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Article history:
Received 6 January 2012
Received in revised form 22 May 2012
Accepted 27 May 2012
Available online 13 June 2012
Keywords:
Packaging design
Consumer assessments
a b s t r a c t
On-package graphics have the potential to inuence consumers product-related attitudes and behaviours. In the reported study graphics designs on the labels of two products (water and vodka) were
manipulated with respect to shape angularity, orientation, and leftright alignment. Participants evaluations indicated a preference for rounded shapes that could not be accounted for by differences in design
typicality; and preference for upward shape orientation. An interaction between these response variables
for ratings of purchase likelihood suggested that congruence between graphical and product form (droplet shape) may be advantageous. Effects of alignment were not consistent with existing theories, with
right-aligned graphics being preferred. An explanation that distinguishes processing efciency and hemispheric efciency is proposed. Finally, as predicted, a halo effect was apparent, such that effects of aesthetic manipulations extended to ratings of product attributes that were not experienced. Theoretical
and practical implications of these results are discussed.
2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Product packaging presents an important opportunity for manufacturers and retailers to communicate with the consumer, both at
the point of sale (Rettie & Brewer, 2000; Silayoi & Speece, 2007;
Simms & Trott, 2010) and through experience of a product over time
(Underwood, 2003). Packaging design provides product category
information, positioning a product within a category (Ampuero &
Vila, 2006), attracting attention to a product (Schoormans & Robben,
1997; Creusen & Schoormans, 2005), and communicating information regarding brand identity and brand values (see Bloch, 1995;
Schoormans, Eenhuizen-van den Berge, van de Laar, & van den
Berg-Weitzel, 2010; Snelders & Schoormans, 2004; Underwood,
2003; van den Berg-Weitzel & Van de Laar, 2003). Given that
aesthetic preferences relating to packaging design inuence consumers product attitudes and purchase decisions (Creusen &
Schoormans, 2005), and that aesthetic judgements can be
probabilistically related to simple design features, such as shape
and colour (Hekkert & Leder, 2008; Lindell & Mueller, 2011; but
see also Orth & Malkewitz, 2008), it would follow that an understanding of these associations bears on the issue of actionability
of design (see e.g., Snelders & Schoormans, 2004); i.e., the extent
to which it is possible to create designs that, on balance of probabil-
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: s.j.westerman@leeds.ac.uk (S.J. Westerman).
0950-3293/$ - see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foodqual.2012.05.007
Fig. 1. Examples of stimuli. The graphics for Bottle A are rounded, downward
oriented, and left-aligned. The graphics for Bottle B are angular, upward oriented,
and right aligned. Note: the content of the labels was not intended to imply
association with or identify any specic product, only to convey that the designs
were basic (simple) in form.
10
2. Method
2.1. Participants
One hundred and sixteen participants were recruited from the
students of the University of Leeds (49 females). The average age
of the sample was 22.12 years (sd = 4.23). Participants were
screened to make sure they bought and consumed alcohol (to ensure the vodka condition was ecologically valid). Participants cultural background was not recorded however, census data
indicate that with regard to ethnicity the student population of
the university is predominantly classied as white-British/EU
and of either no religion or Christian. Participants were randomly
allocated to the water or vodka conditions (see below). Sixty participants completed the vodka condition.
11
2.2. Design
Participants rated packaging designs on nine items (described
below). These were the dependent variables. Given the number
of product design alternatives that each participant had to assess
(8), the fact that the differences between them were relatively subtle, and that there was no nancial incentive for participation, the
number of items (9) was kept to a minimum to avoid rater fatigue
and unthinking responses. (Each participant provided 72 ratings.)
A mixed 2 (product type: vodka versus water) 2 (graphics
shape: angular versus rounded) 2 (graphics orientation: upwards
versus downwards) 2 (graphics alignment: left versus right) design was used to examine the effects of experimental manipulations
of label designs with product type being a between-subjects
variable and each manipulation of graphics being a within-subjects
variable. In addition, a regression analysis was used to examine the
extent to which purchase likelihood was predicted by other design
assessments.
