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Front-of-packaging (FOP) is a critical branding tool that uses “cues” to communicate product attributes and establish distinct brand images. This paper aims to understand how food brands utilize cues and their relative proportions to hierarchically communicate brand image and belonging to particular subcategories.

A content analysis is used for analysing 543 food FOPs sold in Australia (breakfast cereals, chips, snack bars). Samples are collected and classified into product sub-categories defined by ingredients, consumer-audience and retail placement. A novel 10 × 10 coding grid is applied to each FOP to objectively analyse cue proportion, with statistical comparison undertaken between sub-categories.

Results reveal intrinsic cues are favoured over extrinsic cues, except for those in the eatertainment sub-category. Hierarchies are evidenced that treat product and branding cues as primary, with health cues secondary. Statistically significant differences in cue proportions are consistently evident across breakfast cereals, chips and snack-bar FOPs. Clear differentiation is evidenced through cue proportions on FOP for health/nutrition focused sub-categories and eatertainment foods.

“Cue utilization theory” research is extended to an evaluation of brand encoding (not consumer decoding). Design conventions reveal how cue proportions establish a dialogue of communicating brand/product image hierarchically, the trade-offs that occur, a “meso-level” to Gestalt theory, and achieving categorization through FOP cue proportions. Deeper understanding of packaging design techniques provides inter-disciplinary insights that extend consumer behaviour, retailing and design scholarship.

Buyers of luxury clothing products usually place great importance on design because they can satisfy their personal needs. However, the underlying motivation for buying luxury products has not been fully understood. Therefore, identifying the factors influencing the choice of luxury products and brand loyalty can provide useful information to a better understanding of the customers' needs of these brands. In fact, in this article, we are trying to determine how personality traits (including the need for uniqueness and self-monitoring) and social traits (including self-expression and self-presentation) influence the importance of design and brand loyalty.

A questionnaire was used to collect data. The questionnaire was answered by 386 buyers of luxury clothing brands in Iran. Structural equation modeling was also used for data analysis. Data were analyzed by SPSS 19.0 and AMOS 24.0 software.

The results of this study show that people who need to be unique pay more attention to the specific designs by expressing their self-expression in their surrounding community, while self-monitors seek acceptance in the community by using common designs. Finally, the results show that the importance of design reduces customer loyalty to the brand.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is the first one to investigate the effect of personality and social traits on the importance of luxury clothing design and brand loyalty using statistical data analysis tools in Iran.

Although brands have developed mobile applications (apps) to offer consumers new experiences, low app usage numbers indicate the need to develop a systematic, practical evaluation framework for branded app design that specifies concrete design features.

An expert review provides an overview of the design of current branded apps. On the basis of an extensive literature review, this article classifies state-of-the-art design features for branded apps according to a proposed evaluation framework that includes human–computer interaction (HCI)–related and marketing-related evaluation criteria. In an application of these evaluation criteria, the authors evaluate 73 branded apps issued by 11 top fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) brands.

The expert review identifies strengths and weaknesses that are common to the design of current branded apps. These findings inform the set of design recommendations that this article offers, which includes 14 features common to all types of apps and 9 features specific to particular types of apps.

This research offers practical implications for app designers, who need to address design dimensions contained in the proposed framework including the HCI-related (mobile, social and user experience design features) and marketing-related (branding and customer relationship management design features) to create effective branded apps.

Design elements identified in prior literature remain abstract and do not prescribe a systematic or pragmatic approach to using them in practice. This study takes a multidisciplinary perspective (HCI, marketing and design science) to establish a practical evaluation framework for branded app designs.

This paper aims to investigate the commonalities and asymmetries between consumer responses to different types of natural designs across countries.

Data were gathered through a survey in three European countries ranking differently in what concerns Hofstede’s (1981) uncertainty avoidance dimension (UAD). Respondents can vary strongly in the way they interpret and use rating scales, exhibiting a variety of response styles. In the analysis of consumers’ preferences for logo design, this article apply constrained dual scaling (CDS) to account for response styles in categorical data.

Results demonstrate the broad appeal of natural logo designs, suggesting that design preferences are similar within countries with different cultural orientations. However, findings indicate that cultural dimensions influence how consumers respond to different types of natural logo designs. Indeed, the positive effects of organic designs are even more salient in countries with higher UAD. Thus, when managers prepare to launch their brands in countries that exhibit more discomfort with uncertainty, they should consider incorporating organic visual identity elements into their logos to achieve the maximum positive affect.

Companies invest extensive time, research and money in generating, promoting and modifying their logos. This paper provides important implications for international brand managers aiming to build a consistent and favorable brand image. From a methodological perspective, the results come from the analysis of clean data – that is, data after applying CDS, which increases the validity of the cross-country comparison.

The purpose of this paper is to identify links between the components involved in ecodesign orientations (EDOs) and the integration of ecological criteria into Scandinavian wooden furniture industries. The purpose of identifying these links is to recognize possibilities and gaps in wooden furniture product development and branding opportunities to deepen customer engagement with the Scandinavian country-of-origin (COO) brand.

