Fruit pictures on beverage packages, health effect, and purchase intention

Abstract

Faced with the serious challenge of reducing consumer obesity, research on food packaging has been limited to encouraging healthy product choices among children with poor health awareness and adults with obesity concerns. While there is a lack of discussion on packaging appealing to health‐conscious consumers, the literature has shown that realistic pictures of fruits drawn on packages can convey health and be attractive. Though this conclusion applies to apples and oranges, which are sweet fruits that can be eaten as they are without processing, results can vary with fruits such as lemons, which have a sour taste and are difficult to eat directly. This study fills the two gaps mentioned above. In Japan, a randomized controlled trial was conducted on the packaging of lemon drinks with illustrations and pictures of lemons that evoked sourness. The results showed that lemon pictures had a positive effect on purchase intention for those with high health involvement and a negative influence on those with low health involvement. In the case of the lemon illustration, this interaction did not occur, suggesting that the presence or absence of the recall of sourness was the trigger. If practitioners do not have the above perspective, there is a risk that they will mistakenly attempt to reduce the attractiveness of the product.