Being unconventional: The impact of unconventional packaging messages on impulsive purchases

Abstract

The visual and textual elements of packaging significantly impact consumer product evaluations. This study examines how unconventional packaging messages—a textual packaging element—influence impulsive product purchases. We also investigate the mediating role of curiosity and the moderating role of emoji (i.e., a visual packaging element). We conduct five studies to test the proposed hypotheses. The findings reveal that unconventional packaging messages are more effective for impulsive products than for planned purchases. Furthermore, unconventional packaging messages increase both healthy and nonhealthy impulsive product purchases. We find that consumer curiosity explains the enhanced impulsive product purchasing when unconventional packaging messages are used. When unconventional packaging messages are employed for impulsive products, the use of emojis increases customer curiosity. The results extend an understanding of unconventional elements in consumer evaluations of products and inform packaging and marketing strategies regarding how to promote impulsive product purchases in competitive markets.

(Relative) size matters: a content analysis of front-of-packaging cue proportions and hierarchies

“…Snack bars and chips have also been examined in graphic design (Schifferstein et al. , 2022), messaging and purchase decisions (Das et al. , 2023) and colour-flavour associations (Velasco et al.…”

“…Breakfast cereals have received significant scholarly attention in brand management fields including studies of claim credibility (Ku and Chen, 2023), cue positioning (Park and Ma, 2019) and healthy decision-making (Prada et al, 2021). Snack bars and chips have also been examined in graphic design (Schifferstein et al, 2022), messaging and purchase decisions (Das et al, 2023) and colour-flavour associations (Velasco et al, 2014) contexts.…”