‘
Red
versus
green
food packaging: Its
influence on
perceived healthiness’
1
University of Groningen
Faculty of Economics and Business
MSc Marketing
June 19, 2015
Langestraat 28 7551 DZ Hengelo (06)23123564 e.l.h.kardolus@student.rug.nl student number 2597802 Supervisor: Koert van Ittersum External supervisor: Yannick JoyeMaster Thesis
‘Red versus green food packaging: Its
influence on perceived healthiness’
by
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MANAGEMENT SUMMARY
This research aims to find an answer to the following research question: ‘Does – and if so, how does – red and green food packaging influence the perceived healthiness of objectively healthy and unhealthy products, of consumers with a low BMI and a high BMI?’. The interest of this research lies in finding if and how the use of color, specifically red and green, in food
packaging accounts for differences in perceived healthiness. More specifically, can the colors red and green influence the perceived healthiness of healthy and unhealthy products? And does a person’s BMI play a role in this perceived healthiness?
Packaging thus plays an important role in this research. But what exactly is packaging? It is one of the elements of the marketing program and gaining in importance nowadays. Packaging has three most important functions, namely to contain and to protect products, to promote products and to facilitate the storage, use and convenience of products (Lamb, Hair & McDaniel, 2011). In this research, the focus lies on researching packaging in combination with color to study if this affects the perceived healthiness of healthy and unhealthy products and how this affects the perceived healthiness – negatively or positively. Customers are confronted with packaging at the crucial purchase-decision moment (Ampuero & Vila 2006). Urbany et al. (1996) found that as much as 90 percent of customers make a purchase after only looking at the front of the packaging and without having touched the product at all. Because customers so often decide to buy (or not) on the point of purchase, it is of great interest to know if and how color accounts for differences in perceived healthiness.
Besides packaging, color is the manipulating (independent) variable in this research to measure the perceived healthiness of (un)healthy products. Different colors hold different associations in consumers’ minds. According to Elliot et al. (2009), the color red carries the meaning of failure in achievement contexts, which may be evolutionarily ingrained. Red may serve as a warning signal for dangerous situations about to happen and may evoke an avoidance motivation (Elliot et al., 2009; De Bock et al., 2013) without the conscious awareness of the individual. In contrast to red, green has been found to carry the approach-oriented meaning (Elliot et al., 2007).
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In this research the following hypotheses are formulated and tested in a repeated measures analysis: H1: The positive influence of the color green (relative to the color grey) on the perceived healthiness is stronger for healthy than unhealthy products.
H2: The negative influence of the color red (relative to the color grey) on the perceived healthiness is stronger for healthy than unhealthy products.
H3: The positive influence of the color green (relative to the color grey) on the perceived healthiness is stronger for people with a low BMI than for people with a high BMI.
H4: The negative influence of the color red (relative to the color grey) on the perceived healthiness is stronger for people with a low BMI than for people with a high BMI.
After conducting the research and performing the analysis, it is possible to answer the research question. Green packaging did show to have a significant influence on the perceived healthiness of an unhealthy product, but not on a healthy product. Besides, red did not prove to have a significant negative influence on perceived healthiness. In fact, the found influence – although insignificant – proved to be positive relative to grey packaging. Moreover, BMI had no significant influence on the relationship between packaging color and perceived healthiness.
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PREFACE
The topic of this master thesis was chosen out of my own interest in food and its (perceived) healthiness. After reading an article about green packaging of food products and how it misleads consumers into automatically perceiving it as healthy, my idea was to partly replicate this study while adding a different color, as well as BMI as a possible moderator. I enjoyed writing this master thesis, mainly because I thought the subject was really interesting and I was curious to see the results. However, writing this thesis would have not been possible without the help and support of some people. Therefore, I would like to thank Koert van Ittersum, my first supervisor, for his support, expertise and assistance during the period of writing this thesis. Furthermore, I would like to thank Droom Visualisaties, especially Annemiek Kardolus, for their help with visualizing the products used in the survey. At last, I would like to mention my father, who passed away 2 years ago, but would be extremely proud of where I am today.
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TABLE OF CONTENT
1 INTRODUCTION ... 7
Problem statement and research question ... 7
Contribution to existing knowledge ... 8
Overview of thesis ... 9
2 LITERATURE REVIEW ... 10
What exactly is packaging and what about its function?... 10
Components, functions and elements ... 10
The role of packaging nowadays ... 11
Moment of truth ... 12
Color and its meaning ... 13
The associations that come with color ... 14
Use of color in packaging ... 16
Body Mass Index ... 17
Conceptual framework ... 18 Hypotheses ... 19 3 METHODOLOGY ... 21 Data collection ... 22 Plan of analysis ... 22 4 RESULTS ... 23 Descriptive statistics ... 23
Preparing for analysis ... 24
Testing hypotheses ... 24
Health consciousness ... 29
5 CONCLUSION, DISCUSSION AND LIMITATIONS ... 32
Conclusion ... 32
Discussion ... 34
Academic and managerial contribution ... 35
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Blok 2 ... 50
Blok 3 ... 55
Appendix C: SPSS output ... 60
Descriptive statistics per condition ... 60
Repeated measures analysis BMI ... 61
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1 INTRODUCTION
It is well-known that obesity is a - still rising - problem, especially in industrialized countries (McFerran, Dahl, Fitzsimons & Morales, 2010). In 2006, more than 1.6 billion people
worldwide over the age of fifteen were overweight, with approximately 400 million adults being obese (World Health Organization, 2006). Obesity causes not only a rise in (health insurance) costs for the individual, but also for society. In the Netherlands, it costs society 1.2 billion Euros in health insurance costs and 2 billion Euros in direct societal costs
(Voedingscentrum, n.d.). Besides, obesity is responsible for 9.7 percent of the total disease burden and for 5.8 percent of the total lost life years.
