Packaging colour research by tobacco companies: the pack as a product characteristic.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Tobacco companies use colour on cigarette packaging and labelling to communicate brand imagery, diminish health concerns, and as a replacement for prohibited descriptive words ('light' and 'mild') to make misleading claims about reduced risks.

Methods

We analysed previously secret tobacco industry documents to identify additional ways in which cigarette companies tested and manipulated pack colours to affect consumers' perceptions of the cigarettes' flavour and strength.

Results

Cigarette companies' approach to package design is based on 'sensation transference' in which consumers transfer sensations they derive from the packaging to the product itself. Companies manipulate consumers' perceptions of the taste and strength of cigarettes by changing the colou

SUBMITTER: Lempert LK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5135621 | biostudies-literature | 2017 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature