Jpl. Schoormans et Hsj. Robben, THE EFFECT OF NEW PACKAGE DESIGN ON PRODUCT ATTENTION, CATEGORIZATIONAND EVALUATION, Journal of economic psychology, 18(2-3), 1997, pp. 271-287
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.