THE EFFECT OF NEW PACKAGE DESIGN ON PRODUCT ATTENTION, CATEGORIZATIONAND EVALUATION

Deviations in well-known stimuli attract attention. Furthermore, devia tions in the appearance of stimuli affect the way in which consumers c ategorize stimuli. Our experiment investigates the effect of the degre e of deviation of coffee packages on consumers' attention and categori zation. The stimuli are modified packages of the best known Dutch grou nd coffee brand. The first hypothesis described a positive relation be tween the attention that a package gets and the degree of deviation of its appearance. Based on the categorization literature, the second hy pothesis stated that an boolean AND-relation exists between the degree of deviation of the package appearance and the evaluation of the prod uct. The data from the experiment supported both hypotheses. The resul ts suggest that when redesigning stimuli in marketing practice, for in stance of products or packages, a trade-off has to be made between (a) the high attention getting value of discrepant stimuli and (b) their ability to transfer existing positive affects to new stimuli that rese mble the existing products or packages in the product category.