Environmentally Friendly Packaging Appealing to Consumers Emotions -Focusing on Organic Food Packaging-

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1 Environmentally Friendly Packaging Appealing to Consumers Emotions -Focusing on Organic Food Packaging- Mokryun Baik and Hyeon-Jeong Suk Department of Industrial Design, KAIST, Daejeon, Korea Abstract The market for environmentally friendly products had seen rapid recent growth, as consumers are demanding more eco-friendly products and their environmental awareness is increasing. In particular, organic food consumption, which is linked directly to their health issues, extends beyond environmental friendliness in terms of consumer interest. Upon this background, many goods are marketed so as to appeal to the consumer s eco-sensibilities. The critical importance of packaging design is growing under today s competitive market conditions, as the package becomes a primary vehicle for communication and branding (Rettie & Brewer, 2000). Providing effective emotional communication at the point of purchase, package design is planned by powerful visual strategies. The present study addresses the design characteristics of packaging focusing on organic food products in the Korean market. Organic food package design is differentiated by using earthy colors instead of ingredient colors or symbolic colors of brands. Moreover, it is distinguished from existing non-organic goods by the application of calligraphy, since natural calligraphy delivers rich emotional expression. Hand-drawn-like illustrations help organic food packaging convey a message of environmentally friendliness as well, as they match the imagery organic products pursue. Lastly, the use of effective materials is another package identifier for appealing to consumers emotions. This study sheds light on the current visual characteristics of organic food packaging as a precedent study on deriving design guidelines for eco-friendly product packages. Future study should focus on emotion-based approaches. Key words: Environmentally friendly package design, Consumers emotion, Organic food package 1. Introduction As consumers environmental awareness has increased, corporations have rapidly responded to their demand for eco-friendly products, especially in the case of organic food products, which are also linked health issues. For urban consumers, organic food consumption involves more than environmental friendliness: it is a criterion for a high lifestyle. The aim of the present study is to identify existing design characteristics of packaging, where consumers contact the good directly at the point of purchase, focusing on organic food. 2. Research Goal This study intended to identify visual attributes of environmentally friendly packaging designs and to categorize them in order to produce package design guidelines for eco-friendly products from an emotional perspective. Corresponding author h.j.suk@kaist.ac.kr

2 3. Package and Consumers Emotion Packages have many functions. The basic role of packaging is fivefold: To protect the product, to provide easy transportation, to identify product specific factors, to deliver important information about the product, and to facilitate the use of the product. However, with a flood of similar products with similar features available in today s marketplace, connecting emotionally with consumers at the point of sale is another essential role of package design (Fig. 1). While the five basic roles are the concerns of engineers to increase efficiency, providing consumers with emotional satisfaction is a designer-led aspect. This is a vital point, as visual attributes of package design communicate directly with consumers at the point of purchase, and induce customers to buy. Fig. 1. Role of package design (D.S. Choi et al., 2006) For the majority of consumer products, package design is the single most effective communicator of a brand s core identity. Based on consumer buying decision dynamics, it is also the single most influential marketing communications tool (Wallace, 2001). Accordingly, corporations attempt to present an eco-friendly image of the product within the package. They use strategic visual language to appeal to the consumer's emotions, which are crucial in purchase decisions. In the foregoing, this study focuses on packaging at the point of purchase, where the designer plays an important role, rather than at the point of pre-purchase or postpurchase (Table 1). We investigated the visual attributes of packages of environmentally friendly products, with a focus on organic food in the Korean market. Table 1. Attributes of package design in each stage of the purchase process Role of Package Design Design Elements Feature Pre-purchase Product Protection Product Conveyance Structural elements Engineer-led Volume Definition Purchase Information Delivery Emotional Satisfaction Visual elements Designer-led Post-purchase Usability Facilitation Structural elements Engineer-led 3.1. Organic Food Packaging Spurred by the "well-being" phenomenon, 'Orga', a representative organic food retailer of Korea, achieved market dominance following its launch in Despite an economic downturn, the organic product market has grown at a rapid pace as more people are becoming aware of the possible health and environmental benefits of eco-friendly and organic foods. Following the introduction of a new organic brand, 'O food' by Daesang Corp., in 2004, CJ Cheiljedang Corp., the country`s largest processed-food maker, also entered the environment-friendly food market and expanded its business in These three brands, which have been driving the market by applying powerful visual strategies, were selected as subjects for the present study. 4. Sampling In this study, we collected examples of organic food packaging designs at Lotte Department Store's Jamsil Branch and E-Mart Seongsu Branch, which were rated the most outstanding retailers by 'The Evaluation of Green Distributors in Seoul'.

