effect on purchase intention and conceptual fluency; and brand attitude served as a mediator between packaging complexity and purchase intention. This study demonstrated that the general characteristics of packaging design could influence consumers’ purchase intentions and provide direction for the packaging design of low-fat foods. In addition, we examine the study’s theoretical and practical implications.
Although there is growing interest in the neural foundations of aesthetic experience, it remains unclear how particular mental sub‐systems (e.g., perceptual, affective, cognitive) are involved in different types of aesthetic judgments. Here we use fMRI to investigate the involvement of different neural networks during aesthetic judgments of visual artworks with implied motion cues. First, a behavioural experiment (N=45) confirmed a preference for paintings with implied motion over static cues. Subsequently, in a pre‐registered fMRI experiment (N=27), participants made aesthetic and motion judgments towards paintings representing human bodies in dynamic and static postures. Using functional region‐of‐interest and Bayesian multilevel modelling approaches, we provide no compelling evidence for unique sensitivity within or between neural systems associated with body perception, motion and affective processing during the aesthetic evaluation of paintings with implied motion. However, we show suggestive evidence that motion and body‐selective systems may integrate signals via functional connections with a separate neural network in dorsal parietal cortex, which may act as a relay or integration site. Our findings clarify the roles of basic visual and affective brain circuitry in evaluating a central aesthetic feature – implied motion – whilst also pointing towards promising future research directions, which involve modelling aesthetic preferences as hierarchical interplay between visual and affective circuits and integration processes in frontoparietal cortex.
To tackle obesity, upgrading the image of healthy food is increasingly relevant. Rather than focusing on long-term benefits, an effective way to promote healthy food consumption through visual advertising is to increase its pleasure perception. We investigate whether implied motion, a popular trend in food pictures, affects food perceptions through anticipated consumption pleasure. Prior research shows that motion affects food perceptions, but these studies focused on limited food categories, using experiments with a single food stimulus, and mainly showing unhealthy food effects. Therefore, we aim to (1) replicate prior findings on the effects of food in motion on appeal, tastiness, healthiness, and freshness perceptions; (2) examine whether these effects differ for healthy and unhealthy food; and (3) investigate whether anticipated pleasure of consumption drives the effects of implied motion on food perceptions. Three between-subjects experiments (N = 626) reveal no evidence for the effectiveness of motion (vs. no motion) across a large variety of food products. We further show no differential effects for healthy versus unhealthy foods. Moreover, implied motion does not increase appeal or taste perceptions through anticipated pleasure. Considering the current replication crisis, these findings provide more nuanced insights into the effectiveness of motion in visual food advertising.
We report on a preliminary study designed to assess the impact of the sound of the closure on the taste of wine. Given that people hold certain beliefs around the taste/quality of wines presented in bottles having different closure types, we expected that the sound of opening might influence people’s wine ratings. In particular, if participants hear a cork being pulled vs. the sound of a screw-cap bottle being opened then these two sounds will likely set different expectations that may then affect people’s judgment of the taste/quality of the wine that they are rating. In order to test this hypothesis, 140 people based in the UK (and of varying degrees of wine expertise) rated two wine samples along four scales, three relating to the wine and one relating to celebratory mood. The results demonstrated that the sound of a bottle being opened did indeed impact ratings. In particular, the quality of the wine was rated as higher, its appropriateness for a celebratory occasion, and the celebratory mood of the participant was also higher following the sound of the cork pop. These results add to the literature demonstrating that the sounds of opening/preparation of food and beverage products can exert a significant influence over the sensory and hedonic aspects of people’s subsequent tasting experience.
Purpose - This paper aims to offer social marketers an innovative method to promote healthy foods. This method demonstrates the effectiveness of indirect communication in attracting consumers to healthy foods. Further, it aims to offer a way to promote food as healthier with no detrimental effects on its perceived appeal, which are a likely side effect of advertising food as healthy.
Design/methodology/approach - Four between-participant lab studies (N = 50, 80, 80, 102) included manipulations of food motion vs stillness and then compared ratings of food freshness, healthiness and appeal using self-report measures.
Findings - Motion increases healthiness evaluation. This increase in healthiness evaluation occurs without reductions in food appeal. These effects are mediated by evaluations of freshness. This occurred across three different food types and two mediums (still images and digital videos).
Research limitations/implications - The paper provides an effective tool for social marketers wishing to encourage healthier eating. Specifically, it helps address two problems: low effectiveness of prevalent, information-based appeals to encourage healthy eating; and reduced evaluations of tastiness that normally occur when consumers are convinced food is healthy.
Social implications - Social marketers can use motion as an effective tool to promote food as healthy. Importantly, this indirect communication avoids the potential pitfall of reduced food appeal. This should help encourage healthier eating. The findings also supports the use of indirect cues as an effective approach to promoting social ends.
Originality/value - Offering a novel, indirect method of enhancing judgments of food healthiness via a simple visual cue. Demonstrating the effect and its underlying mechanism. Providing a way to counter the prevalent "unhealthy = tasty" intuition, a major obstacle to promoting healthy eating. Supporting social marketers' use of indirect communication to increase the appeal of desirable societal goals. Finally, showing that sensory visual cues can serve as a source of heuristic thinking.