Although obesity rates are increasing, one research shows that health consciousness of
consumers is also increasing (Centraal Bureau Levensmiddelen, n.d.). The research states that 37 percent of consumers is paying more attention to their health. More specifically, more attention to the positive contribution of products - that they buy in the supermarket - to their health. Furthermore, 32 percent of consumers said to pay more attention to the ingredients that are in the products they buy.
An important part of the product is packaging. Lamb, Hair and McDaniel (2011) state that one of the most important functions of packaging is to promote the products. Creusen and
Schoormans (2005) add to that by saying that packaging determines consumers’ first and sometimes even lasting impression of the product. Furthermore, research showed that most consumers buy products (solely) based on their packaging (Urbany, Dickson & Kalapurakal, 1996). Packaging, thus, plays a major role in evoking specific associations and influencing the consumer whether to buy the product or not. Besides, visual elements, like color, might attract the attention of consumers and set expectations for the product content (Solayoi & Speece, 2007). In this research, the focus lies on whether the colors red and green can influence the perceived healthiness of healthy and unhealthy products.
Problem statement and research question
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show that the color red may lead to a less negative evaluation of deviant behavior. As mentioned earlier, packaging, among other functions, serves as a container to promote the product (Lamb et al., 2011). Earlier marketing research shows how the colors red and green in packaging are perceived by consumers, but to the knowledge of the author of this research paper this has not yet been studied making a distinction between consumers with a low BMI and consumers with a high BMI. As obesity is still increasing, taking into account the influence of BMI gives new insights and could be of great relevance for future research. Moreover, also a distinction is made between red and green packaging of healthy and unhealthy products.
The problem statement for this research therefore is if and how the color of food packaging influences perceived healthiness of products, while accounting for differences in perceived healthiness due to differences in consumers’ Body Mass Index (BMI). To find a solution to the problem statement, this study aims to find an answer to the following research question:
‘Does – and if so, how does – red and green food packaging influence the perceived
healthiness of objectively healthy and unhealthy products, of consumers with a low BMI and a high BMI?’. With the answer to this question, color in food packaging could possibly be used
to influence the perceived healthiness of (un)healthy products, while making a distinction between consumers with a low and high BMI.
Contribution to existing knowledge
There are several research studies that focus on the use of the color green in the labeling or packaging of products to signal recycling or "green marketing" (Singh, 2013; Mishra & Payal, 2012; Purohit, 2012) Less studies, however, focus on the use of certain colors in packaging to research what the effect is on the perceived healthiness of products. De Bock, Pandelaere and Van Kenhove (2013) do research the colors red and green, but focus on the impact of these colors on moral judgment. Because obesity is becoming more and more a problem (Talukdar & Lindsey, 2013), it can be of academic as well as managerial interest to combine these factors (colors red versus green, healthy versus unhealthy products, low versus high BMI) into one study.
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regarding food packaging has been studied considerably less. As Clement (2007) states, descriptions of visual influence from package design is absent in current buying behavior theory. This research focuses on this visual influence with partly replicating previous studies by studying the effects of the colors red and green in food packaging, and contributing to that by also making a distinction between consumers with a low Body Mass Index (<25) and consumers with a BMI that is too high (25 and higher). The outcomes of this study can, hopefully, contribute to recent knowledge by stating if color affects the perceived healthiness of (un)healthy products, and more specifically how.
Overview of thesis
This master thesis continues with a theoretical framework in which relevant literature for this study is discussed. From this literature review, a conceptual model is derived and hypotheses are formulated. After the hypotheses, the research design is displayed, wherein the
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2 LITERATURE REVIEW
What exactly is packaging and what about its function?
According to the European Parliament and Council Directive 94/62/EC, packaging is defined as ‘all products made of any materials of any nature to be used for the containment,
protection, handling, delivery and presentation of goods, from raw materials to processed goods, from the producer to the user or the consumers’ (Olsson, Petterson & Jönson, 2004, p. 98).
One of the elements of the marketing program is packaging, gaining importance nowadays. Packaging has several function of which the three most important are to contain and to protect products, to promote products and to facilitate the storage, use and convenience of products (Lamb et al., 2011). An upcoming important function for packaging is to facilitate recycling and reduce environmental damage. Packaging is an important part of the marketing mix, because it has a measurable effect on sales. One example of this is that Quaker oats revised their packaging for a particular product and kept the rest of the marketing program constant. As a result they experienced a 44 percent increase in sales in one year (Lamb et al., 2011).
With the rise of the self-service sales systems, packaging has moved more to the foreground to attract attention and persuade customers into buying (Vidales Giovannetti, 1995). Vidales Giovannetti (1995) refers to packaging as the “silent salesman”, as it informs about the qualities and benefits that are to be obtained if the product is purchased. Furthermore, Behaeghel (1991) and Peters (1994) stress the importance of packaging as it reaches almost all consumers of the category, is present at the crucial moment when consumers decide to buy the product or not and try to obtain the information they need through the packaging. In contribution to this, there is an evolution apparent in the literature that packaging is evolving from the “silent salesman” (Vidales Giovannetti, 1995) to a brand builder (Underwood, 2003). Lewis (1991) takes this even further by stating that good packaging is far more than a
salesman, it is a flag of recognition and a symbol of values.
Components, functions and elements
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packaging, the typography, the graphical shapes of packaging and the images used on the packaging. Structural components consist of shape, size of the containers and the materials used in manufacturing the packages. In this research, the focus lies on the influence of the graphic component on perceived healthiness. More specifically, the influence the color of the packaging has on perceived healthiness. Later on, the packaging color is specified to only three (kinds of) colors, namely red, green and neutral (i.e. grey). Numerous studies have researched the effected of green labeling or “green” packaging, in the sense of eco-friendly packaging. This research focuses literally on green packaging, so packaging with the color green. Besides, the color red used in packaging is researched with grey as a neutral baseline.
