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This article aims to determine how packaging colour (hue, saturation and brightness) for a healthy food product might influence children's evaluation of the packaging and their attitude towards the brand.

An experiment involving 157 children (7–12 years of age) features a within-subject, factorial design. The product selected for this experiment is an unknown brand of orange juice.

Each colour dimension on packaging exerts an impact on children's evaluation of the packaging and attitude towards the brand. Therefore, the colour featured on packaging can be an effective lever for action to ensure and enhance children's healthy diets.

Further research should investigate these effects across additional product categories, brands and colours.

Packaging is an important marketing tool that influences children's evaluation of the packaging and attitude towards the brand, especially at the point of sale. To understand and exploit these packaging colour effects appropriately for healthy products, it is crucial to understand the effects of various packaging colour dimensions.

Little prior research has addressed the effects of packaging on children's responses, especially by accounting for multiple colour dimensions. Nor has extant research identified how packaging colour dimensions can affect children's evaluation and brand attitude. Especially in consideration of the growing problem of childhood obesity, it is important to give marketers effective ways to promote healthy products.

Children’s sensory involvement refers to the degree to which children engage their senses, such as sight, touch, taste, smell and hearing, in their interactions with the environment. In the context of parents' purchase decisions, children’s sensory involvement pertains to how children's sensory involvement influences the purchasing decisions made by their parents. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of children's sensory involvement on parents’ purchase decisions considering the mediating role of the parent’s attitude.

In this study, a structured questionnaire survey was conducted with parents of children aged 7–12 in Isfahan, Iran. The sample consisted of 210 parents, aimed at elucidating the relationship between variables. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to analyze the relationship between variables.

Results showed a significant relationship between children’s sensory involvement and parents’ purchase decisions, children’s sensory involvement and parents’ attitudes and parents’ attitudes and purchase decisions. It was concluded that children’s sensory involvement could indirectly influence the parents’ purchase decisions considering the mediating role of parents' attitudes.

In today's business landscape, it is imperative for organizations to discern the multitude of factors influencing consumers' purchasing decisions. Among these, family dynamics play a substantial role, with children often exerting a strong influence on their parents' buying choices. Despite the acknowledged importance of this dynamic in existing literature, the specific impact of children's sensory involvement on parental purchasing decisions remains largely unexplored. Therefore, this paper aims to fill this gap in the literature by shedding light on the role of children's sensory involvement in shaping parental buying behaviors.

This study aims to examine the public discourse on sustainable food packaging, evaluating the main characteristics of that discourse and how risk and analytical message content influence consumer engagement.

The authors use two studies with databases built from messages posted on Twitter (now X). Study 1 explores the discourse of sustainable food packaging by conducting a content/sentiment analysis. Study 2 examines more than four million messages posted by or mentioning the world’s most relevant food companies. Hypotheses are tested through censored regression analyses.

The results show that plastic is the term that can better classify how we talk about sustainable food packaging. The authors also show that food packaging messages related to sustainability, compared to those not related to sustainability, are composed using more analytical language, contributing to generating greater engagement. Moreover, social network users remain skeptical about food companies, as the latter messages on packaging sustainability generate less engagement (likes + retweets) than when other users post these messages.

This study addresses important points in the public discourse on social networks about the sustainability of food packaging and its language features. First, the data are representative of the food market with posts from leading worldwide food companies. Second, identifying the hot topics of the discussion on sustainability packaging on social media provides a new perspective on how companies and society view sustainable food packaging. Third, the authors show how the source of the message moderates the impact of sustainability on engagement.

Research has largely disregarded consumer–packaging interaction in contexts other than retail. Focusing on the powerful cue of colour and consumers’ pleas for sustainability and drawing on the customer journey and moments of consumption, this study investigates how packaging colour meanings are redefined from retail to home and how the meaning of sustainability for colour transforms.

A qualitative methodology was employed with 27 informants, who were interviewed in pairs or in small groups of three.

First, colour meanings emerge outside the retail context, confirming the idea of the packaging journey. Colours are dynamic, as meanings are redefined throughout the voyage. In retail, colour conveys brand, product, environmental and origin-related meanings, while at home it conveys product, food- and health-related meanings. At the end of the journey, colour communicates disposal, environmental, health and origin-related meanings. Second, the meaning of sustainability for colour transforms during the voyage from being conveyed by a colour hue to being perceived as a material and, therefore, as a waste and recycling concern.

The study adds insight into the role of colour in the packaging life cycle, wherein colour transforms from a visual packaging cue to an issue of materiality. The recyclability of colours is a prevailing sustainability issue that deserves attention within the packaging industry. The study argues that although the consumer–packaging interaction in the retail context is essential, managers should recognise that the interaction continues with colours from in-store purchase decisions to consumers’ homes (use and recycling).

To elicit the visual memory of packaging that facilitates consumers’ identification and selection of products from store displays, children were asked to draw a cereal box and the results were compared with actual cereal boxes. Over 97 percent spontaneously drew a cereal box with a brand name and other brand related symbols. This may be the first time to have a glimpse of the consumer’s evoked set as it really exists. The results suggest that one’s evoked set is not just a list of brand names in the mind, but an elaborate symbolic environment made up of visual and verbal codes in which the brand name is nested. Major implications for brand and package management are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of recalling visual and child-oriented product packaging elements vs informational content on children’s influence on household purchases.

The study was conducted using quantitative research among 100 French consumers of breakfast cereals aged six to 11.