Most previous neuroaesthetics research has been limited to considering the aesthetic judgment of static stimuli, with few studies examining the aesthetic judgment of dynamic stimuli. The present study explored the neural mechanisms underlying aesthetic judgment of dynamic landscapes, and compared the neural mechanisms between the aesthetic judgments of dynamic landscapes and static ones. Participants were scanned while they performed aesthetic judgments on dynamic landscapes and matched static ones. The results revealed regions of occipital lobe, frontal lobe, supplementary motor area, cingulate cortex and insula were commonly activated both in the aesthetic judgments of dynamic and static landscapes. Furthermore, compared to static landscapes, stronger activations of middle temporal gyrus (MT/V5), and hippocampus were found in the aesthetic judgments of dynamic landscapes. This study provided neural evidence that visual processing related regions, emotion-related regions were more active when viewing dynamic landscapes than static ones, which also indicated that dynamic stimuli were more beautiful than static ones.
Food appearance sets intentions and expectations. When designing packaged food much attention is devoted to packaging elements like color and shape, but less to the characteristics of the images used. To our awareness, no study has yet investigated how the appearance of the food shown on the package affects consumers’ preferences. Often, orange juice packages depict an orange. Juiciness being one of the most important parameters to assess oranges’ quality, we hypothesized that an orange with a juicier appearance on the package would improve the overall evaluation of the juice.
Using image cues found to trigger juiciness perception of oranges depicted in 17th century paintings, we designed four orange juice packages by manipulating the highlights on the pulp (present vs. absent) and the state of the orange (unpeeled vs. peeled).
In an online experiment, 400 participants, each assigned to one condition, rated expected naturalness, healthiness, quality, sweetness and tastiness of the juice, package attractiveness and willingness to buy. Finally, they rated juiciness of the orange for all four images.
A one-way ANOVA showed a significant effect of the highlights on juiciness. A MANOVA showed that the presence of highlights, both in isolation and in interaction with the peeled side, also significantly increased expected quality and tastiness of the juice.
The present study shows the importance of material perception and food texture appearance in the imagery of food packaging. We suggest that knowledge from vision science on image features and material perception should be integrated into the process of packaging design.
How does desire for food and drink arise in the human mind? We suggest that rewarding simulations, which are based on previous experiences, play a key role. In other words, people think about food and drink in terms of what it feels like to consume them, and this leads to desire. We illustrate this with research using behavioral, physiological, and neuroimaging methods. This work shows that food and drink cues (e.g., words, eating contexts, labels) trigger spontaneous eating and drinking simulations (e.g., thoughts about taste, texture, and enjoyment) and that these simulations affect desire and eating experiences (e.g., cravings, salivation, taste ratings). These simulations can be disrupted or diffused through working memory load or through mindfulness, thus reducing desire. We discuss these findings in the context of simulations in motivated behavior more generally and suggest directions for future research.
Implied motion can enhance the consumer's judgment of food freshness. However, this enhancing effect has only been investigated for a few products. Furthermore, researchers have not conclusively determined whether the effects of the low-level visual sensory processing and high-level conceptual processing on food evaluation differ. In Experiment 1, using different fruits in static water (fruit_IS), fruit with implied moving water (fruit_IM), or only fruits as stimuli, we initially generalized the effect of implied motion on the broader category of fruit, and implied motion improved the perceived freshness of the fruit. In Experiment 2, we recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) and measured the temporal processes involved in the mechanism by which implied motion improved perceived fruit freshness. The behavioral results further supported the findings from Experiment 1. The ERP data revealed a pronounced positive difference between fruit_IM and fruit-only conditions recorded from posterior electrodes at approximately 200-300 ms (P2). This difference reflected the low-level visual implied motion sensory processing involved in the effect of implied motion on improving food freshness. Additionally, an early frontocentral negativity difference of approximately 300-500 ms between fruit_IM and fruit-only conditions was recorded, which reflected the high-level visual conceptual processing involved in the effect of implied motion on improving food freshness. These results strengthen and extend previous behavioral findings indicating that implied motion enhances the consumer's judgment of food freshness across various food categories, and improves our understanding of the cognitive processes involved in the mechanism by which implied motion influences food judgments.
So-called natural food is one of the most significant current trends in the food business. Despite this trend, previous research on the measurement of naturalness has made no distinction between different groups of consumers. Therefore, the objective of this study is to explore the attributes important to millennial university students when evaluating food naturalness. The study is based on a questionnaire administered to a sample of 372 respondents. Using a partial least square (PLS) methodology, it performs a standard confirmatory factor analysis for measurement and validations. As a result, it identifies one attribute linked to how the food is grown and eight attributes associated to how it is produced and processed. These findings have several implications. Apart from testing previous scales in a millennial context, they confirm that market strategies must take different understandings of naturalness into account contingent upon the consumer group.
The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of intrinsic product characteristics and extrinsic packaging-related factors on the food quality perception. Sensory and visual attention methods were used to study how consumers perceive the quality of commercial apple juices from four product categories: clear juices from concentrate, cloudy juices from concentrate, pasteurized cloudy juices not from concentrate, and fresh juices. Laboratory tests included the assessment of sensory liking in blind and informed conditions and expected liking based on packages only. The results showed that brand and package information have a large impact on consumers' sensory perceptions and generate high sensory expectations. An innovative visual attention tracking technique was used in online experiments to identify packages and label areas on individual packages, which attracted consumer attention. During an online shelf test, consumers mostly focused on not from concentrate juices from local producers, which were perceived as more natural, healthy, and expensive than juices reconstituted from concentrate. When individual labels were analyzed, consumers predominantly focused on nutritional data, brand name, and information about the type of product. The present results confirm a large impact of information and visual stimuli related to packaging on product perception.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of the symmetrical disposition of information items displayed on the front of product packaging on perceived complexity, perceptual fluency, aesthetic evaluation and product purchase intention.
Design/methodology/approach
A sample of 104 participants was exposed to fast-moving consumer goods packaging. A within-subject design experiment was carried out to assess the influence of the symmetrical disposition of information items displayed on the front of the packaging. ANOVA and a PROCESS procedure to assess mediation (Hayes, 2013) examined the relationships among the factors influenced by symmetry.