There are three types of packaging, according to Vidales Giovannetti (1995), namely primary packaging, secondary packaging and tertiary packaging. Primary packaging is in direct contact with the product, such as the bottle containing soft drink. Secondary packaging consists of one or more primary packages and has the function to protect and identify the product and to communicate the qualities of the product, such as plastic wrapping to hold a six-pack of soft drink bottles. At last, tertiary packaging can consist of both primary and secondary packaging and functions to distribute, unify and protect the products throughout its journey through the commercial chain, which may be the container in which all six-packs are distributed.
Besides the types of packaging, there are also four main packaging elements that could potentially affect purchase decisions of consumers (Silayoi & Speece, 2007). These elements can be separated into two categories, namely visual and informational elements. The visual elements comprise graphics, and size and shape of packaging. The informational elements encompass product information and information about the technologies used in the package.
The role of packaging nowadays
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(Thalhammer, 2007), which affects the product selection process (Hall, Binney & O’Mahoney, 2004).
Packaging is the first aspect of the product that consumers are confronted with, even before consuming the actual product itself. The package design determines consumers’ first and sometimes even lasting impression of the product (Creusen & Schoormans, 2005). Using color in the packaging might therefore contribute to influencing the perceived healthiness of healthy and/or unhealthy products. Several studies indicate the opportunity packaging provides to communicate with and influence the customers at the point of purchase (Atkin, Garcia & Lockshin, 2006; Wigley & Chian, 2009). Silayoi and Speece (2007) point out that, when consumers do not have prior knowledge of a product, visual packaging cues might attract consumer attention and set expectations for the product content. More research substantiates on this by demonstrating that the packaging and physical appearance of the product can, and often indeed does, influence perceptions and evaluations consumers have on a range of products (Bittner, 1992; Bloch, 1995; Dawar & Parker, 1994).
In this research, the focus lies on packaging of food and drink products. These items, in general, are considered low-involvement products, because of its low value and high volume (Hingley, Taylor & Ellis, 2007). The research of Nancarrow, Wright and Brace (1998) states that food product brands use a range of packaging attributes, in which colors, designs, shapes, symbols and messages are combined. This research solely focuses on the packaging attribute color and its influence on perceived healthiness.
Moment of truth
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Because customers so often decide to buy (or not) on the point of purchase, visual attributes can play an important role in the decision making process. Visual packaging attributes include colors, graphic shapes and images, typography, and illustrations (Venter, Van Der Merwe, De Beer, Kempen & Bosman, 2011). According to Clement (2007), packaging that contains distinct visual basic features, such as color, will attract the visual attention of customers and influence their reaction and buying behavior regardless of their specific brand preferences. When packaging is well-designed, it can favorably influence preferences for the product (Yamoah, 2005). Underwood (1996) suggests that packaging represents a type of peripheral cue, which may be diagnostic in low involvement shopping environments. Furthermore, the research of Underwood and Klein (2002) provides evidence that consumers use packaging, which is an extrinsic cue, to infer intrinsic product attributes. Wang (2013) proved this finding in a study, which results show that attitudes towards visual packaging directly influences consumers’ perceived food product quality and brand preference, and indirectly influences product food value. In addition, Silayoi and Speece (2007) mention that food product expectations can be generated from cues such as packaging. Imram (1999) adds to that, that the effect of color is the most obvious. Consumers’ perceptions of color are associated with perceptions of other quality attributes, such as nutrition. If one (or more) packaging variable, such as packaging color, is manipulated, a positive effect can be achieved (Silayoi & Speece, 2007). Because consumers learn color associations, this leads them to prefer certain colors for certain product categories (Grossman & Wisenblit, 1999). Although packaging is part of the buying and consumption process, it is often not directly related to the ingredients of the product that are essential for functioning of the product (Underwood, 2003).
In the following section the relevance and associations of color is elaborated on after which the implications of using color in food packaging is described.
Color and its meaning
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individuals that is fundamental to how they perceive the world. Elliot, Maier, Moller, Friedman and Meinhardt (2007) add to that by stating that color can also carry a specific meaning and convey specific information. This will be further elaborated on in the next paragraph.
According to Crowley (1993), when colors are viewed as wavelengths of visible lights, colors can be ordered from long to short wavelengths in the following order: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet. For red, this means that this color indices a negative response. For green, this means it indices a mean to positive response.
The associations that come with color
Different colors invoke different associations. Although color is striking to the eye, Elliot, Maier, Binser, Friedman & Pekrun (2009) state that any effect of color on psychological functioning is likely to take place in a subtle fashion. They explain that colors can carry psychologically relevant meaning, due to the fact that individuals are exposed to many different pairings of colors and specific messages, concepts, and experiences throughout their lifetime. Because of repeated exposures to these pairings of colors, strong color associations are produced. Elliot et al. (2007) add to that by stating that once a color association is in place, color is presumed to operate as a nonconscious prime and has an automatic influence on psychological functioning. A distinction is made between color meanings that are based in learning alone and biologically based predispositions to interpret and respond to these colors in particular ways (Elliot et al., 2009). As mentioned before, the meaning of color takes place in a subtle fashion, striving for a direct influence on motivation and behavior without the individual being consciously aware of this.
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De Bock et al. (2013) summarize that colors that convey positive meanings, like green, generally induce approach responses, whereas colors that convey negative meanings, like red, induce avoidance responses. However, an interesting finding in a study of Mehta & Zhu (2009) is that while prior research often suggest that cool colors, like green, lead to more favorable consumer responses, they found that there are also conditions wherein red can enhance persuasion.