1
2.3. Materials
A generic bottle design one that was considered plausible as a
container for either water or vodka was selected for this experiment. This had the advantages of: (i) controlling bottle shape
across product conditions; and, (ii) minimising possible brand
associations. A label was applied displaying a textual product
description (Vodka or Water), the word Basics (this was thought
to be congruent with, and provide some explanation for the simple
nature of the label design), and a graphic design comprising ve
shapes, identical in form but of varying sizes. Shapes were essentially triangular in form allowing orientation to be manipulated
but they varied in degree of angularity according to the experimental condition. The bottle was lled with water (in both product
conditions). In total there were sixteen label alternatives consistent with a factorial combination of the four independent variables.
Digital images were taken of each of the product designs for presentation to participants (see Fig. 1 for examples). The images used
were monochrome to control for possible product associations
with colour (see e.g., Ngo et al., 2012). The on-screen dimensions
of the bottle were approximately 35 125 mm, with the label
being 25 35 mm (the brand name occupied approximately
20 mm and the graphics approximately 10 mm width). Viewing
distance was approximately 55 cm. This meant that the label subtended a horizontal viewing angle of approximately 3.6. The use of
digital images, as opposed to real bottles, allowed greater control
over presentation (e.g., viewing angle) and facilitated sequencing
of presentations.
Participants were asked to rate each design on each of the following items using a 5-point Likert scale with Denitely not
and Denitely as the anchors:
1. I would purchase this product. This item was included on the
basis that purchase intention is an important applied outcome.
2. This design is attention grabbing. This item was included
because the functional value of packaging design extends
beyond engendering consumer preference. Getting a product
noticed can also be an important attribute and dissociations
have been noted between attention and preference (Schoormans & Robben, 1997; Valenzuela & Raghubir, 2009). Of course,
this item assumes that the relevant experience is accessible via
introspection. We return to this issue in the discussion.
3. This design is typical for this product. This item provided a
manipulation check and was included because typicality can
be an important determinant of preference (see e.g., Winkielman, Halberstadt, Fazendeiro, & Catty, 2006).
Rounded
Angular
Fig. 2. The interaction between contour and orientation for purchase likelihood.
1
Vodka
Water
Fig. 3. The interaction between product type and orientation for attention
grabbing.
4. This design is visually appealing. This item relates to participants assessments of visual aesthetics.
5. This design would be practical. This item was included to
enable consideration of possible halo effects (Tractinsky et al.,
2000), but also may reect participants assessments of information processing demands.
6. I think this product would be nice tasting. This item was
included to test the halo effect (see e.g., Becker et al., 2011).
7. I think this product would taste refreshing. This item facilitates assessment of halo effects. However, it was also thought
to differentiate the products (higher rating for the water product) and so was included as a useful manipulation check.
8. I nd this design pleasing. This item relates to the core affective state of the individual (Russell, 2003) and was included to
index a positive affective state (c.f. Watson, Clark, & Tellegen,
1988).
12
Beta
Attention
Typical
Appealing
Practical
Nice tasting
Refreshing
Pleasing
Annoying
0.089
0.159
0.173
0.174
0.005
0.061
0.196
0.168
P
2.513
5.415
4.259
5.771
0.132
1.652
4.693
6.621
0.012
<.001
<.001
<.001
n.s
n.s
<.001
<.001
1
Vodka
Water
Fig. 4. Interaction between product type and contour for ratings of typicality.
of different aspects of participants assessments of the product designs. Regression diagnostics for multicollinearity indicated that
VIFs were all 63, (mean = 2.14), and tolerances were all P0.33.
This suggests that multicollinearity was not problematic (see Field,
2005). This was also supported by the results of the regression
equations, for which all items, with the exception of taste and
refreshing contributed unique variance to the prediction of purchase likelihood. Nevertheless, where strong correlations were
apparent consideration was given to aggregating item scores to
provide an index of a single underlying construct. Item 1 (purchase
likelihood) and item 2 (attention grabbing) were fairly strongly
correlated. However, in previous research these have been found
to be differentially related to design constructs (Schoormans &
Robben, 1997). Moreover, in the regression equation attention
grabbing was not a strong predictor of purchase likelihood. Item
4 (I think this design is appealing) and item 8 (I think this design
is pleasing) were fairly strongly correlated. However, these were
considered somewhat theoretically distinct on the basis that the
former relates more directly to notions of engagement and interest
(OBrien & Toms, 2010) whereas the later provides a marker for a
dimension of core affective state (Russell, 2003). Item 6 (I think
this product would be nice tasting) and item 7 (I think this product would be refreshing) were strongly correlated. However, item
7 was included with specic reference to the water product to
provide a manipulation check so these were not aggregated.