Findings
This study found that the symmetrical disposition of information items around the vertical axis (mirror symmetry) decreased visual complexity and highlighted an “indirect-only mediation” of visual complexity on the aesthetic evaluation of the packaging through processing fluency. This research also highlighted the fact that packaging aesthetic evaluation had a positive influence on purchase intention.
Originality/value
This study extends knowledge on package design by showing that the elements on which the producer can act (in this case, symmetry on the front of packaging) have an influence on the consumer’s evaluation of the product and intention to purchase.
This study investigates the relative impact of textual claims and visual metaphors displayed on the product’s package on consumers’ flavor experience and product evaluation. For consumers, strength is one of the most important sensory attributes of coffee. The 2 × 3 between-subjects experiment (N = 123) compared the effects of visual metaphor of strength (an image of a lion located either on top or on the bottom of the package of coffee beans) and the direct textual claim (“extra strong”) on consumers’ responses to coffee, including product expectation, flavor evaluation, strength perception and purchase intention. The results demonstrate that both the textual claim and the visual metaphor can be efficient in communicating the product attribute of strength. The presence of the image positively influenced consumers’ product expectations before tasting. The textual claim increased the perception of strength of coffee and the purchase intention of the product. The location of the image also played an important role in flavor perception and purchase intention. The image located on the bottom of the package increased the perceived strength of coffee and purchase intention of the product compared to the image on top of the package. This result could be interpreted from the perspective of the grounded cognition theory, which suggests that a picture in the lower part of the package would automatically activate the “strong is heavy” metaphor. As heavy objects are usually associated with a position on the ground, this would explain why perceiving a visually heavy package would lead to the experience of a strong coffee. Further research is needed to better understand the relationships between a metaphorical image and its spatial position in food packaging design.
In this tutorial, we demonstrate how to conduct simple and parallel mediation analyses
using the PROCESS macro for SPSS (Hayes, 2013). We begin by describing the principles of mediation.
We then present a step-by-step tutorial describing how to test statistical assumptions and
conduct a simple and a parallel mediation using data from a project exploring whether anxiety sensitivity
mediates the relationship between gender and sensation seeking in a sample of 295 undergraduate
students. Results of these analyses showed that anxiety sensitivity, and more specifically
the belief that bodily sensations are dangerous, explains part of the relationship between gender
and sensation seeking. Finally, we interpret these results as if we are presenting the findings in
a research article. The tutorial serves as a concrete and need-to-know introduction to simple and
parallel mediation.
Background Consumers’ perceptions of naturalness are important for the acceptance of foods and food technologies. Thus, several studies have examined the significance of naturalness among consumers. Nonetheless, the aspects that are considered essential in perceiving a food item as natural may vary across consumers and different stakeholder groups. Scope and approach This systematic review identified 72 studies conducted in 32 countries involving 85,348 consumers. We aimed to answer the following questions: 1) How has the perceived importance of naturalness for consumers been defined and measured? 2) To what extent is perceived naturalness important to consumers? 3) Are there individual differences regarding the importance given to food naturalness that can be explained by consumers' characteristics? 4) Do consumers’ attitudes toward food naturalness influence their intentions and behavior? Key findings and conclusions The review clearly shows that for the majority of consumers, food naturalness is crucial. This finding could be observed across countries and in the different years when the studies were conducted. Therefore, neglecting the aspect of naturalness in the food industry may be very costly in the end. Our review also reveals differences across studies in how naturalness has been defined and measured. Based on a content analysis of the measurement scales, the items used to measure the importance of naturalness can be classified into three categories: 1) the way the food has been grown (food origin), 2) how the food has been produced (what technology and ingredients have been used), and 3) the properties of the final product.
Can implied motion enhance consumer judgment of food freshness and taste? Freshness plays an important role in determining anticipated taste. Different perceptual cues may influence judgments of freshness. While some cues such as coloring and bruising play an obvious role, the authors argue that cues that on face value appear unrelated to freshness may also influence judgments of freshness. Specifically, the authors argue that humans have learned to relate movement to food freshness, and that this leads perceived motion to generate enhanced judgments of freshness, and, consequently, projected taste. This proposition is demonstrated in four studies. The studies show that the inclusion of implied motion in food pictures leads to elevated judgments of freshness and projected taste.
Images of food constitute salient visual stimuli in the mind of the consumer. They are capable of promoting both feelings of hunger and the desire for food. It should not, then, come as any surprise that many product packages present the food contained within as a salient aspect of their visual design. Conventionally, this has been achieved primarily by the use of attractive visual imagery showing the product on the outside of the packaging. Nowadays, however, developments in packaging are increasingly enabling designers to add transparent elements, thus allowing consumers to directly see the product before purchase. Yet relatively little is known about the effectiveness of product imagery as compared with transparent packaging. In this review, we address the various ways in which seeing (images of) food influences the consumer. The implications for packaging designs which include: (a) images of food, and (b) transparent elements, are investigated. Guidelines are also provided for designers and brands on the ways in which to take advantage of these effects of being able to see the food.
The ability to understand a visual scene depicted in a still image is among the abilities shared by all human beings. The aim of the present study was to examine when human infants acquire the ability to perceive the dynamic events depicted in still images (implied motion perception). To this end, we tested whether 4- and 5-month-old infants shifted their gaze toward the direction cued by a dynamic running action depicted in a still figure of a person. Results indicated that the 5- but not the 4-month-olds showed a significant gaze shift toward the direction implied by the posture of the runner (Experiments 1, 2, and 3b). Moreover, the older infants showed no significant gaze shift toward the direction cued by control stimuli, which depicted a figure in a non-dynamic standing posture (Experiment 1), an inverted running figure (Experiment 2), and some of the body parts of a running figure (Experiment 3a). These results suggest that only the older infants responded in the direction of the implied running action of the still figure; thus, implied motion perception emerges around 5 months of age in human infants.