Furthermore, Goldstein (1942) also studied the associations that come with different colors and came to the conclusion that red is experienced as stimulating and disagreeable and focuses individuals on the outward environment. Again in contrast, Goldstein showed that green is experienced as quieting and agreeable and makes individuals focus inward. In addition, red relative to green was posited to impair performance on activities in which
exactness is required (Goldstein, 1942, p.151), meaning that long wavelength colors (like red) are viewed as arousing, while shorter wavelength colors (like green) are viewed as calming. Wilson (1966) supported this finding in his research. He found red to be significantly more arousing than green, based on both absolute skin conductance measures and galvanic skin response.
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suggestions of Crowley (1993), this positive linear trend is researched in the domain of packaging.
Color associations do not hold for every situations, as Elliot et al. (2007) mention in their study. They posit that color carries different meaning in different contexts and therefore, color has different implications for feelings, thoughts and behaviors in different situations. Madden et al., (2000), however, did show that there were no statistically significant differences in the liking of the colors red, green, black and white across countries. In addition, research shows (Elliot et al., 2007) that not every color holds associations. Black, white and grey are
considered achromatic, that is neutral, colors. This was also a finding of De Bock et al. (2013), as they tested different colors in a pretest, wherein beige and light purple prompted neutral evaluations.
Use of color in packaging
One of the many marketing tools managers around the world use to create, maintain and modify brand images in consumers’ minds is color (Schmitt & Simonson, 1997). An
important component of packaging is color (Schmitt & Pan, 1994). Using color in packaging can be very important in determining a product’s desirability (Madden et al., 2000). Van der Laan, De Ridder, Viergever and Smeets (2012) amplify that by stating that the impression a package is intended to create in consumers’ minds is affected by package characteristics, such as color.
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to buy”. In case of low involvement decisions, evaluations of attributes become less important, increasing the importance of color (Grossman & Wisenblit, 1999). Color was, among others, even one of the most highly noticeable factors. McNatt (1998) found evidence for the findings of Grossman and Wisenblit (1999) that health-conscious consumers are likely to perceive any food, including unhealthy products that contain a lot of fat, like cookies and cheese, as healthy as long as it is presented in green packaging. McNatt (1998), however, did not provide background information on how he came to this conclusion. Furthermore, in the research of Aday and Yener (2014), green proved to be the third most preferred color used in packaging. On the contrast, using red in packaging is often associated with eating more and longer (Lamb et al., 2011). However, Aday and Yener (2014) show that red is the most favorite color used in packaging.
Body Mass Index
Body Mass Index, better known as BMI, is used to infer if an individual has a healthy weight or if that person is overweight in relation to their height. BMI can be used as an estimate of the health risk that comes from an individual’s weight (Voedingscentrum, n.d.). An
individual’s BMI is calculated based on a person’s age, weight and height. If a person has a BMI below 18.5, he or she is considered underweight. A BMI between 18.5 and 24.9 is perceived as normal. If an individual has a BMI between 25 and 29.9, he or she is considered overweight. Finally, if a person has a BMI of 30 and above, he or she would be considered obese.
In the Netherlands, 41.6 percent of the population has a BMI of 25 or higher and is thus considered overweight. 10.1 percent of those that are overweight have a BMI of 30 or higher, which means they are obese (Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, 2014). On average, more men are overweight than women. More specifically, 45.4 percent of men are overweight and 37.8 percent of women are overweight. Furthermore, the data shows that the lower people are educated, the higher the percentage of overweight and obese people (Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, 2014).
McFerran et al. (2010) researched the effect of body type on the amount of food consumption of consumers. The outcome of this study is that people chose a larger portion when
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other person is obese than if the other person is thin. This finding might indicate that if a person sees an individual with a high BMI take a healthy or unhealthy product in green packaging, they might perceive it as less healthy than if a person with a low BMI takes that similar product. In this study, the focus is not on seeing another person take the product, but the BMI of the individual itself is taken into account. So, in this research it is tested whether an individual’s own BMI moderates the relationship between perceived healthiness of a healthy or unhealthy product and the color of the packaging.
Conceptual framework
This research investigates if packaging color, specifically red and green, has an influence on the perceived healthiness of the product. In addition, if color has an influence, how does this influence perceived healthiness – does it increase perceived healthiness or decrease it? The perceived healthiness is researched for objectively healthy, as well as objectively unhealthy products. Besides, the influence of having a low versus a high BMI, on the relationship between the color of the packaging and the perceived healthiness of the product is researched. So, the objective healthiness of the products and BMI both serve as possible moderators. To be able to draw conclusions about the influence of the color of the packaging, grey is used as a neutral color. The influence of the colors red and green are researched relative to the color grey. The literature review has shown that in different studies (Elliot et al., 2007; De Bock et al., 2013) grey has proved to evoke neutral associations and therefore it is used as a control color. Based on the conducted literature review, the following conceptual model is developed:
FIGURE 1 Conceptual model Perceived healthiness Healthy product Unhealthy product
Body Mass Index
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Hypotheses
Wang (2013) suggests to explore some visual packaging features, such as color, that influence value perceptions. In this research, this is done for the colors red and green. As Masten (1988) infers, package design has to communicate the attributes of the product and the overall
impression of the product must be presented through design elements, such as color. Fazio (2001) and Klauer and Musch (2003) state that affective priming refers to the fact that people process targets faster and more accurately if they are preceded by primes with the same rather than an opposite valence. So, if individuals perceive green as positive and healthy, packaging in this color may help them to process the targets faster and more accurately. Furthermore, research has shown that when red is used in the packaging of products it is often associated with increased and prolonged eating, which might lead to perceiving this products as unhealthy (Lamb et al., 2011). Summarizing, because green (red) often invokes positive (negative) associations, the following hypotheses are suggested:
H1: The positive influence of the color green (relative to the color grey) on the perceived
healthiness is stronger for healthy than unhealthy products.
H2: The negative influence of the color red (relative to the color grey) on the perceived
healthiness is stronger for healthy than unhealthy products.
Because an evaluation of attributes is less important in low involvement decisions, which grocery products are, a highly noticeable factor such as color becomes more important (Grossman & Wisenblit, 1999). Therefore, the expectation is that H1 and H2 will be supported.
