Influence of packaging attributes on perception of juice: Eye-tracking study

Abstract

Today, consumers are increasingly aware of the impact that the fast and stressful way of life has on their health. They focus not only on physical activity, but also on a diet filled with fruits and vegetables. As a result, they often choose a tasty alternative which is one of the main sources of vitamins and nutrients - fruit juices. However, these products are often labeled as drinks with high amounts of sugar. Therefore, it is very important for these drinks to be perceived by the consumers as healthy and tasty, which is one of the most important features of their packages. Their goal is to appeal to customers, catch their attention and make them buy the product. One of the most convenient methods to study how packages appeal to customers is the eye-tracking method. The aim of this article is to find out how different attributes of packages can influence customers' perception of the juice. The research was carried out in a form of eye-tracking experiment (A/B testing), which involved 38 participants at the age from 20 to 29 (generation Y). Results showed that lower color saturation significantly reduces the attention of individual packages and also reduces the influence of craving the juice as opposed to brighter colors. The importance of information on the back side was also confirmed, since moving the information from back to the front side did not show any significant decrease of the back side's attention span. Last but not least, it has been found out that the image type used on the orange juice package holds importance too, since photography of oranges led to a higher craving of the juice in comparison to the illustration of oranges. However, it was not proven that photographs of oranges held a higher attention span compared to the illustrations. The article contains demonstrable proof of individual package attributes' influence on how generation Y consumers perceive the juice.