Researchers interested in testing mediation often use designs where participants are measured on a dependent variable Y and a mediator M in both of 2 different circumstances. The dominant approach to assessing mediation in such a design, proposed by Judd, Kenny, and McClelland (2001), relies on a series of hypothesis tests about components of the mediation model and is not based on an estimate of or formal inference about the indirect effect. In this article we recast Judd et al.'s approach in the path-analytic framework that is now commonly used in between-participant mediation analysis. By so doing, it is apparent how to estimate the indirect effect of a within-participant manipulation on some outcome through a mediator as the product of paths of influence. This path-analytic approach eliminates the need for discrete hypothesis tests about components of the model to support a claim of mediation, as Judd et al.'s method requires, because it relies only on an inference about the product of paths-the indirect effect. We generalize methods of inference for the indirect effect widely used in between-participant designs to this within-participant version of mediation analysis, including bootstrap confidence intervals and Monte Carlo confidence intervals. Using this path-analytic approach, we extend the method to models with multiple mediators operating in parallel and serially and discuss the comparison of indirect effects in these more complex models. We offer macros and code for SPSS, SAS, and Mplus that conduct these analyses. (PsycINFO Database Record
Dish names and dish images can be widely found online, providing consumers with important information. Meanwhile, implied explosion (i.e., the perception of explosion induced by static stimuli) is increasingly utilized by real-world restaurants. The present research thus combines dish names, dish images, and implied explosion to examine the impact of implied explosion on various aspects of consumer behavior within a restaurant context. Three experiments demonstrated that exploding dish names and exploding dish images (i.e., dish names/dish images showing implied explosion) can create a more intense taste perception and a more favorable taste evaluation. Additionally, exploding dish images can enhance perceived dish liking and increase consumers’ willingness to pay. The present research suggests that exploding dish names/dish images are subtle but effective communication tools for the tourism industry, helping to deliver a more stimulating perception and experience to consumers and to generate higher margins. By exploring the effects of implied explosion, we also introduce the implied motion concept to the tourism management literature.
Visual packaging elements play a crucial role in influencing consumer behavior in stores. Front of pack (FOP) formats frequently present images of the product in motion (i.e., implied motion), especially in food categories. Despite the popularity of implied motion in real-world business, little research has been done to understand its effect on consumer behavior. To fill this gap, the present study adopts an evolutionary lens to investigate the impact of implied motion as a packaging design technique on consumers’ attention, product evaluation, purchase intention and choice. We carried out two experiments using realistic milk and orange juice packaging. Specifically, Experiment 1 was conducted in a lab using an eye tracking method to provide an objective measure of attention. The findings show that implied motion significantly increases visual attention and consequently generates more frequent choices. Using an online experimental design and declarative measures, Experiment 2 indicates that implied motion also enhances freshness, which translates into greater tastiness, product attractiveness and, ultimately, purchase intention. The study provides marketers with an inexpensive yet efficient way to enhance in-store marketing performance by incorporating implied motion into the FOP design.
This study investigated whether the dynamic (vs. still) food image in the print food advertisement affected consumers' judgment of food taste. Through the experimental studies, we found that dynamic (vs. still) food image can improve consumers' perception of food taste (study 1). The influence of dynamic food image on the perception of food taste is related to consumers' affective fluency in information processing (study 2). For consumers with health consumption goal, the dynamic (vs. still) food image can significantly improve the perception of food taste; for consumers with hedonic consumption goal, the difference of taste perception caused by dynamic (vs. still) food image is not significant (study 3). The conclusions can be used to nudge food selection and consumption.
Practical Applications
Findings of current research reveal that manufacturers and marketers of food products may include dynamic food images into their print advertisements to increase perceived tastiness. More broadly, marketers should fully take the target consumers to whom the foods will be sold into account, as the expected sensory pleasure of consumers with different consumption goals is different. On the basis of our findings, food products aimed at customers focusing on health potential should apply a dynamic food image that generally leads to affective fluency and implies tastiness. In addition, food marketers need to consider the affective experience of consumers during their information processing. Facing the same food, the advertisements making consumers feel pleasant, enjoyable, and interesting will improve consumers' taste perception.
Both food image and name are important in advertising and packaging, which means that identifying their effects on consumer preferences is of both conceptual and managerial importance. However, although an increasing body of research currently focuses on the impact of food attributes on consumers, whether the sensory correspondences between food shape and name typeface affect consumer reactions is an under-researched topic. This paper thus comprises five studies to demonstrate the congruence effect between food shape and name typeface, whereby consumers prefer foods with a round (angular) shape that are labeled with a round (angular) name typeface. This shape–typeface congruence effect is driven by the psychological mechanism of processing fluency, which derives from the sensory correspondences between food shape and name typeface. Finally, this study identifies an important boundary condition of the congruence effect, confirming it affects only the consumer response to hedonic and not utilitarian goods. Using multiple foods and typefaces, the findings provide significant implications for processing fluency, sensory correspondences, and food marketing.