As McFerran et al. (2010) proved, BMI has an influence on food intake. Seeing someone with a high BMI taking a large portion of food, makes another individual take a significantly smaller portion than that person would have done without seeing an overweight person taking that large portion. In this study, the focus lies on the BMI of the individual itself. It would be logical to assume that consumers with a high BMI, who are assumed to be less health
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provides no evidence for how consumers that are not health-conscious perceive this green packaging. Therefore, the following hypotheses are suggested:
H3: The positive influence of the color green (relative to the color grey) on the perceived
healthiness is stronger for people with a low BMI than for people with a high BMI.
H4: The negative influence of the color red (relative to the color grey) on the perceived
healthiness is stronger for people with a low BMI than for people with a high BMI.
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3 METHODOLOGY
To collect relevant data to answer the research question an online survey (see appendix B) is conducted. In this survey, the true purpose of the research is disguised, so that respondents are not tempted to give desirable answers instead of answering based on how they actually
perceive it. Therefore, in the beginning of the survey a situation is sketched in which it is explained that a firm wants to introduce a new product. Different products are shown in the survey, after which respondents are asked to rate the products on several statements on a 7-point Likert scale. These statements address topics like the overall judgment of the product (its packaging), perceived healthiness, food intake (consumption intentions) and taste. The aim of letting respondents rate several statements is that they remain unaware of the true purpose of the research. Besides, open questions are asked, which all produce interval data. Furthermore, more general questions are asked like the respondents age and gender, which could possibly explain (unusual) effects that are found. Of course, the BMI of the respondents has to be known as this could be a possible moderator in the relationship between the color of the packaging and the perceived healthiness of the product. Because respondents might not know their exact BMI, they are asked to fill in their height, age and weight, so that the BMI can be calculated by the researcher.
The products displayed in the survey do not use an existing brand on the packaging, so the brand itself is not a confounding variable. The packaging of the products are green, red and grey. Respondents are randomly assigned to the color red, green or grey and every respondent is assigned to a healthy (walnuts) as well as an unhealthy (energy drink) product.
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as healthy). The products that are ranked as most healthy and most unhealthy overall are used in the actual survey.
Data collection
There are no requirements for respondents to fill in the survey. However, to be able to draw conclusions about the moderating role of BMI, ideally there would be an equal distribution of participants between the two categories of BMI (low/high). Respondents are recruited via the use of social media and e-mail. All the surveys are completed via self-completion in an online fashion. No maximum number of respondents is selected, but to be able to draw
(generalizable) conclusions, a required number of at least 120 respondents serves as the threshold, so that every condition (red, green, grey) has at least 40 respondents.
Plan of analysis
In the analysis, respondents are categorized in either the ‘low BMI’ group or the ‘high BMI’ group. When respondents have a low or medium BMI (<25), they are placed in the ‘low BMI’ group, whereas respondents that have a high or obese BMI (25 or higher) are placed in the ‘high BMI’ group. The independent variable ‘packaging of color’ as well as the moderator ‘Body Mass Index’ and ‘objective healthiness’ produce nominal data, whereas the dependent variable ‘perceived healthiness’ produces interval data.
Before conducting the analysis to test the hypotheses, the data is checked for extreme outliers. If this is the case, these respondents are removed from the dataset. Besides, the descriptive statistics of the data are checked and analyses are performed to check whether these statistics per condition (grey, red and green) significantly differ from each other. If these analyses show that a condition significantly differs on one (or more) variable(s), this variable is included in the analysis as a covariate.
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4 RESULTS
In this chapter the results of the analyses of the dataset are displayed. The analyses are done with help of the statistical program SPSS. At first, the dataset is prepared for the analysis after which the analyses are done. Descriptive statistics and frequencies are displayed first. After that the main relationships, as well as the moderating relationships are tested. The output of the analyses are included in appendix C.
Descriptive statistics
The dataset consists of 233 respondents of which 188 completed the survey. Overall, the sample of respondents is quite representative, with a spreading across ages between 13 and 83. Two third consists of women, more precisely 66 of these respondents were men and 122 were women. Specifying this to the three conditions; in the ‘grey’ condition were 11 men and 42 women. In the ‘red’ condition, there were 27 men and 39 women. At last, in the ‘green’ condition there were 25 men and 39 women. The respondents in the grey condition have an average age of 30,4. In the red condition the average age of the respondents is 42,5. For the green condition the average age is 30,7.
Before conducting the actual analysis, the descriptive statistics per condition are analyzed. If these statistics show significant differences between conditions, they are to be included in the analysis as a covariate. The division of males and females per condition (grey, red and green) is tested with a Chi-Square test. With a p-value of respectively .044, the conditions show significant (p < .05) differences and therefore gender is included in the analysis as a covariate. A Chi-Square test is also performed for the division of BMI (low/high) across conditions. With a p-value of .169 (p > .05), it can be concluded that the groups do not significantly differ and therefore BMI is not included in the analyses as a covariate. To test if age should be included in the analysis as a covariate, a one way anova is performed. The outcome of this analysis shows that there are no significant differences between the conditions with a p-value of .771 (F=.261, p > .05).
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Preparing for analysis
Before the proper analyses can be done, the Cronbach Alpha values of the different variables measuring the perceived healthiness are analyzed. When these values show a value of .7 or higher, the variables are converted into one. As can be seen in table 1, the internal reliability of the different scales ranges from good to very good.
