Go Bold or Au Naturel for Packaging Healthy

A shopper’s decision whether to purchase an item is different from deciding how much to pay for the item. This can be seen in a pair of studies about effects of package colors on buying healthful foods. Put together, the findings indicate that bold package colors persuade people to consider making the purchase, but those who are seeking healthy foods are willing to pay more when the package colors are bland.
     Much past research concluded that consumers consider healthfulness and tastiness to be incompatible. This was especially true for children. If an item is really healthy, it is bound to taste really bad. Researchers at University of Vienna think they’ve found a way around this. They showed groups of consumers photos of packaging of snack products, smoothies, and juices. Some of the items were likely to be familiar to the consumers, while others were fictitious items created for the studies. Some of the photos of the packaging were in bold colors, others less bold, and the remainder in grayscale with all color removed.
     People generally evaluated the items portrayed as having boldly colored packaging to be both heathier and tastier. The researchers’ experimental design allowed them to spot an explanation for this: Bolder colors signal greater freshness. A bright red apple is more appealing to us than is an old brown one.
     That’s how evolution has designed our brains. Manufacturing and marketing have distorted the relationship such as by adding artificial sweeteners and synthetic colors to items. The research studies did not prove that foods in boldly colored packaging are healthier or tastier. They only verified that the bright colors will give that impression. It is still the manufacturer’s responsibility to deliver on the promise.
     But for shoppers seeking healthy foods, willingness to pay is linked to use on packaging of colors which are “au naturel.” This is the descriptor coined by University of London, University of Messina, and University of Calabria researchers for colors like cream, sandy beiges, and mellow browns. These evoke associations with the earth, which causes shoppers to agree to pay higher amounts for the items because the items seem to be more authentically healthy. Importantly, this willingness-to-pay effect does not hold for items the shopper considers to be unhealthy. But for the healthy items, au naturel colors work better than even green, which has previously been associated with organic production.

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