This study explores the role of food brand logo orientation on consumers’ perceptions and attitudes regarding food products through three studies. Study 1 examines the effects of food brand logo orientation (diagonal vs. vertical) on consumer perceptions of food tastiness and risk. The findings suggest that diagonal (vs. vertical) food brand logos result in higher (lower) taste and risk perception in branded food. Study 2 reveals the underlying mechanisms of this effect by introducing perceived movement as a mediator between logo orientation and food perception. The results support the inference that movement is an underlying mechanism for the effect. Study 3 examines the effects of brand logo orientation and regulatory focus on consumer attitudes regarding branded food. The results suggest that for consumers with a promotion focus, a diagonal (vs. vertical) oriented logo leads to a more favorable attitude toward the food. For consumers with a prevention focus, a diagonal (vs. vertical) oriented logo leads to a less favorable attitude toward the food. Study 4 establishes validity of the above findings regarding native English speakers.
Most people in the Western, developed world prefer natural things, especially foods. We posit that there is neither theoretical nor empirical support for the widespread beliefs about the superiority of natural entities with respect to human welfare. Nature is not particularly benevolent.
Empirical aesthetics and neuroaesthetics study two main issues: the valuation of sensory objects and art experience. These two issues are often treated as if they were intrinsically interrelated: Research on art experience focuses on how art elicits aesthetic pleasure, and research on valuation focuses on special categories of objects or emotional processes that determine the aesthetic experience. This entanglement hampers progress in empirical aesthetics and neuroaesthetics and limits their relevance to other domains of psychology and neuroscience. Substantial progress in these fields is possible only if research on aesthetics is disentangled from research on art. We define aesthetics as the study of how and why sensory stimuli acquire hedonic value. Under this definition, aesthetics becomes a fundamental topic for psychology and neuroscience because it links hedonics (the study of what hedonic valuation is in itself) and neuroeconomics (the study of how hedonic values are integrated into decision making and behavioral control). We also propose that this definition of aesthetics leads to concrete empirical questions, such as how perceptual information comes to engage value signals in the reward circuit or why different psychological and neurobiological factors elicit different appreciation events for identical sensory objects.
Scientific interest in understanding how packaging imagery influences consumer perception and response has increased in the last decade. Research show that the attributes of what is depicted on imagery anchor consumers’ judgements, affecting how the product within is evaluated and perceived, and that consumers interpret the symbolic attributes of imagery according to their grounded bodily experience with the physical world. In addition, recent advances show that the meaning inferred from ambiguous images can be modulated by manipulating some of the images’ features, and that imagery can play a relevant role in terms of modulating consumption and promoting health choices. The practical implications of these findings are discussed.
This article aims to understand how and when sensory congruence (and incongruence) between packaging textures and product textures affects hedonic food taste evaluations and consumer satisfaction. Involving chocolate tastings and following experimental protocols, two studies show the effects of sensory congruence (and incongruence). Two products (with two textures: smooth and granular) and two packaging forms (with two textures: smooth and granular) were used. The first study focuses only on the visual influence of packaging texture. The second study explores both the visual and haptic influences of packaging texture on perceptions of a product when the product was contained inside the packaging. The results indicate that the effects of packaging texture on product perceptions occur mostly in presence of both visual and haptic interactions with the packaging texture. If sensory incongruence exists between packaging texture and product texture, then the packaging texture might negatively affect evaluations of product taste and the satisfaction level. These findings are generated for a single product category using experiments designed to highlight consumers' attention on product taste and their satisfaction. This article provides preliminary guidelines on how to utilize packaging texture to congruently stimulate consumers' perceptions and satisfaction.
Practical Applications
These results are relevant to sensory scientists and packaging designers interested in how packaging textures interact with product. This research contributes to the literature on food consumption and sensory marketing by integrating the influences of sensory congruence between both textures. Although previous research supports the use of packaging features to stimulate consumers' perceptions and behaviors, none examine the interaction and effects of manipulating both packaging texture and product texture. Specifically, this research shows that texturing the packaging might induce lower product taste and lower consumer satisfaction if there is sensory incongruence between the packaging texture and the product texture. This negative impact occurs in the case in which the packaging texture induces expectations about product texture that are not present in the product's features.
Background: Consumers are increasingly demanding transparency in food labeling as they want more and better information about what they are eating and where their food comes from. This seems to be particularly the case for food naturalness. Several food indexes or metrics have been developed in the last decades to objectively measure various aspects of food, yet a comprehensive index that quantifies the naturalness of foods is still missing.
Scope and approach: In the absence of clear rules to define and measure food naturalness, this article describes the development of the Food Naturalness Index (FNI), which aims to accurately measure the degree of food naturalness. The FNI simultaneously integrates and builds on insights from consumer research, legal and technical perspectives. A preliminary assessment of the index with consumers across a wide variety of products was conducted.
Key Findings and Conclusions: The FNI proposed herein is comprised of four component measures, namely farming practices, free from additives, free from unexpected ingredients, and degree of processing, which includes 10 relevant food naturalness attributes that can be consistently evaluated from information on the product label. The FNI scores were highly correlated with consumers’ perceptions of food naturalness. The FNI has the potential to become a valuable tool in the process of reformulating existing products, developing new ones, and understanding, tracking, and communicating food naturalness attributes in the marketplace. Furthermore, the FNI may provide an objective basis for the use of the “natural” label on food products, which can ultimately lead to better-informed choices.