Table 1
Cronbach Alpha values
Cronbach’s A
Characteristics Items Healthy product Unhealthy
product
Perceived healthiness
Consumption intake, buying intentions, taste, perceived
healthiness, attractiveness
.873 .802
Running the reliability analysis for the healthy and unhealthy product with the variables measuring the perceived healthiness (buying intentions healthy/unhealthy product, taste healthy/unhealthy product, consumption intake healthy/unhealthy product, perceived healthiness healthy/unhealthy product, attractiveness healthy/unhealthy product) gives a cronbach alpha value of respectively .873 (α > .7) and.802 (α > .7). Because the scales correlate so well, the variables are converted into one and are used as the levels of the dependent repeated measures analysis, which is explained in more detail further on.
Testing hypotheses
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Table 2
Summary of Means Perceived Healthiness Color
Variable Color Mean
Objective healthy product (walnuts)
Grey 4.17
Red 3.83
Green 3.84
Objective unhealthy product (energy drink)
Grey 1.51
Red 1.82
Green 2.08
Table 2 shows the means of the perceived healthiness of both the healthy and the unhealthy product for the three colors. The means show some minor differences, however nothing can be said about the significance of these differences. The differences are also virtually shown in figure 2.
FIGURE 2
Summary of Means Perceived Healthiness Color
Table 3 displays the means of the perceived healthiness for the objective healthy and unhealthy product regarding BMI.
0 1 2 3 4 5
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Table 3
Summary of Means Perceived Healthiness BMI
Variable BMI Mean
Objective healthy product Low 1.81
High 1.88
Objective unhealthy product Low 3.97
High 3.83
The differences in means for BMI regarding the perceived healthiness of the products shown in table 3 are also visually displayed in figure 3.
FIGURE 3
Summary of Means Perceived Healthiness BMI
Below, the significance of these differences are elaborated on in more depth.
The analysis showed no significant (F [2, 175] = .172, p > .05) difference between the three conditions of color of packaging on the perceived healthiness of a product. Moreover, no significant direct influence was found for differences between gender (F [1, 175] = .345, p > .05) as well as BMI (F [1, 175] = .063, p > .05). Besides, the interaction effect of color and BMI also proved to be insignificant (F [2, 175] = .222, p > .05)
When looking at table 4, it shows that there is however, a statistically significant (F [1, 175] = 8.40, p < .01) difference in individual’s perceived healthiness of healthy and unhealthy
products, so within the three conditions. Gender is included in the analysis as a covariate and proves to have a significant influence, in combination with objective healthiness of the
products, on an individual’s perceived healthiness (F [1, 175] = 8.28, p < .01). In addition, the table shows that there also are significant differences (F [2, 175] = 3.46, p < .05) in a person’s perceived healthiness for the three colors of food packaging when combined with objective healthiness of the products. The differences between the colors have to be researched more in
0 2 4 6
27
depth to reject or accept hypotheses 1 and 2, which is done later on. Moreover, the outcomes of the analysis show that the interaction effect of objective healthiness of the products and BMI has no significant influence on a person’s perceived healthiness of (un)healthy products (F [1, 175] = 1.61, p > .05). At last, the interaction relationship between objective healthiness, the color (grey, red or green) of the food packaging and BMI do not significantly influence an individual’s perceived healthiness (F [2, 175] = .406, p > .05). On the basis of these outcomes, it can already be concluded that BMI is not a significant moderator in the relationship
between color of packaging and the perceived healthiness. Hence, hypotheses 3 and 4 are rejected.
Table 4
Summary of Repeated Measures analysis (Objective healthiness, color and BMI)
Variable Type III Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. Objective healthiness 7.046 1 7.046 8.398 .004 Objective healthiness*gender 6.948 1 6.948 8.282 .005 Objective healthiness*color Objective healthiness*BMI 5.801 1.351 2 1 2.901 1.351 3.457 1.611 .034 .206 Objective healthiness*color*BMI .681 2 .839 .406 .667
To analyze the differences in packaging color in relation to the perceived healthiness more in depth, a planned contrast analysis is performed. With a p-value of .191 (F [2, 180] =1.673, p > .05), the analysis shows that there are no significant differences between the influence the three colors of food packaging have on the perceived healthiness of healthy products. More specifically, with a p-value of .112 (t=1.597, p > .05), grey does not differ from red.
Furthermore, grey does not significantly differ from green with a p-value of respectively .106 (t=1.625, p > .05). Hence, hypotheses 1 is rejected. In addition, red and green also show no significant difference with a p-value of .967 (t=.042, p > .05).
However, the analysis does show a difference between the influence color of the packaging has on the perceived healthiness of the unhealthy product with a significant p-value of
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with a p-value of .090 (t= -1.711, p > .05). In addition, red has a positive – but insignificant – influence on perceived healthiness as opposed to the expected negative influence. This is inconsistent with hypotheses 2. Hence, hypotheses 2 is rejected. Grey and green, however, do significantly differ from each other with a significant p-value of .004. (t= -2.963, p < .05). Because this only holds for unhealthy products, hypotheses 1 is rejected. Besides, green and red do not significantly differ from one another with a p-value of respectively .099 (t= -1.664, p > .05). Table 5 displays the mean differences between the colors and its perceived
healthiness for both the healthy and unhealthy products, which are explained in more detail below.
Table 5
Summary of Mean Differences Color
Variables Color Mean
difference Sig. Healthy product Grey - Red Grey - Green .34 .34 .250 .238 Red - Green .01 .999 Unhealthy product Grey - Red -.27 .206 Grey - Green -.54 .010 Red - Green -.27 .224
As mentioned before, color does have a significant influence on perceived healthiness (p=.034). As can be seen in table 5, there is a significant difference between using green or grey food packaging for an unhealthy product. Grey scores, on average, .54 lower on its perceived healthiness relative to green. The other differences between the use of color for both healthy and unhealthy products proved to be insignificant. It is however striking that, although insignificant, red also has a positive effect on perceived healthiness as opposed to the expected negative effect.
