Critical Review  #1

Nawaz,J , Mohib,B, Asad, L 2012, ‘Effect of Product Packaging in Consumer Buying Decision’, Journal of Business Strategies”, Vol.6, No.2, pp1-10, Retrieved from: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2436946

The journal article, ’Effect of product packaging in consumers buying decision” mentioned which elements of product packaging are the most significant and how it can impact consumer buying behaviour. Hence, the purpose of this article is to find out the effects of product packaging of FMCG on consumer buying decision and also to find out the importance of product packaging in the sale of product.

The authors examined that product packaging will affects consumer purchasing decisions can that marketers try to influence and shape the consumers concepts and perception through the packaging of the product. Not only that, the authors mentioned that there are many ways in which the packaging can add value. This is because the authors stated that the product packaging occupies in the consumer’s mind and it also the last impression of the consumer which affect their final purchase decisions.

In this article, the authors collected data through primary sources which they survey questionnaires to administered for data collection. The methodology that authors used is quantitative data which is a effective ways to collect data. Not only that, the researchers have give 15 questions in the survey obtaining data for one variable which i think the methods can get more information and it help for the their research. Besides that, their target population involves the users, deciders and buyers of FMCG products and it include the old and the young generation of population. I think the target population they involved in the survey is working because they can found out the results which is the effect of product packaging in consumer buying behaviour.

Besides that, the authors concluded that colour of a product’s packaging is the most significant characteristic and following by the picture or the image on the product packaging. The results from the survey that they did support that the coefficient of colour shown that the unit increase in score of colour will bring 0.484 unit increase in purchase decision whereas the coefficient of picture suggests that unit increase in score of purchase will bring 0.237 units increase in purchase decision. In this results, we can see that colour explains purchase decision more than picture as standardized beta coefficients for colour is higher than that of picture.

This article is well-written and it is understandable their aim from the beginning to the end of the articles. The authors also provided a lot of supportly evidence and also data to do their research. In my opinion, I think that their conclusion are clearly shown their research to the reader even though some of it didn’t have support evidence.

Critical Review #2

He.Q, Zhang.K, Chu-Fan. Z and Man-Ru. C, 2012, “Packaging Design Research and Analysis Based on Graphic Visual”, IPCSIT, vol.28

In this article ”Packaging Design Research and Analysis Based on Graphic Visual”, the researchers examined that pursuit of product packaging design features and the pursuit of increasingly perfect visual experience of beauty has become a first target for the modern packaging design. Different countries and different nationalities have different cultural characteristics which a nation’s cultural personality of the entire nation to form a solid style of art and design foundation for example China. This is because China is a country with profound cultural connotations. Due to this reason, the researchers full study the design and analysis of domestic and international packaging industry based on the visual design from graphic design to carry out research on the packaging and they use China’s traditional festival Mid-Autumn Festival moon cake packaging design element analysis.

The researchers indicated that packaging have a direct impact on consumers purchase decision because it is a comprehensive reflection of consumer psychology. Visual communication in the study of visual processes in people’s visual perception of design information flow process and it is built on human’s mental and physical habits based on the cognitive model. In this research paper, they examined that a successful packaging design can’t separate from the graphics and it is because the graphics can express the hidden meaning of the world that appeal means. Not only that, they did some research on the graphic design, the text that appear on the packaging and also the colour design of the moon cake packaging design to study and analysis their research based on the graphic visual.

In this article, the researchers shown the respondents’ views on major drivers to growth in their respective national packaging industries over the next five years, the top ten paper and board packaging markets in 2009 and also the forecast packaging consumption by end-use market by providing some bar chart and pie chart. They did shown the results for they research and It is quite understandable even though they didn’t mentioned the purpose of it.

In this article, the researchers mentioned about some of the successful packaging design elements and also the shape factor of the laws of formal beauty packaging before they get into their research target which in the China’s traditional festival Mid-Autumn mooncake packaging design. The researchers examined about the text of the mooncake packaging design have a unique visual effects to attract consumer attention and the text it used is Chinese Calligraphy which has long history of writing in China. Besides that, they examined that the graphic design of mooncake packaging design always focus on the “miss’ and ‘blessing” in the theme of everlasting calendar Mid-Autumn Festival to create a “auspicious reunion” atmosphere.

Not only that, they also indicated that the colour design of the moon cake packaging design which have richer cultural atmosphere because colour in the visual arts is often a head start in the power and it will lead to human’s emotional reactions and changes. All those elements that they have mentioned in the article clearly make reader understand that why China’s traditional festival Mid-Autumn Festival moon cake packaging design as a commodity and consumer information link between its cultural requirement.  