Research conducted in controlled laboratory settings plays an important role in understanding human eating behaviour. However, participant characteristics may affect motivation to participate in laboratory eating behaviour research and result in self-selection biases. First-year psychology students (n = 207, 90.8% female, m age = 18.8, m BMI = 21.9) were led to believe that they were choosing between enrolling in one of two laboratory-based studies: an 'advertising' study, or an 'advertising and food' study; the latter specified that participants would consume food and answer questions about their eating behaviour. Participants subsequently reported demographic information and completed a series of questionnaires assessing psychological characteristics hypothesised to predict self-selection in laboratory eating studies. The majority of participants preferred to participate in a study unrelated to eating over an eating-related study (70.5%, χ2 (1) = 34.90, p < .001). Participants choosing the eating-related study over the non-eating study had higher self-reported external eating tendencies and positive preoccupations with food, lower negative preoccupations with food and social appearance anxiety. Participants choosing the eating related study were also more likely to be male than female, although the number of males in the study was small (n = 19) and this finding should therefore be interpreted with caution. The present study provides some evidence that in university based samples of participants there are likely self-selection biases in laboratory-based eating behaviour studies and researchers may benefit from considering the potential influence of self-selection biases when conducting eating behaviour research.
We investigate the factors that influence the visual search for bottles displaying a triangular label whose orientation differs from that of background distractors, using shampoo bottles as stimuli. In Experiments 1 and 2, the participants had to find a bottle having a triangular label in a different orientation from the others displayed as rapidly as possible. The results consistently demonstrated that searching for a trapezoidal-shaped bottle with a downward-pointing triangular label was faster than searching for the same bottle with an upward-pointing triangular label instead. In Experiment 3, participants rated the valence and bottle-label congruency for all of the packaging exemplars used in Experiments 1 and 2. The results revealed that the participants rated a downward-pointing triangular-shaped label as being more incongruent with trapezoidal-shaped bottles than an upward-pointing label. Our findings reveal that the downward-pointing triangle superiority (DPTS) effect elicited by the triangular-shaped label is also influenced by the silhouette of the bottle (which presumably provides a reference frame). Such interactions between label and silhouette have direct implications for packaging design.
Food marketing strategies constantly use trendy messages, novel displays, colourful floor decals, compelling store arrangements and other environmental triggers to exploit consumers; nudges hold the promise to adopt the same interventions to increase healthier choices. The purpose of this systematic review is to frame the state of the art and research gaps on nudging interventions aimed at increasing healthy food choice. Thirty-six articles reporting reviews or empirical studies performed between 2016 and 2018 were analysed. Over 80% of the reviewed empirical research reported positive outcomes. The work provides insights to further analyse the most promising approaches and critically discusses the core shortcomings of available studies. Finally, future research avenues are highlighted as the need for more replications and scalability of interventions.
Immersive environments may restore relevant context during consumer sensory testing and hence, could yield better discrimination and reliability in acceptance tests compared to traditional methods. To date, no study has compared hedonic data from these settings to those obtained in an actual consumption environment. Presently, sixty-two red-wine consumers evaluated the same 4 wines in 3 environments—a traditional sensory booth, an immersive wine bar, and an actual wine bar. For each wine, subjects evaluated overall liking, future consumption habits, and price estimation. Interestingly, wine liking did not differ across the three environments (p = 0.076) nor was there a significant wine by environment interaction (p = 0.955). However, at the individual level, wine liking was less stable. For each subject, the magnitude of difference in liking scores for each wine was calculated between two environments. On average, the greatest difference in liking scores occurred between the traditional booths and the actual wine bar (1.7 ± 0.1) and was significantly greater than the difference in liking scores between the booths and immersive wine bar (1.4 ± 0.1, p = 0.008); the liking difference between the immersive and actual wine bar (1.6 ± 0.1) was intermediate. Consumption behavior was also differentially impacted by environment. Subjects were more willing to order the wines at a wine bar when evaluating in the actual environment compared to the traditional booths (p = 0.035). However, environment did not influence the subject's willingness to purchase the wine to drink at home (p = 0.064). Generally, consumers were able to accurately differentiate price amongst the wines (p < 0.001) but estimated the wines at a higher price point in the actual environment compared to the traditional (p = 0.049). Overall, results suggest wine liking scores across environments were stable within the population, whereas greater variability was observed in individuals when comparing liking scores between traditional booths and the actual environment. Due to the marginal effect of the environment additional research is needed to evaluate the use of immersive technologies and better understand under which conditions context is important.
The context of a consumer test affects participant response. Data collected in a sensory laboratory is likely to have little predictive value of consumer experience in real-life situations. This study determined the effects of context on consumer response to two commercial beers. Regular beer consumers (n = 100) rated liking and emotional response using ten beer-specific emotion categories for two beers (Lager and Ale) under three different conditions: (1) a sensory testing facility (Lab), (2) a natural consumption environment (Bar) and (3) using an evoked context (Evoked). Their choice of product to take home was also recorded. Overall results showed significant product differentiation for liking (F (99, 2, 1) = 8.46, p = 0.004) and product choice (Q (1, N = 100) = 4.85, p = 0.028) in the Bar but not in the Lab or Evoked context. Emotional variables highlighted significant product differentiation (p < 0.05) but more so in the Bar than in the Lab or Evoked context. However, clustering participants on liking revealed three distinct clusters differing in sensitivity to context. Two clusters showed opposing but consistent preference for one of the two products regardless of context. The third cluster was more influenced by context, showing a more discriminating response in the Bar. These findings showed that consumers differ in their degree of context-sensitivity and the extent to which evoking a context gives similar results to a real environment. They also highlighted the importance of segmentation and confirmed the added insights gained by measuring emotional response compared to liking.