The paper challenges previous findings. First, the recall of the various types of packaging elements was equivalent across age groups. Second, the impact of visual and child-oriented element recall on purchase influences was high, especially for younger children, but not superior to the impact of recalling informational packaging elements. Third, adding information and other elements to visuals reduced young children’s intentions to influence purchases, suggesting that the overload – not the nature – of elements has a negative impact. Fourth, packaging recall seemed weakly related to purchase influence – at least for well-known brands.

Further research on larger samples will allow to encompass potential moderators such as brand context, consumer context and packaging stimulus. Research should also compare the positive (reassuring) influence of adding informational elements on mothers to the negative one it has on children’s influence.

These findings can be used to wisely plan retailers’ packaging strategy. But all in all, retail packaging represents only one of the many factors which impact upon children’s diet and food consumptions and should be reassessed in the face other influences.

The findings challenge and expand one’s knowledge on the relationship between children and the relative influence of child-oriented elements and information, across age groups.

The purpose of this paper is to compare and find the significance of aesthetic standards related to the packaging design of pure milk among two groups of parents and children in order to help the designers and marketers to identify these two groups of consumers well.

The results of questionnaire were used to get the required data. The selected samples were divided into two groups of 110 parents and children aged between seven and 14 years old who responded to the questions. The subjects were compared and evaluated within the convenience stores in the cosmopolitan city of Tehran based on four independent variables as the influential factors in packaging attractiveness. Data were analyzed through the statistical analysis software using the Independent t-test analysis.

The results of analysis showed that all the variables vary significantly among these two groups. Besides, the importance and priority of variables were determined for each group based on the mean score of each variable.

According to the results of this study, it could be concluded that the selection criteria and packaging attractiveness varies among children and parents, and the aesthetic factors of packaging could be used with different priorities for these two groups. And also at the end of research some practical recommendations are presented in order of importance based on parents’ preferences.

This study aims to understand the extent to which packaging influences Brazilian parents' purchasing willingness based on children's food preferences for unhealthy food products.

Parents, with children up to 12 years old, answered questions about the positive influence of the packaging on the children, the preferences of the children in their willingness to buy and the propensity to give in to the desires of the children. Data analysis was performed with the statistical software SPSS and Stata used for structural equations modeling.

The results back the outlined hypotheses and point out that the characteristics of the packaging positively influence children's preferences as well as parents’ who are prone to give in to such influences. In some relationships, there was a minute moderating effect of social desirability and social class.

The research presents as a limitation the nature of the sample, parents, to the extent that the influences of the packages on the children were analyzed from their perspectives.

Findings from the research can be used to think about preventive public policies to protect children as highly vulnerable subjects. Another practical implication is that the same marketing strategies that are used for unhealthy foods can also be used for healthy foods, improving their linkage to the children once there are evidences that packaging can positively influence their preferences.

The originality of this study is to focus on children's food preferences for unhealthy products and in parents with children up to 12 years old, which is not often investigated by researchers.

The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of chocolate packaging and brand on the purchasing decisions of a number of Iranian children and their parents. The paper also aims to investigate the role of pester power as a moderating variable in the relationship between children’s purchasing decision and that of their parents.

Data were collected using a 26-item Likert-scaled questionnaire administered in February 2013 to the parents of 600 children at two daycare centers and four elementary schools in the city of Qazvin in Iran. The returned and complete questionnaires were subjected to confirmatory factor analysis and path analysis within structural equation modeling using IBM® Amos and SPSS statistical packages.

The results show that packaging and brand have a positive effect on parents. However, children were only influenced by packaging, and not brand. Further, it was found that children influenced their parents during store visits. The study also confirms the moderating role of children’s pester power in the relationship between children’s purchasing decision and that of their parents.

A limitation of the study is that the issue of the effect of packaging and brand on children was explored through the opinions of parents. Also, due to budget constraints, images of chocolate products rather than real packages were used. Future research might study the effect of other factors such as peers, socio-cultural issues, and economic status. Another possibility would be to include other variables such as mental involvement and time constraint.

The findings of the study might be useful for all manufacturers and suppliers of goods. More specifically, managers and marketing agents in the chocolate industry are recommended to improve children’s brand awareness through advertising as a way of making them want to buy branded products.

The most important difference between this work and previous studies is its use of children’s pester power as a moderating factor in the relationship between the purchasing decision of children and that of their parents. Another good thing about this paper is that it gives the reader an insight into the Iranian context. The results give the manufacturers a better understanding of the factors children take into account when deciding to purchase something.

A product colour plays an important role in consumers’ preferences. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the impact of the three-dimensional character of colour (brightness, saturation and vividness) on children’s behaviour towards a food product and as a source of well-being.

Two experiments were conducted. Study 1 was conducted with 62 children and used four visuals of syrup presenting two colours (red/green) and two variations of vividness (vivid/dim). Study 2 was conducted with 70 children and used four pictures of stewed apples and four pictures of pouches to test the influence of each dimension of colour on children’s preferences for the product and the product packaging.

Results show that the three-dimensional character of colour plays an important role in children’s gustatory inferences and well-being.

The study is restricted to one food product (in each study) habitually consumed by children. Other products could be investigated to show how colour can contribute to children’s well-being.

The paper addresses the issue of well-being as a potential brand-positioning element.

The paper suggests new avenues to use the brightness/saturation or vividness of a product or packaging colour as a potential element to arouse positive sensations that generate children’s well-being even when the product is not a preferred one.

This works initiates creative thinking concerning the impact of a product colour on children consumers.