On the multiple effects of packaging colour on consumer behaviour and product experience in the ‘food and beverage’ and ‘home and personal care’ categories

Abstract

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 consumer’s product experience.