Overall, this article provided a evidence and their research on the Mid-Autumn Festival mooncake packaging design even though they only have few support data for their research. However, the article is understandable but they didn’t provided a conclusion for their research which i think it have to be improve.

Critical Review #3

Liza. B, Thomas J.L. van Rompay, Hendrik N.J. Schifferstein, Mirjam. G, 2011,”Tough package, strong taste: The influence of packaging design on taste impressions and product evaluations”, Food quality and preference, vol.22,pp 17-23, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foodqual.2010.06.007

In this “Tough package, strong taste: The influence of packaging design on taste impressions and product evaluations” article, the authors mentioned that product packaging may steer consumer decision making for the product symbolic or aesthetic qualities. Consumer reliance on a product’s visual appearance may follow from a lack of relevant information and the packaging of the product may be a driver of consumer decision making because it allow consumers to draw inferences about the product and it attributes the taste. Hence, the authors underlying the research presented is to found out what are the visual perception of product packaging can hold subsequent taste experiences and to be more specific, they going to found out the level of variations in packaging shape and packaging colour impact subsequent taste impressions. Not only that, the authors will study the effect that can be traced to symbolic meanings or associations connoted by product appearance.

The authors examined that the consumers use symbolic information connoted by packaging features such as the colour, shape and the material of it to draw inferences about the contents and even in case the product attributes under evaluation are unrelated to the package’s appearance. Not only that, the authors also mentioned that the taste or sound of the product didn’t directly related to packaging features such as shape and materials are informative with respect to a brand’s positioning strategy. The authors did their research by approached the participants individually in the entrance of a large German supermarket and asked for a new brand of yogurt and they realised that the main effects of packaging shape and packaging colour on the taste experience did not reach significance and they indicating that there are no overall effects of these variables on the extent to which the yoghurt taste is experienced as strong.

The methodology for this article have some weakness which are the taste intensity evaluation was measured using the items sharp, bitter, and mild with high scores indicating a intense taste of the yoghurt. In this part, participant have to indicate what level they considered these items descriptive of the yoghurt taste. I think it is not the suitable ways to identify the taste of the yoghurt because every participants have different evaluation for the taste of a food. Beside that, the authors measure the participants sensitivity to design by filled out the “Individual Differences in the Centrality of Visual Product Aesthetics” scale. I think this is hard to measure the participants’ sensitivity to design because everyone have their own different perspective on things for example design.

In this article, the conclusion that they did is well-written because they concluded that the research that they did shown that the package appearance may be specifically designed in order to portray particular symbolic meanings that may modulate subsequent taste evaluations and impact overall product evaluations. Not only that, the authors mentioned that their finding warrant the future studies systematically tracing packaging appearance manipulations to perceptions of symbolic meanings the level to which package appearance connotes toughness which i think is informative and lends relevant  insights to the research.

In sum, the authors have presented data indicating that visual design parameters such as packaging colour and packaging design shape may inspire effective perceptions which may influence consumers evaluate the product and the experiences in non-visual sensory channels. In the research that they did, the predicted effects of packaging colour on product evaluation and taste impressions did not transpire in the results presented and i think the research method could be changed so that the results could be more valid and reliable.

Critical Review #4

Natalia .V, Olga .A, 2007,”The Role of Packaging in Positioning an Orange Juice”,Journal of Food Products Marketing, vol.13, No.3, pp21-48, doi:  https://doi.org/10.1300/J038v13n03_02

Positioning is the relationship between a well-positioned range and the success and growth of a company, just as many different authors sustain. According to Porter (1996) mentioned that the close relationship between positioning and the long-term growth of a company and draws attention to the fact that companies are increasingly ignoring the long-term benefits of positioning strategies and opting for operational efficiency. To study more about the positioning, the authors examined the possibilities tat packaging provides within the positioning strategy of a tangible food product which is Orange Juice. The authors begin the article with a revision of the concept and strategies of positioning according to different authors.

Originally, the concepts of positioning was treated from a business or input perspective and the first typology proposal were limited to a description of the activities of the organisation. In this article, the authors explained in detail and it is marketing mix and positioning strategy and he provided the evidence to supported the article. As it have been previously underlined, packaging plays a major role in communicating brand personality especially in food sector. There are two major objectives to follow for the aims for this articles which are to detect the associations that exist between the positioning strategy of a product and the graphic design of its packaging and to identity if there are any differences between the two perspectives which are offer and demand.