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FIGURE 4
Summary of Expected and Found Results
As can be seen in figure 4, the three conditions – mostly - do not significantly differ from each other as the lines run very close together. Furthermore, only the found results of the green condition sort of meet the expected results, although the means lie much lower than expected. The results for the red and grey condition show a quite different, or even opposite, direction than the expected results. Besides, it is striking to see that, although literature (Elliot et al., 2007) found grey to be a neutral color, it is perceived as most unhealthy (as opposed to red and green) for the unhealthy product and as most healthy in case of the healthy product.
Health consciousness
BMI has proven to have an insignificant influence on the interaction between packaging color, the objective healthiness of (un)healthy products and the related perceived healthiness of these products. Therefore, a repeated measures analysis is performed again with health consciousness as the possible moderator in the main relationship instead of BMI. Health consciousness is ranked on a 7 point Likert scale, where only 1 respondent ranked him/herself a 1, 6 respondents a 2, 18 respondents a 3, 24 respondents a 4, 50 respondents a 5, as much as 75 respondents a 6 and 8 respondents even an 8. The results of the analysis are displayed in table 6 and described below.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Unhealthy product Healthy product
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Table 6
Summary of Repeated Measures analysis
(Objective healthiness, color and health consciousness)
Variable Type III Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. Objective healthiness 4.292 1 4.292 5.119 .025 Objective healthiness*gender 5.693 1 5.693 6.790 .010 Objective healthiness*color Objective healthiness*health consciousness 2.577 5.263 2 6 1.289 .877 1.537 1.046 .218 .398 Objective healthiness*color*health consciousness 9.498 10 .950 1.133 .341
First, the three conditions of packaging color proved to have no statistically significant (F [2, 162] = 1.051, p > .05) difference in direct influence on the perceived healthiness of a product. In addition, there was no significant direct influence found on perceived healthiness for gender (F [1, 162) = .771, p > .05) and health consciousness (F [6, 162] = 1.255, p > .05). The interaction effect of color and health consciousness also proved to be insignificant (F [10, 162] = .818, p > .05).
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significantly influence the perceived healthiness (F [10, 162] = 1.13, p > .05), just as BMI. However, health consciousness, color and objective healthiness together do have a greater influence on the perceived healthiness (p=.341) than BMI, color and objective healthiness (p=.667) have, but this is still far from significant.
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5 CONCLUSION, DISCUSSION AND LIMITATIONS
In this chapter conclusions regarding the hypotheses - and additional tests - carried out with the help of SPSS, are drawn. After that, the outcomes of the analyses are discussed,
limitations of this research are addressed and recommendations are made for future research.
Conclusion
Hypotheses 1 ‘The positive influence of the color green (relative to the color grey) on the perceived healthiness is stronger for healthy than unhealthy products’ proved to be
inconsistent with the research findings. Green did prove to have a positive influence on the perceived healthiness, relative to grey, but this only holds for unhealthy products and not for healthy products. This finding is not consistent with hypotheses one and therefore this hypothesis is rejected.
Hypotheses 2 ‘The negative influence of the color red (relative to the color grey) on the perceived healthiness is stronger for healthy than unhealthy products’ has to be rejected,
based on the findings of the analysis. Red proved to have an insignificant influence, relative to grey, on the perceived healthiness of both healthy and unhealthy products. Furthermore, the found influence, although insignificant, was positive for unhealthy products instead of negative.
The found effects are not as expected. According to Elliot et al. (2007), red evokes an avoidance motivation and green evokes an approach motivation. In this research, green (relative to grey) only evokes an approach motivation for unhealthy products. Red however, proved to have - although insignificant - a positive effect (.27 higher than grey) on perceived healthiness and thus did not evoke an avoidance motivation. An explanation for the found effects could be that the packages only partly contained red and green, but were not
completely red and green. It might be that the packages thus contained too little of that color to evoke the expected motivations. Furthermore, McNatt (1998) found that, as long as it comes in green packaging, people believe it is healthy. In this study, this effect was only found for unhealthy products and green packaging relative to grey packaging.
No significant effects were found to support hypotheses 3: ‘The positive influence of the color green (relative to the color grey) on the perceived healthiness is stronger for people with a low BMI than for people with a high BMI’. BMI did not prove to have an effect on the
33
Hypotheses 4 ‘The negative influence of the color red (relative to the color grey) on the perceived healthiness is stronger for people with a low BMI than for people with a high BMI’
is not consistent with the findings of the research and therefore has to be rejected. Red did not prove to have a negative effect, relative to grey, on perceived healthiness nor did BMI have a significant effect on the main relationship between color of the packaging and the perceived healthiness of the product.
Because in neither of the hypotheses regarding BMI significant effects were found, a repeated measures analysis was conducted with health consciousness as a between-subjects
independent variable instead of BMI. Health consciousness also did not prove to have a significant effect on the perceived healthiness of a healthy or unhealthy product. Furthermore, health consciousness did not have a significant effect on the relationship between perceived healthiness and the color of the food packaging. Although health consciousness still not significantly influences the relationship between packaging color and the perceived
healthiness of an objectively healthy or unhealthy product, it did prove to be stronger than the influence BMI has on this relationship (p=.283 versus p=.601).
Concluding, this study shows that there is a significant difference between the perceived healthiness of objectively healthy and objectively unhealthy products. Furthermore, in the repeated measures analysis with BMI as a between-subjects independent variable, the interaction effect of objective healthiness of the product and gender proved to significantly influence perceived healthiness. Moreover, the interaction between packaging color and objective healthiness showed to have a significant influence on perceived healthiness.
Specifically, green packaging proved to have a significant effect on the perceived healthiness of an unhealthy product. In contrast, red did not prove to have a significant negative effect on perceived healthiness. In fact, the found effect – although insignificant – proved to be positive relative to grey packaging. Moreover, there was no significant effect that BMI has a
moderating influence on the relationship between packaging color and perceived healthiness. With these findings, the research question ‘Does – and if so, how does – red and green food packaging influence the perceived healthiness of objectively healthy and unhealthy products, of consumers with a low BMI and a high BMI?’ can be answered. Namely, using the color red
34
perceived healthiness. More specifically, when an unhealthy product has a green packaging, it increases the perceived healthiness of this product. This is not the case for healthy products with green food packaging. Besides, BMI does not have a significant influence on the relationship between red or green food packaging and its perceived healthiness.