The packaging of a product is a key element in the communication between producers and consumers, so getting the consumer to interpret the packaging visual signs in the desired way is crucial to be successful in the marketplace. However, this is not easy as images can be ambiguous and may be interpreted in different ways. For example, depicting an icon of fire on the front of a bag of nuts may lead the consumer to interpret either that the nuts are spicy or that the nuts have been roasted. This paper addresses this problem and, using this case as an example, assesses if the interpretation of a fire icon (spicy vs roasted) can be modulated by manipulating its shape (angular vs rounded). 66 participants carried out an experiment which results show that there is a crossmodal correspondence between spiciness and pointy shapes and that this association can be used to modulate sensory expectations: in a speeded classification task, the bags of nuts depicting pointy fire icons were categorised more quickly as being spicy than as being roasted, while the opposite was true for the bags of nuts displaying rounded fire icons. In addition, the results of a mediation analysis suggest that this effect occurs indirectly through affective appraisal: the pointy fire icons were judged as being more aggressive than the rounded fire icons, which in turn raised spiciness expectations. These findings contribute to the research on crossmodal correspondences and semiotics by showing that the association between spiciness and abstract shapes can be used to modulate how people interpret an ambiguous image.
The images shown on food packaging play an important role in the processes of identification, categorisation and the generation of expectations, since the consumer uses the images to infer information about the product. However, a given image may convey different meanings (e.g. in a food package, “fire” may mean barbecued or spicy), so it is very important for producers and designers to understand the factors responsible for consumers inferring a specific meaning. This paper addresses this problem and shows experimentally that the consumer tends to infer the meaning from the image which is most congruent with the product it is displayed with. 65 participants carried out two speeded classification tasks which results show an interaction between the product (congruent vs. incongruent) and the image (with fire vs. without fire): products congruent with a meaning of fire were categorised more quickly when shown with fire than without it, while products incongruent with a meaning of fire were categorised more slowly when shown with fire than without it. In addition, the results show that stimuli were categorised more quickly when the interpretation of fire was literal (e.g. barbecue) than in those that were metaphorical (e.g. spiciness), indicating that the rhetorical style of the image (literal or metaphorical) influences the cognitive effort required to process it. These contributions improve our understanding of the effect of the images shown on packaging in the communication between packaging and consumers.
How do food companies use package design to communicate healthfulness? The present study addresses this question by investigating the most typical implicit package design elements used by food companies for their health‐positioned food products. Using a content analysis on the packaging design of 12 food product categories across two countries (Denmark and the United States), our findings indicate that (a) implicit package design elements (colors, imagery, material, and shape) differ between health‐positioned and regular products, and (b) these differences are product category specific rather than universal. Our results contribute to knowledge on how package design is used as a health communication tool.
Many food packages on the market show an image of the product contained inside or the ingredients with which the product was produced. During the packaging design process, it is the job of the designer or the marketing team to decide which specific image will be depicted on the packaging. This paper analyses the potential implications of this decision by studying the influence that the visual appearance of the product pictured on the packaging has on the way consumers perceive the product during consumption. Two packaging designs for apple sauce were created; the only variable was the visual appearance of the apple displayed: one showed a red apple and the other showed a green one. The 147 participants in this between‐subjects experiment tasted and evaluated six product attributes (Sweet, Acidic, Intense Flavour, Healthy, Natural, and Quality) as well as Liking and Willingness to buy. The results of a MANOVA‐Biplot analysis show that the visual appearance of the product pictured affects Liking, Willingness to buy, and some product attributes. In fact, a strong positive relationship was identified between the attribute Healthy and the perceived quality of the product with Liking and Willingness to buy; if one of these attributes scored higher, the higher score was extrapolated to the others. The study also shows that gender differences exist as these effects do not affect all consumers equally, with women being more sensitive to them than men. This paper discusses the implications of these results for the food industry, for packaging designers and for marketers. The visual appearance of the apple pictured on the packaging has an influence during tasting. This influence is significant only for women. Women gave higher scores to the apple sauce from the packaging picturing a red apple.
The response variable of overall liking is often used to measure consumers’ overall hedonic response to food. However, little research is done to understand, if liking of all four sensory modalities; appearance, odour, taste and texture, are reflected in the evaluation of overall liking, or if a single sensory modality stands out and is of most importance. The term sensory satisfaction was recently introduced as an alternative to overall liking and should (at least in theory) be used by consumers as a more holistic response variable than overall liking. The aim of the analyses reported in the present paper were, to study the importance of the sensory modalities (liking of appearance, odour, taste and texture) in consumers’ evaluation of overall liking and compare the findings to the importance of the sensory modalities (liking of appearance, odour, taste and texture) in consumers’ evaluation of sensory satisfaction. The data came from a cross-over consumer case-study on apple-cherry fruit drinks (n = 67). The fruit drinks varied in: type of sweetener used, and addition of aroma and fibre. The modalities driving overall liking and sensory satisfaction were studied through slopes of a regression line relating overall liking and sensory satisfaction, respectively, to liking of the sensory modalities: liking of appearance, -odour, -taste and -texture. Results showed the steepest slope between overall liking and liking of taste, whereas the least steep slope was found for liking of odour. The same pattern between slopes was found for sensory satisfaction and overall liking. Therefore, it was concluded that consumers primarily paid attention to liking of taste (to be understood as flavour) and least attention to liking of odour, when evaluating overall liking and sensory satisfaction, respectively, and that consumers did not use sensory satisfaction as a more holistic response variable than overall liking.
Colour is perhaps the single most important element as far as the design of multisensory product packaging is concerned. It plays a key role in capturing the attention of the shopper in-store. A distinctive colour, or colour scheme, can also act as a valuable brand attribute (think here only of the signature colour schemes of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate). In many categories, though, colour is used to convey information to the consumer about a product’s sensory properties (e.g., taste or flavour, say), or else to prime other more abstract brand attributes (such as, for example, premium, natural, or healthy). However, packaging colour can also affect the customer’s product experience as well: Indeed, a growing body of empirical research now shows that packaging colour affects everything from the expected and perceived taste and flavour of food and beverage products through to the fragrance of home and personal care items. Packaging colour, then, plays a dominant role at several stages of the product experience.
