Ethical consumption for changing the future has been one of the most dominant trends in consumption around the world. As purchasing organic products is considered ethical for the nature and descendants, the global organic food market has expanded its ...
Ethical consumption for changing the future has been one of the most dominant trends in consumption around the world. As purchasing organic products is considered ethical for the nature and descendants, the global organic food market has expanded its size by almost four times over the past decade. This is not a temporary trend, but will lead to the future consumption trend. The present researcher, a designer at an eco-friendly product shop, intended to develop this study in relation to his work. Despite the fact that an eco-friendly product shop is basically a retail store selling only eco-friendly products, it is more often regarded as a store with safe products these days. Major consumers of an eco-friendly product shop are housewives with children in their early 30s to late 50s, and they are highly interested in keeping their families healthy and having healthy food. Generally, they are willing to pay 20 to 30% more for their children.
As milk is perfect food containing sufficient essential nutrients for growing children and is easy to obtain, organic milk was chosen to be the main object of the study. Even though traditionally milk was a low involvement item, it was expected that the newly introduced organic milk market might have changed it to a high involvement item for mothers. According to a theory, highly involved consumers tend to explore information based on central clues. Central clues indicate rational information such as materials, ingredients and capacity, while peripheral clues mean emotional elements such as design, packaging and colors. Generally speaking, with high involvement items such as organic milk, consumers are likely to prefer rational approaches involving central clues when exploring information. With the organic milk packaging, will rational approaches be more beneficial than emotional ones? The present study was prepared to answer this question in accordance with the following methodology.
First of all, the present researcher examined consumer involvement in organic milk, and then prepared three types of organic milk packaging designs, namely the central-clue-focused rational type, the peripheral-clue-focused emotional type and the mixed type. The study focused on how different involvement levels would affect cognitive responses(belief) and emotional responses(attitude) in a corroborative manner.
A group of people in their 20s to 50s in Seoul, Pyeongchon and Sambon were surveyed. In the first survey, consumer involvement in organic milk was examined through questions on consumer perception, purchase experience and involvement for organic milk.
For the second survey, the researcher created three types of experiment objects for organic milk packaging, namely the central-clue-focused type, the peripheral-clue-focused type and the mixed type. After that, the researcher exposed the objects to the experiment participants, and corroboratively tested their cognitive, emotional and behavioral responses by stage to find out the differences in consumer attitude. After data coding, SPSS(Statistic Package for Social Science) ver 15.0 was used to process the obtained data statistically.
As a result, the following conclusions were made.
Firstly, the consumer involvement in organic milk was recorded at 2.84, indicating that organic milk was a low involvement item. The most common place of purchase was a large supermarket. For the reason of purchase, ingredients were the most frequently mentioned.
Secondly, in terms of consumer responses by packaging expression type, cognitive responses were the most common for the rational expression type. On the other hand, there was no statistically significant difference with the emotional expression type. In terms of the mixed expression type, behavioral responses were the most common, with the significance level being 1%.
Thirdly, in examination of the different behavioral responses by packaging design type and consumer involvement level, F was 6.213 with the significance level being 1%. The behavioral responses on the mixed type were the highest, while those on the emotional type were the lowest. In terms of consumer involvement, behavioral responses on high involvement items were higher than those on low involvement items. In terms of the interaction between expressive types and involvement levels, high involvement was higher than low involvement with the rational type, the emotional type and the mixed type. However, the deviation in the rational type was bigger than that in other types.
Fourthly, the affects of cognitive responses by packaging expression type on emotional responses were analyzed. With all of the three types, higher cognitive responses led to higher emotional responses.
Fifthly, the affects of emotional responses by packaging expression type on behavioral responses were also examined. With all of the three types, higher emotional responses were linked to higher behavioral responses.
Lastly, the rational expression type was mentioned the most with 43.3%, when the participants were asked to select the most noticeable product. The answer was followed by the emotional expression type and then the mixed expression type. For the reason, illustration(certificate) was the most common with 33.5%, and then ingredients/quantity, colors, others and brand were mentioned in the named order. In terms of products they were willing to purchase, the rational type was selected by the biggest number of people, 41.4%. It was followed by the mixed type and then the emotional type.
According to the Elaboration Likelihood Model(ELM), consumers tend to purchase high involvement items for central clues and low involvement items with peripheral clues. It was concluded that the involvement level with organic milk was relatively low, but consumers were largely affected by central clues, such as certificate, ingredients/quantity and colors.
In the study, it was found that both the low involvement group and the high involvement group picked the central-clue-focused rational type the most. In terms of products the participants were wiling to buy, both groups selected the central-clue-focused rational type more than the other two. With regard to cognitive responses by expression type, 'certificate' triggered cognitive responses with the central-clue-focused rational type, while 'illustration' attracted cognitive responses with the peripheral-clue-focused emotional type and 'product information communication' with the mixed type. The researcher concluded that the underlying reason was the well-being trend prevalent in the food and drink market. Accordingly, the existing organic milk packaging design where peripheral-clue-focused emotional expressions were emphasized shall change as consumers are increasingly conscious about their choice. With packaging design strategy, milk companies should more effectively communicate visual components linked to safety and product information to provide visual satisfaction and increase product reliability and consumer satisfaction.