In this article, the authors mentioned that packaging is the container that is in direct contact with product itself which holds, protects, preserves and identifies the product as well as facilitate handling and commercialisation and it have different perspective from different view. In consumers perspective, it also play a major role when product are purchased. This is because packaging is crucial and it is the first thing that the public sees before making the final decision to buy. By mentioned about those point, the authors have enough evidence to support this articles which i think it is supportive enough and it make reader more understandable and more reliable.

The conclusion that the authors did reinforce the idea od the essential role that packaging plays when it comes to configuring the positioning of a food product. In this study, the correspondence between certain positioning categories and graphic variables has been measured. When they give a conclusion, they explained it in detail and it make reader understand the conclusion more.

Overall, I think this article is well-written because it have provided the limitations and future research areas which i think it can help reader make progress with regard to the role of packaging as a positioning transmitter. In this article, the authors mentioned that packaging also comprises other structural element not only the four graphic design elements that mentioned in this article and it could be analyzed in later research given that they all contribute to transmitting a certain idea of what the product is like which i think it encourage reader to explore more by doing more research about the role of packaging in positioning.

Critical Review #5

Janet. H, Christiane. W, Philip. G, Jordan. L, Karen. C, 2010, “Effects of dissuasive packaging on young adult smokers”, Tobacco Control, vol.20, pp 183 - 188, http://doi:10.1136/tc.2010.037861

The World Heath Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) realised that smoking as the leading cause of preventable death and disease internationally and they aims to limit the harm caused by tobacco. The signatories have agreed to restrict tobacco marketing and several have banned tobacco advertising and sponsorship and also restricted retail marketing since its harming. Tobacco industry documents illustrated how packaging promotes smoking experimentation and strengthen existing smokers behaviour. This is because the plain packaging reduces the perceived attractiveness of smoking and creates an opportunity to introduce larger pictorial warnings that could promote cessation-linked behaviours. The researchers think that reducing branding elements and increasing the health warning size would progressively reduce the attractiveness of cigarette packaging. In this article, the researchers was study on the effects of dissuasive packaging on young and adult smokers.

The tobacco industry suggest that increase the graphic warning size even though have they know it will affect the reduce the attractive of the packaging and it will significantly decrease the attractiveness of tobacco packaging. In this article, the researchers assumption that the younger adults smokers will be less likely to purchase the cigarette when the packaging had reduced brand imagery and having larger graphic health warnings. The researchers interviewed 292 young adults smokers which they aged between 18 and 30 in the experience. After that, they done their data collection and analysis, they noticed that there are some limitation is the study.

The methodology that the researchers used are quantitative. In their finding, they interview 292 young adults smokers about the graphic health warnings that appear on the tobacco packaging. They using the “best to worst” experiments to estimated the responses by showing the size of the warning image that on the packaging, the level of branding and also the packaging that are without branding and graphic warning to the participants. It is a effective because I think the methodology they used can examined the responses of the participants directly.

The researchers’ conclusion mentioned that they results show it have significant effects on the attractiveness of cigarette packaging to young adults smokers and it might increase the probability of they will engage in cessation-related behaviors just by removing the brand imagery and increase the graphic health warning size on the cigarette packaging. The conclusion that they did are well-written because they didn’t give exact answer about how would the young adult smokers react on it.

In short, the research that they did are understandable for the readers and the purpose is clear enough to know what they try to find. In this articles, they wrote the introduction in detail so that the reader can comprehend from the beginning.

Critical Review #6

Shuo-Ting .W, Li-Chen .O, Luo, M. R., & Hutchings, J. B. , 2014, “Package Design: Colour Harmony and Consumer Expectations”,  International Journal of Design, vol.8, No. 1,pp 109–126. Retrieved from: https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.taylors.edu.my/login.aspx?direct=true&db=iih&AN=96053224&site=eds-live&scope=site 

Nowadays, colour are playing an important role in design which is a trigger to lead to the viewers’ emotion and designer use it to deliver information through colour. When colour come to product design, it has been suggested that positive emotion would not only add the extra value to a product, it also can increase the possibility of a product being purchased. Not only that, the context of colour are used will affects how the colours are perceived. There are a example which given in the article, the colour brown may associate with natural and warm feeling when we used it for wooden material in interior design but it may bring a different feeling when it used on a coat.

To figure out more about it, the researchers used fruit juice containers as the context to establish a practical method for their research. It is to study the relationship between the colour and psychological responses. The research choose the fruit juice container is because it is one of the most popular food products and the sales grows almost every year. Before they being their research, they did explained the information about the colour harmony and they also provided the evidence to support it. Since colour will influence the consumers’ purchasing decision, the research mentioned about the consumer expectation of a product. This is because the consumers purchasing decision making can be influence by their previous experience, advertising of the product and even the brand image.

