Is plain food packaging plain wrong? Plain packaging increases unhealthy snack intake among males Carolina O.C. Werle a,⇑ , Laurie Balbo b , Cindy Caldara c , Olivier Corneille d a Grenoble Ecole de Management, 12 rue Pierre Sémard BP 127, 38003 cedex 01 Grenoble, France b Montpellier Business School, Montpellier Research in Management, 2300 Avenue des Moulins, 34080 Montpellier, France c Université de Grenoble Alpes, CERAG UMR 5820, 150 rue de la chimie, 38040, Saint-Martin d’Hères, France d Université Catholique de Louvain, IPSY - Place Cardinal Mercier 10, bte L3.05.01 à 1348, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium article info Article history: Received 14 October 2015 Received in revised form 10 December 2015 Accepted 14 December 2015 Available online 17 December 2015 Keywords: Plain packaging Food consumption Boomerang effect abstract Public policy makers have recently recommended deactivating the marketing functions of unhealthy food packaging by enforcing the use of plain food packaging. It is noteworthy, however, that no study to date examined the impact of plain packaging on consumers’ perceptions and actual consumption of unhealthy food items. Three studies reported here addressed the latter questions. Study 1 shows that the plain pack- aging negatively impacts product and brand attitudes as well as intention to consume an unhealthy snack when consumers only evaluate the packaging. Study 2, however, reveals that when they taste the pro- duct, the plain packaging increases food consumption among males, while there is no difference for females. As a further insight, Study 2 shows that the plain packaging does not influence consumers’ pro- duct and brand perceptions anymore following actual food consumption. Study 3 fully replicates Study 2 findings and additionally shows that the plain packaging and the low fat label packaging increase unhealthy snack intake to a similar extent in males and females, respectively. Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Food packaging is a critical component of marketing, which influences consumers’ attention, expectations and purchase deci- sions about brands and products (e.g., Ares & Deliza, 2010; Becker, van Rompay, Schifferstein, & Galetzka, 2011; Labbe, Pineau, & Martin, 2013; Ng, Chaya, & Hort, 2013; Underwood & Klein, 2002). In the context of the obesity epidemic, public policy makers have recently recommended deactivating the marketing functions of packaging for unhealthy food by enforcing the use of plain packaging. 1 Of importance, however, evidence is currently lacking as to whether plain packaging effectively reduces intake for unhealthy food items. The present research set out to address the latter question. In this article, we briefly discuss the literature on packaging as well as on plain packaging in anti-smoking preven- tion. We then report and discuss three studies that investigated the effects of plain packaging on consumers’ perception and actual con- sumption of an unhealthy snack. Over the past decades, food product packaging has become one of the most essential marketing tools. Besides its primary functions (protection of the content, transportation, storage and handling), packaging shapes consumer’s perceptions and expectations about food products and provides food companies the last opportunity to persuade the consumers that their product should be purchased (Ares & Deliza, 2010). In stores, packaging shapes consumers’ expectations about how a product would taste and decisions about whether it should be bought (Carrillo, Varela, & Fiszman, 2012). The influence of packaging is particularly powerful when purchase decisions are made impulsively or with low involvement (Liao, Corsi, Chrysochou, & Lockshin, 2015; Rebollar, Lidon, Martin, & Fernandez, 2012; Underwood, 2003). At the time of buying, vision is the most operating sense (Labbe et al., 2013). In a snap, packaging must attract visual attention and convince potential buyers that the product is the best option (Rebollar et al., 2012). As a result, marketing research has devoted much attention to the role of visual packaging in guiding con- sumers’ expectations and choices. Among the various dimensions of product packaging, color, shape and graphical elements received most attention from practitioners and researchers (e.g., Block, 1995; Celhay, Boysselle, & Cohen, 2015; Marshall, Stuart, & Bell, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foodqual.2015.12.007 0950-3293/Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. ⇑ Corresponding author at: Marketing Department of Grenoble Ecole de Management, 12 rue Pierre Sémard BP 127, 38003 cedex 01, France. E-mail addresses: carolina.werle@grenoble-em.com (C. O.C. Werle), l.balbo@ montpellier-bs.com (L. Balbo), cindy.caldara@upmf-grenoble.fr (C. Caldara), olivier. corneille@uclouvain.be (O. Corneille). 1 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-23/junk-food-and-booze- could-follow-tobacco-in-plain-packaging-push. Food Quality and Preference 49 (2016) 168–175 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Food Quality and Preference journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/foodqual