3 Fig. 2. Sampling process based on judgment sampling method 5. Design Attributes of Organic Food Packages Clear differences between the package design of organic food products and non-organic products were observed. The results of the comparisons showed that four requisites for package design are expressed differently for appealing to consumers eco-sensibilities: color, styling of the text, illustrations, and material Color The perception of color is essential to human visual experience and is the most powerful information channel among the human senses (Adams & Osgood, 1973). Among the five senses, the dependence on sense of sight is 87 percent, and color accounts for 80 percent of this amount. It is widely accepted that colors have a strong impact on our emotions and feelings. Thus, it is easy to present an eco-friendly image simply by the use of symbolic colors of nature. Accordingly, the color green, which signifies nature, well-being, and life, and the color beige, which conveys a feeling of warmth and a reflection of the countryside, are the dominant color of organic food packaging. In the case of O food, all packages break from the trend of direct exposure of ingredient colors, and instead create an environment-friendly image by using light yellow green and white, regardless of the content. In particular, in contrast with non-organic products produced by the same manufacturer, organic food packages introduce earthy colors that is unrelated to the characteristics of the ingredients (Table 2-1). Furthermore, in terms of product differentiation, applying strikingly unusual colors is more effective than maintaining brand image consistency. In applying this concept to organic food products, paler and lighter earthy colors are used to capture the consumer s attention. Table 2-2 shows that Sempyo organic soy sauce uses light green to distinguish itself, despite that vivid red has traditionally been a symbol of Sempyo soy sauce packaging and its red color has been a general trend of color for soy sauce packaging. Similarly, cellophane noodles have long been recognized with saturated yellow and red packages; however, packaging for organic noodles has a different look. The organic line uses paler and lighter colors that recall nature (Table 2-3) Styling of the Text The use of type in packaging design should also be considered, since it also projects the image of the product. While the primary concern is readability, it is essential to expose distinct features of products. Tables 2-4, 5, 6, and 9 show that calligraphy is used in various ways for eco-friendly package design since in the onset of widespread consumer interest in organic products several years ago, because its natural and friendly feeling mirrors the characteristic of organic products. While computers can produce a myriad of different typefaces, the richness of emotional expression cannot be generated by a computer.

4 5.3. Illustration Table 2 shows how photographs or illustrations of organic food package design differ from those of nonorganic packages. While photographs that have been retouched to increase contrast for appetizing colors are applied to non-organic products, hand-drawn-like illustrations are used for organic products, as the natural and friendly feeling of hand drawings matches the imagery organic products pursue. Hand-drawn-like illustrations are comparable to realistic photographs in their ability to express emotions through diverse form and design Material Using a conscious matt finish, organic food packages are differentiated from glossy packaging for nonorganic products (Tables 2-3, 5, 6, and 7). Furthermore, as shown in Tables 2-8 and 9, organic cider vinegar and olive oil are contained in recyclable glass bottles so that they can be distinguished by the consumer, whereas plastic bottles are employed to hold non-organic cider vinegar and olive oil produced by the same company. The use of a transparent plastic or film for food packaging is common, since it is less expensive than most other packaging options. However, in application to organic food products, it becomes more meaningful in that transparent packages expose the food directly to the consumers, and thus consumers can obtain emotional satisfaction from purchasing reliable foods (Fig. 3). Fig. 3. Transparent design for organic food product packaging design

5 Table 2. Examples of comparison between non-organic product package design and organic product package design by the same producer (M=Marked difference, S=Slight difference, N=No difference) Product Examples Designer-led Elements of Packaging Designs Non-organic (Before) Organic (After) Color Styling of the Text Illustrations Material 1 Ketchup M S M N 2 Soy Sauce M S M N 3 Cellophane Noodles M M M M 4 Milk M M M N 5 Plain Noodles M M M M 6 Bread Crumbs M M M M 7 Potato Chip M S M M 8 Cider Vinegar M S M M 9 Olive Oil M M M M

6 6. Discussion Environment-friendly organic food packages are differentiated in today s competitive market by applying a strategic graphic plan, using effective materials, and by adding new values to common packaging, since packaging is one of the most important factors in purchase decisions made at the point of sale (Prendergast & Pitt, 1996). Design elements of eco-friendly packaging are chosen so as differentiate the products from existing goods, and with the aim of enhancing competitiveness through emotional communication with consumers. This study shows that visual attributes are essential, since they directly, quickly, and clearly affect consumers emotions at the point of purchase. Effective emotional communication drives consumer behavior and induces impulse purchases. Therefore, future study should focus on deriving design guidelines for ecofriendly product packages. References [1] Rettie, R. and C. Brewer, The Verbal and Visual Components of Package Design, J. Prod. Brand Manage. 9 (2000), pp.56~70. [2] R. Wallace, Proving Our Value: Measuring Package Design's Return on Investment, Design Management Journal 12-3 (2001), pp.20~27. [3] D.H. Choi, K.W. Park B.J. Han, J.H. Kim, B.S. Goh, E.H. Kim, Y.J. Park, Package Design, Ahn Graphics, Paju, [4] Adams FM, and Osgood CE, A Cross-Cultural Study of the Affective Meaning of Color, J. Cross Cult. Psychol. 4 (1973), pp.135~136. [5] Prendergast, P.G. and L. Pitt, Packaging, Marketing, Logistics and the Environment: Is There Trade- Offs?, Int. J. Phys. Distrib. Logist. Manage. 26 (1996), pp.60~72.