In the article, the researchers used few step to do their research which are conduct a market survey to define the layout of the juice packages, specifying and displaying colours of packages in an experimental display, next they carry out the experiments by using the semantic differential (SD) methods and the last step they did are revealing the relationship between colour scheme od packages and observers the responses. I think they well organizing  for their data collection part which is more easily for reader to understand their aims and the action.

Not only that, they did another experiment to observe the responses for the colour scheme on the orange juice. There are total 20 observers which are 10 male and 10 females aged around 23 to 34 were participant in it. In this experiment, there are four semantic scales which are colour harmony, liking, quality and freshness were used to demonstrate the observers’ responses of the juice packages with different colour scheme. The researchers surmise that the fruit juice product will be more liked and it will be expected to be a high quality of product when the colour scheme of the packaging look harmonious. In addition, they analyses that the colour harmony of the package colour scheme influence the observer’ perception of the product quality and freshness and it influences them like the product from the results they get from the experiment.

Overall, the article is well-written and easy to interpret when they explaining their purpose and the findings for this research. It is a good resources for the readers to study more because the researcher mentioned a lot of information of colour in packaging design and they also surmise that the experimental design and methodology that they have developed can be applied on other foods as well as to other packaged products.

Critical Review #7

Polyakova .K,2013, “Packaging design as a Marketing tool and Desire to purchase”, Available at: http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-201303223578

Nowadays, there are many different types of products and goods increases steadily. Many market company tries to originate something new to get the competitive advantages for providing the product to the end consumer to stand out against other competitors. There are one marketing tools has become popular and playing a important role which is packaging and packaging design and it allow the product to be different from each other and to have more precedence among other competitors. Packaging and packaging design have a main role in communicating product benefits to consumers and it have become significant factors in the marketing of multiple “consumer goods’ (Polyakova, 2013).

The packaging plays a big role in the market because the market economy highlights the importance of the packaging nowadays. There are a fact that the consumer and the package are strongly related to each other and both affect and develop each other by helping companies to make right decision about their marketing strategies. In this research paper, the main objective for it is to identify consumer perception on different product designs and also to examine how they perceives and evaluate the pattern colours, and the graphic on the packages.

This research paper are using both research method which are quantitative and qualitative and it named mixed method. It is to analyze the data from different point of view and to more a right interpretation about the topic. For the quantitative part, the author chose a small amount of people to participant in the survey and the target group of questionnaire has included international students. For the qualitative part, the author conducted it through telephone and the e-mail interviews. The mutual responsiveness between the interviewer and the interviewee has been generous and it provided the quality of the interview content. After the author have the visual results of the research, he provided several diagrams and pie charts to show and explained to the reader.

The conclusion that the author did was in detail. The author concluded everything which included the research method, the results of the research, the packaging design elements, the consumer perception and so on. This does work contributes to the field because packaging design of a product has become more important and it also will impact the consumer’ final purchase decision which also influence the marketing economy.

In sum, the research paper is well-written and reliable because the author provided a lot of evidence which supports his point and research. Not only that, there are a recommendations for the further research in the end of the research paper.

Critical Review #8

Robert L.U and Noreen M.K, 2002, “Packaging as Brand Communication: Effects of Product on Consumer Responses to the Package and Brand”, Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, vol.10, No.4, pp58-68, DOI: 10.1080/10696679.2002.11501926

Nowadays, product packaging has become an important role as a marketing communication vehicle for brand managers. Besides that, product packaging have a critical strategic element for brand differentiation and also identity. There are a research measured the impact of relative product packaging appearance on consumer attention, categorization and their evaluation and they concerns the visual impact of packaging on consumer responses to the product. Consumer also will get affected by the picture of the product on the packaging perform an informational function.

In communication vehicle, packaging that incorporating with a picture of the product on the package is one of the potential means to get more attention for the brand and slo communicates its benefits. Consumers look at a product picture on the package should be more reality. There are many elements for package design but the purpose of the researchers are to depress the package design elements to the presence or absence of a realistic picture of the product on the package. To found out more about the research, the author tested the preceding hypotheses in an experiment which including 265 student subjects at a large state university. The aims of the experiment is to obtain a clearer understanding of the role of packaging as an extrinsic cue and also to measure the effect of the product pictures on packaging.

In this articles, the researchers choose some private label brand of a supermarket that had no story in the geographic of the study and by using the completely unfamiliar brand, it strengthened the manipulation of familiarity. In the results, they found out that the results that they research are related to their surmise. Not only that, the researchers also provided a strong and straightforward conclusion for the product managers which is a firm may positively enhance the consumer’s beliefs about the product’s taster by adding some attractive picture of the product on the packaging.