Discussion
This research was conducted to partly replicate the findings of McNatt (1998), who stated that people perceive any food, whether healthy or unhealthy, as healthy as long as it is comes in green packaging. These effects are not found in this research, except for the use of green packaging for unhealthy products. An explanation for this could be that McNatt (1998) did not use a neutral color as a baseline in his research as he provides no background information on how he came to his findings. This might explain why he did find significant effects for healthy products as well, as he might have only looked at the effects of green packaging without relating it to another color. A different explanation could be that, as Madden et al. (2000) also state, green packaging makes a product appear healthy, but that this might also be due to the fact that this color is also most liked across culture.
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consumer responses. However, the positive – insignificant - influence of red packaging on perceived healthiness might also be due to the fact that red has been found to enhance
persuasion (Mehta & Zu, 2009). For future research, the suggestion would be to replicate the study across countries to find out if the results are generalizable.
People are becoming more health consciousness nowadays. Elliot et al. (2009) found that, due to different pairings of colors and specific messages, concepts and experiences, colors can carry psychologically relevant meaning. If people are repeatedly exposed to green packaging in combination with the concept healthiness, stronger color associations could be produced and an associated higher perceived healthiness might get more ingrained in their minds. Therefore, this study should be replicated in the future multiple times to track the development on this subject.
At last, Elliot et al. (2007) state that color carries different meaning in different contexts. Color thus has different implications for feelings, thoughts and behavior in different
situations. Therefore, a suggestion for future research is to simulate a real-life situation in, for example, a supermarket to measure the perceived healthiness of products with red and green packaging could lead to different findings than the ones in this research.
Academic and managerial contribution
Because, to the knowledge of the author of this thesis, this research is the first to investigate the influence of BMI on perceived healthiness Therefore, the outcomes of this research contribute to academic research by proving that BMI does not significantly influence the relationship between packaging color and perceived healthiness. After running an analysis with health consciousness, the conclusion was that health consciousness proved to have a larger influence – although still insignificant - on the main relationship than the influence of BMI. The contribution to academic research of this research is to study the effect of health consciousness on perceived healthiness more in depth in the future. Furthermore, the outcomes of this research proved to be – mostly - inconsistent with findings in earlier
research. Therefore, it is important to replicate this study across cultures and over time, so that (generalizable) conclusions can be drawn.
36
packaging of unhealthy products to increase the perceived healthiness of the product. On the basis of the findings in this research, red proved to not significantly influence perceived healthiness. Because red is also found to enhance persuasion (Mehta & Zu, 2009), marketers could choose to use the color red in packaging as it does not significantly influences perceived healthiness. The suggestions made in the discussion paragraph also serve as a contribution to managerial and academic practice.
Limitations
Although the division between conditions did not significantly differ from one another, one of the shortcomings in this research is that there were far more respondents in the low category of BMI than for the high category for BMI. Because there were not that many respondents with a high BMI (≥25), it could be that different influences are found in a study with more respondents with a high BMI.
Moreover, because participants only served in one condition, it is not possible to compare individual differences in perceived healthiness of the three packaging colors. In future researches, it might yield interesting results to let participants serve in more, or even all, conditions. Then, individual differences can be compared between, for example, grey and green.
Although there is one significant effect found, the lack of more significant findings might be caused by the use of color in the packaging. A possible cause could be that the packages did not contain enough of the color (red, green or grey) to influence the perceived healthiness of the products. For future research, maybe the color should be more exaggerated to increase the chance of influencing the perceived healthiness of the products. The only danger than is that respondents suspect what the research is about and answer in a desired manner instead of how they actually perceive the product. Besides, health consciousness did not show a significant effect, but it did prove to be stronger than BMI. Therefore, as suggested before, the focus in future researches could lie more on health consciousness of respondents than on their BMI.
At last, the choice of products might be reconsidered. Although walnuts proved to be
37
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7 APPENDICES
Appendix A: Pretest
This appendix is mentioned in the methodology (chapter 3). This pretest is filled in by a small sample of 32 respondents and is used to determine which products are judged as (most) objectively healthy and unhealthy.
Objective healthiness of products
Chicken soup
Very unhealthy 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very healthy
Ice cream
Very unhealthy 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very healthy
Walnuts
Very unhealthy 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very healthy
American chocolate chip cookies
Very unhealthy 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very healthy
Orange juice
Very unhealthy 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very healthy
Deep frozen French fries
Very unhealthy 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very healthy
Canned peaches
Very unhealthy 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very healthy
Energy drinks
Very unhealthy 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very healthy
Dried pasta
Very unhealthy 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very healthy
Orange soda
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Appendix B: Questionnaire
This appendix is mentioned in chapter 3 (methodology) and displays the online survey, which is used to collect data to perform the analyses. The outcomes of these analyses are used to test the hypotheses and eventually answer the research question.
Blok 1 Introductie
'Tamplax' is een Canadees bedrijf dat bestaat sinds 1987. Zij produceren drinken en etenswaren. 'Tamplax' is een succesvol bedrijf en wil nu zijn aandeel vergroten in de
levensmiddelhandel en heeft daarvoor verschillende producten ontwikkeld. U wordt gevraagd om enkele producten hiervan te beoordelen op een aantal aspecten. Dit gebeurt geheel
anoniem. Alvast bedankt voor uw medewerking.
1. Ik vind de verpakking van dit product attractief Helemaal mee oneens Mee oneens Een beetje mee oneens Niet mee eens noch oneens Een beetje mee eens
Mee eens Helemaal mee eens