Therefore, for each item, data were analysed using a 2 (shape)
2 (orientation) 2 (alignment) 2 (product type) ANOVA. The following sections present these sequentially. For the sake of brevity,
only signicant results are presented (p < .05).
3.1. Item 1: I would purchase this product
There was a signicant main effect of contour, F(1,114) = 50.99,
p < .001, such that participants reported being more likely to purchase products with the rounded graphic design (mean = 3.11,
s.d. = 0.96) than the angular design (mean = 2.52, s.d. = 0.94). There
was also a signicant effect of orientation, F(1,114) = 15.47,
p < .001, such that participants were more likely to purchase the
Table 1
Item correlation matrix.
Purchase
Purchase
Attention
Typical
Appealing
Practical
Nice tasting
Refreshing
Pleasing
Annoying
Note: All ps 6 0.001.
0.47
0.40
0.54
0.44
0.37
0.36
0.57
0.34
Attention
0.20
0.69
0.21
0.49
0.40
0.67
0.18
Typical
0.24
0.56
0.13
0.14
0.28
0.11
Appealing
0.28
0.53
0.48
0.76
0.23
Practical
0.21
0.23
0.34
0.17
Nice tasting
0.75
0.54
0.11
Refreshing
0.49
0.11
Pleasing
0.31
13
1
Vodka
Water
Fig. 5. Interaction between product type, contour and alignment for appeal.
14
4. Discussion
4.3. H3: Effects of product type
The reported experiment examined the effects of manipulating
graphical designs in the context of consumers appraisals of the design of product packaging. A factorial combination of shape
(rounded versus angular), orientation (upward versus downward),
alignment (graphics left versus graphics right), and product type
(water versus vodka) was tested for each of nine design assessments. Correlation and regression analyses were also conducted
to examine the interrelationships between items of assessment.
4.1. H1: Effects of shape
As predicted, results indicated a mean preference for rounded
graphics (greater purchase likelihood, more appealing, more pleasing and less annoying). This is consistent with a number of previous studies relating to the design of consumer products (Carbon,
2010; Leder & Carbon, 2005; Westerman et al., in press) and also
with the more general results of Bar and Neta (2006, 2007). However, interpreting this outcome was complicated by similar effects
of shape on ratings of typicality. A possible explanation would be
that preference was determined by typicality (Winkielman et al.,
2006). Further analyses of the data enabled these constructs to
be disentangled. An interaction between shape and product type
indicated that the effects of shape on ratings of typicality were only
present for the water product (see Fig. 4). Therefore by isolating
data from the vodka product condition it was possible to examine
the effects of graphics shape in the absence of effects of typicality.
With the exception of the result for the item annoying the significant preference for the rounded designs remained suggesting
that a preference for rounded shapes was independent of assessments of typicality.
4.2. H2: Effects of orientation
Upward oriented graphics were generally preferred (greater
purchase intention, more appealing, and more pleasing). This
15
effect (Hassenzahl, 2004; Leuthesser et al., 1995). This is also supported by the results of the regression analysis, in which taste and
refreshing were the only items not to contribute unique variance
to the prediction of purchase likelihood. This suggests assessments of these items were driven by other directly experienced
items. Of course, halo effects may have been encouraged by the
absence of information on which participants were asked to make
assessments of taste (Leuthesser et al., 1995), but this is not
unrealistic. Consumers may frequently make a similar type of
judgement when trying to decide on a product that has not
previously been tried.
This pattern of results can be contrasted with that for ratings of
practicality. Although there were main effects of contour and
alignment for practicality, there was no signicant effect of the
manipulation of orientation. Moreover, this item made a highly
signicant unique contribution to the regression equation. This
suggests that practicality was experienced and was evaluated
independently on its own merits. This would be consistent with
the item reecting ease of perception (as suggested above).