This anthology provides an in-depth analysis and discusses the issues surrounding nudging and its use in legislation, regulation, and policy making more generally. The 17 essays in this anthology provide startling insights into the multifaceted debate surrounding the use of nudges in European Law and Economics.
Nudging is a tool aimed at altering people’s behaviour in a predictable way without forbidding any option or significantly changing economic incentives. It can be used to help people make better decisions to influence human behaviour without forcing them because they can opt out. Its use has sparked lively debates in academia as well as in the public sphere. This book explores who decides which behaviour is desired. It looks at whether or not the state has sufficient information for debiasing, and if there are clear-cut boundaries between paternalism, manipulation and indoctrination. The first part of this anthology discusses the foundations of nudging theory and the problems associated, as well as outlining possible solutions to the problems raised. The second part is devoted to the wide scope of applications of nudges from contract law, tax law and health claim regulations, among others.
This volume is a result of the flourishing annual Law and Economics Conference held at the law faculty of the University of Lucerne. The conferences have been instrumental in establishing a strong and ever-growing Law and Economics movement in Europe, providing unique insights in the challenges faced by Law and Economics when applied in European legal traditions.
Abstract This study investigated the effects of implicit visual cues on food package design on visual attention and subsequent decision-making. Forty-two participants chose between two target or two filler products while their eye movements were measured with eye tracking. Target stimuli were identical soups with labels varying in shape, angularity and orientation inserted at the top right of the packages. Results showed that packages with upward-rounded labels were chosen most often, followed by downward-rounded, upward-angular and downward-angular labels. Participants looked at both packages for 85 per cent of the time, whereas the labels were only fixated on for 14.8 per cent of the time. Hence, people did not necessarily look at the labels in order to make a decision about which product to choose. This research showed that differently shaped labels affected subsequent decision-making when implemented in the peripheral parts of product packs. Interestingly, there was a general preference bias for upward-rounded labels on front of pack. Therefore, presenting upward-rounded labels peripheral on pack may serve as a useful nudge to actively guide people’s behaviour towards a healthier direction.
Consumers in industrialized countries are nowadays much more interested in information about the production methods and components of the food products that they eat, than they had been 50 years ago. Some production methods are perceived as less “natural” (i.e. conventional agriculture) while some food components are seen as “unhealthy” and “unfamiliar” (i.e. artificial additives). This phenomenon, often referred to as the “clean label” trend, has driven the food industry to communicate whether a certain ingredient or additive is not present or if the food has been produced using a more “natural” production method (i.e. organic agriculture). However, so far there is no common and objective definition of clean label. This review paper aims to fill the gap via three main objectives, which are to a) develop and suggest a definition that integrates various understandings of clean label into one single definition, b) identify the factors that drive consumers' choices through a review of recent studies on consumer perception of various food categories understood as clean label with the focus on organic, natural and ‘free from’ artificial additives/ingredients food products and c) discuss implications of the consumer demand for clean label food products for food manufacturers as well as policy makers. We suggest to define clean label, both in a broad sense, where consumers evaluate the cleanliness of product by assumption and through inference looking at the front-of-pack label and in a strict sense, where consumers evaluate the cleanliness of product by inspection and through inference looking at the back-of-pack label. Results show that while ‘health’ is a major consumer motive, a broad diversity of drivers influence the clean label trend with particular relevance of intrinsic or extrinsic product characteristics and socio-cultural factors. However, ‘free from’ artificial additives/ingredients food products tend to differ from organic and natural products. Food manufacturers should take the diversity of these drivers into account in developing new products and communication about the latter. For policy makers, it is important to work towards a more homogenous understanding and application of the term of clean label and identify a uniform definition or regulation for ‘free from’ artificial additives/ingredients food products, as well as work towards decreasing consumer misconceptions. Finally, multiple future research avenues are discussed.
This paper analyses the influence that certain aspects of packaging design have on the consumer expectations of a series of sensory and non-sensory attributes and on willingness to buy for a bag of crisps in Spain. A two-part experiment was conducted in which 174 people evaluated the attributes for different stimuli using an online survey. In the first part, four stimuli were created in which two factors were varied: the packaging material and the image displayed. Interaction was identified between both factors for the attributes Crunchy, High quality and Artisan. For the attributes Salty, Crunchy and Willingness to buy, the image was the only significant factor, with the image displaying crisps ready for consumption being the only one that obtained higher scores. For the attribute Intense flavour, no statistically significant differences were identified among the stimuli. In general terms, the image displayed on the bag had a greater influence than the material from which the bag was made. In the second part, an analysis was made of the most effective way (visual cues versus verbal cues) to transmit the information that the crisps were fried in olive oil. To this end, two stimuli were designed: one displaying an image of an oil cruet and another with an allusive text. For all the attributes (Intense flavour, Crunchy, Artisan, High quality, Healthy and Willingness to buy), higher scores were obtained with the image than with the text. These results have important implications for crisps producers, marketers and packaging designers.
This review and opinion paper considers methods available to consumer researchers in product-focused investigations who wish to: i) appraise or account for appropriateness of product use, and ii) increase aspects of ecological validity and/or mitigate effects linked to the central location test (CLT) setting not being a natural consumption situation. The topics and methods covered are: appropriateness of product use, item-by-use (IBU) method, non-CLT settings (incl. natural eating locations, field tests and home-use-tests (HUT)), contextualised CLT protocols, evoked consumption contexts, immersive settings and virtual reality. The concluding parts of the paper considers ecological validity and encourages a deeper engagement with this construct in the broader context of validity in consumer research.