Larger = more attractive? Image size on food packages influences purchase likelihood

Abstract

The current research demonstrates that larger (vs. smaller) food images on food packages can positively influence consumers' initial product attitudes toward the food (i.e., purchase likelihood). Three studies examine the predictions. Compared with smaller food images, larger ones improve purchase likelihood (Studies 1 and 2). The effect is mediated by mental imagery (Study 2). However, this effect is only observed for vice (vs. virtue) foods (Study 3). Investigating the impact of the food image size on food packages has rarely been explored, but as food packages are likely one of the first stimuli that consumers notice about food on store shelves, its role on initial product attitudes warrants investigation. We discuss how our findings can offer insights into rising obesity rates, thus calling for regulation of food image size on packages amongst policy officials. We discuss the limitations of our work and also offer questions for future research on food consumption, health, and policy.

Factors influencing the visual deliciousness / eye-appeal of food

“…One of the other points to have emerged from this systematic narrative review is that the viewer's response to various visual features of a food display often hinges on whether the food is natural vs. transformed foods (e.g., Sel et al, 2019); Unhealthy vs. healthy (Petit et al, 2017;Romero & Biswas, 2016); Energy-dense or not (Basso et al, 2018); Vice or virtue food (Huang, Wang, & Chan, 2022); Hedonic or functional foods (Zhou et al, 2021).…”

Increasing purchase intention while limiting binge‐eating: The role of repeating the same flavor‐giving ingredient image on a front of package

“…The images thus cue a better evaluation of product taste, and therefore enhance positive brand beliefs (Underwood & Klein, 2002), desire, consumption, and purchase intention (Elder & Krishna, 2012). Pleasant images (Mizutani et al, 2010), large vice‐product images (Huang et al, 2022), or processed food images (except for health‐conscious consumers, Machiels & Karnal, 2016) reinforce positive effects.…”

“Unattractive = natural”: How explicit and implicit beliefs jointly affect consumer purchase of unattractive produce

“…In a real choice context, Study 1 examined the main effect of incongruent implicit–explicit “unattractive = natural” beliefs on consumers' selection of unattractive produce (H 1 ). We measured participants' implicit “unattractive = natural” beliefs using the IAT (Greenwald et al, 2003; Huang et al, 2022) and recorded their choices of unattractive (vs. attractive) fruit. Study 2 replicated the main effect in a field setting and tested the mediating role of elaborative thinking (H 2 ).…”