When considering psychometric issues relating to the halo effect, Leuthesser et al. (1995) suggest that an average inter-item
correlation greater than 0.6 or 0.7 would be an indication that
participants may not be treating questionnaire items sufciently
independently and that statistical correction could be applied. In
this study the average inter-item correlation was substantially
below this (r = 0.37, when using absolute values). We consider this
encouraging, insofar as it suggests participants were providing
thoughtful assessments of the different product designs. Moreover,
the correlations between the item annoying and other items were
consistently negative, as expected.
However, the results for attention grabbing are surprising in
this regard. They indicate that typical products were also attention
grabbing. This is contrary to results of Westerman et al. (in press)
and Schoormans and Robben (1997). This could arise because, consistent with a halo effect, participants ratings of this item were
inuenced by other rationales (e.g., patterns of preference), perhaps because none of the designs were considered particularly
attention grabbing and/or because assessment of the extent to
which a stimulus grabs attention is only partially open to introspection. Relevant to this, it should be noted that the correlation
is relatively weak and there were dissociations between these
variables in terms of the interactive effects of other manipulated
variables (see above). Further studies that incorporate behavioural
measures of the capacity of stimuli to grab attention would be
required to clarify this. A nal possible explanation that must be
considered is that this result is produced because the rounded
graphics covered a slightly greater area than the angular graphics.
When producing rounded graphics there is a choice between, (i)
maintaining the coordinates of the three extremes of the triangular
shape; or, (ii) controlling the area covered by the shape. In this
study we opted for the former. This means that the rounded
graphic shapes were slightly larger than the angular versions.
However, an explanation based on area differences does not seem
plausible given that there were effects of the orientation manipulation (for which shape area was constant) on the attention grabbing item.
4.6. Conclusions
16
angularity and downward orientation communicating threat (Aronoff et al., 1988, 1992). Instead, the graphic properties of upward
and rounded were the highest rated combination for purchase
likelihood. It was suggested that this may be attributable to packaging-product congruence (e.g., association with the shape of a
droplet). This seems consistent with recent work on effects of
cross-modality correspondence (Spence, 2012).
Contrary to prediction, right-aligned graphics were preferred.
Differences in ratings of practicality suggest this may relate to
ease of processing. In this regard, an important distinction can be
drawn between ease of processing and hemispheric efciency.
Although visual hemi-eld effects have been demonstrated in previous studies, further research is needed to clarify other factors
relating to label organisation that inuence general processing
demands when viewing labels containing text and graphics in
unconstrained conditions (with regard to viewing duration and
gaze direction). Finally, as predicted, halo effects were apparent
with participants judgment of non-experiential constructs (product taste) being inuenced by aesthetic manipulations. This illustrates the importance that should be attached to developing
aesthetically appealing packaging designs.
Of course, these empirical outcomes must be considered in context. It is important to recognise that consumers responses to
packaging designs reect the inuence of a complex array of variables that extend beyond those studied here (cf. Bloch, 1995). In
this study we have examined the effect of manipulations of graphics shape, orientation, and alignment for two product types (vodka
and water). Consumers responses to packaging may be inuenced
by a range of further design variations, including the type, number,
size, and combination of graphical design shapes, variations in colour and colour combinations, and variations in container shape
and size. To the extent that cross-modal congruence effects apply,
arising from associations between the design and the product,
preferences will also be dependent on product type. Consumers
responses to packaging designs may also be inuenced by factors
relating to the market context, such as brand identity and category
membership (Ampuero & Vila, 2006; Schoormans & Robben, 1997;
Van den Berg-Weitzel & Van de Laar, 2003). Designs also exist
within a time context, and it remains to be seen whether these
effects will change over time, in line with prevailing design trends
(see Carbon, 2010). Finally, it is important to recognise that there
may be predictable individual differences in consumers responses
to packaging designs (see e.g., Bloch et al., 2003). The sample
recruited for this study was restricted in terms of both age and
culture. Systematic differences in product preferences may arise
as a result of cultural differences (see Hekkert & Leder, 2008, for
a review of relevant evidence). However, when considering responses to abstract shapes, it is interesting to note that Oyama
et al. (2008) report relatively small cultural differences in the
semantic associations with abstract two-dimensional forms; and
consistency of response would also be anticipated if preferences
are the product of adaptive perceptions of danger or threat (Bar
& Neta, 2007; Larson et al., 2009).
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