Furthermore, in this article the author explained the results for different category for example the attitude toward the packaging, the brand beliefs and also the consumers’ brand evaluation. It help the reader more understand their research aim and the purpose of doing the experiments.

In conclusion, I think this article is well-written because the author explained every element in detail even though some of the grammar are hard for me. Not only that, i think they conclusion is reliable because they indicated that the additional research are needed which to examine the multiple roles of packaging in the marketing mix.

Critical Review #9

M. Estiri, T. Hasangholipour, H. Yazdani, H.J. Nejad and H. Rayej, 2010, “Food Products Consumer Behaviors: The Role of Packaging Elements”,  Journal of Applied Sciences, vol:10, pp 535-543, DOI: 10.3923/jas.2010.535.543 

In present, packaging has been verify as a strategic tool for improving competitiveness of food products by experts. Packaging seems to be one of the most important elements that can influence consumers purchasing decision and it also is the key food product attribute perceived by consumers. There are few comprehensive studies on how packaging elements influence consumers behavior during the different stages of purchase decision and they analysis of consumer purchasing decisions is not uncommon and the body of knowledge has developed.

Since the packaging design are an important role in the marketing and consumer’ purchasing decision, the author do more research about the topic. Packaging defined as the technology and art of preparing commodity for convenient transport storage and sale. Not only that, the role of imagery in information are an influence on consumers judgement through their mediating impact on the imaged they provided. There are a way to maximizing package impart. Which is through understanding consumer response to packaging. To do more research about it. The researchers did a quantitative survey by interviewing the review of the consumer buying behaviour and the product packaging. In the result, the researchers indicates the behaviour of consumer towards the food packaged product are less influenced by the image issues and visual response.

The purpose for this research is to study the relationship between packaging and food products on consumer behaviours in a shores in Iran which named Refah. In this research, the researcher tried to evaluate and compare the effects of packaging elements on consumer behaviour on their purchase states by use quantitative methodology. There are 175 participants were analyzed in the survey instrument.For the findings of the study performed that the informational elements of the packaging did influence the consumer purchase decision of food products to great extent.

In sum, I think the article is well-written and easy for reader to understand because the researchers mentioned about their aims once again just incase the reader get confused. Not only that, the researcher did a finding about the future research and they examined that should use multi items to assess the relationship between packaging elements and the food products of buyer behaviour.

Critical Review #10

Jesper .C, 2007, “Visual influence on in-store buying decisions: an eye-track experiment on the visual influence of packaging design”, Journal of Marketing Management, vol.23, no.9-10, pp 917-928, DOI:10.1362/026725707X250395

In 21st century is developing a tendency for a consumer experiences and a shift in consumer behaviour, where products based on immaterial aspects such as emotions, entainments and fantasy will be preferred. The product packaging will  influence the consumer buying behaviour theory when the buying behaviour related to acquiring products to buying behaviour related to the buying situation. According to the research that the author did, people simply choose the product with their eyes. This is because Visual stimuli at a point of sale will influence consumers’ intention to buy.

In this article, the authors mentioned that there are several researchers have examined the connections between packaging and the consumers purchase decisions. According to Ursula Hanse (1986), he describes that packaging as having specific influence on buying behaviour through the three general packaging aspects which are communication, functionality and environment. Besides that, those researchers mentioned that consumer spend little effort on cognitive processes like reading and comparing the product prices, they will judged from what they see. Packaging design also make visual impact on buying behaviour in an in-store purchase situation.

The methodology that used by the author is quantitative method. He choose 62 people that ranging in age from 20 to 63 to participated in an eye-track experiments that was set up in a large Danish supermarkets. In this experiment, the participants asked to do shopping to decide themselves what to purchase and they paid for their own purchases and there was no time limit given. This experiments was analysed by examining the video that taken from the locations of the selected categories and the author found out that the in-store buying decision process related to the gaze time. The author have provided a table to show that the result that he get from the experiment.

In sum, the experiment that did by the author does found that the benefits in on-sit data collection using eye-tracking, even though the eye-track equipment needs technical development to increase the amount of useable data. In conclusion, the packaging design has to communicate with the product attributes and the impression must be presented through design elements such as illustration, colour, typography and also the shape (Masten,1988).

Overall, the article is still understandable because the words that the author used are easy to read. Hence, for the conclusion, the author didn’t wrote about their purpose and he didn’t explained the result in detail which i think it can be improve because it remind the reader about the purpose of the experiment or study that they did.