The application of ecodesign in Scandinavian wooden furniture industries was studied using survey data gathered from Nordic wood furniture designers. Factor analysis was used to identify the general types of Scandinavian design styles (SDSs) and EDOs implemented in the Scandinavian wooden furniture industry. The SDS and EDO impacts on the integration of ecological design criteria were modelled using logistic regression analysis.

The integration of ecological criteria by Nordic designers influences both the perspectives on material and process optimization and the end use of wooden furniture as well as the recycling of these products. In contrast, our results showed no statistical evidence of connections between different SDS types and the integration of ecological criteria in design. Recognition of special needs of customers valuing both high Scandinavian design and EDO could provide strategic opportunities for wooden furniture industries to recognize new global market potential and enhance their competitiveness.

Developing business opportunities for wooden furniture marketed under the Scandinavian COO brand, and forming a better understanding of customer expectations on the ecological information related to different wooden furniture SDS types, is needed. This would support developing new ecodesign strategies across the whole industry and enhancing value proposition of Scandinavian wooden furniture within different customer groups.

Research findings on the intersection of industrial brand design and ecodesign are still scarce, especially with a special focus on strategic management and sustainability marketing of companies. The results of our study provide entirely new insights on the topic especially in the context of Scandinavian wooden furniture industry.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the symbolic representations of non-users compared to the life experiences of users related to a luxury brand. In particular, the study examines whether product design mediates the relationship between antecedent factors of country-of-origin effect and product experience, and it also investigates the moderating effects of reference groups (non-users vs users) on the relationship between antecedent factors of country-of-origin effect and product design related to a luxury brand, namely, the Mercedes-Benz C-Class or E-Series.

A sample of convenience of 272 persons classified as non-users and users is investigated. An online questionnaire was used and 28 statements are included in the analysis based on a seven-point Likert scale.

The study reveals that the country-of-origin effect for the model of non-users and users has a very good fit with current data and is statistically significant. It also reveals that all relationships are significant except for price consciousness to product design and for brand familiarity to price consciousness. There is also partial mediation of product design between antecedent factors and product experience. Furthermore, the moderating effect of reference groups appears to play an important role, as it impacts the relationship between antecedent factors of the country-of-origin effect and product design/product experience.

This study indicates that the non-users’ group based on the hypothetical purchases of a luxury brand with a strong country image has a different country-of-origin effect to the users’ group of the same luxury brand. Moreover, the study concludes that there are statistically significant differences between the non-users’ group versus users’ group of a luxury brand (Mercedes-Benz), and these differences are concerned with the constructs of brand familiarity, brand commitment, product design and product experience. Finally, the study reveals that “price consciousness” is not relevant for luxury brands. Managerial implications, limitations of the study and future research directions are discussed.

The literature on copycat packaging has developed intermittently over a 30-year period, resulting in a divergent and fragmented body of knowledge. This paper aims to synthesise the extant literature to highlight the main developments in the marketing, legal and design fields and, in doing so, contributes to a holistic understanding of the research area and suggests directions for future research.

A systematic literature search retrieved 5,862 articles, and after filtering against explicit criteria, 49 studies were reviewed. These articles were subsequently evaluated and interpreted, producing a synthesis of current research.

The constructs of copycat packaging, including similarity-related concepts, consequences of copycat packaging and mitigating approaches, have been reported across three disciplines of marketing, legal and design, each having its own distinct focus but nonetheless sharing overlapping themes.

This review discusses future directions and proposes a framework of research themes relating to brand enhancement for online purchasing, measurement of brand confusion, reinforcing design features and approaches to mitigating copycat practices.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first systematic review of the literature on copycat packaging. It brings together the latest thinking on copycat packaging and identifies distinct research issues to be addressed in future studies.

This paper aims to investigate how and when visual referents in brand visual aesthetics (i.e. colours, shapes, patterns and materials) serve as design applications that enable consumer diasporic identity.

This paper uses an innovative methodology that triangulates 58 in-depth interviews with diasporic consumers, 9 interviews with brand managers and designers and a visual analysis of brands (food retailer, spices and nuts, skincare, hair and cosmetics, ice cream and wine) to provide a view of the phenomenon from multiple perspectives.

This study illustrates how and when particular applications and compositions of product and design referents support diasporic identity for Middle Eastern consumers living outside the Middle East. Specifically, it illustrates how the design applications of harmonising (applying separate ancestral homeland and culture of living product and design referents simultaneously), homaging (departing from the culture of living product and design referents with a subtle tribute to ancestral homeland culture) and heritaging (departing from the ancestral homeland culture product and design referents with slight updates to a culture of living style) can enable diasporic identity in particular social situations.

Although applied to the Middle Eastern diaspora, this research opens up interesting avenues for future research that assesses diasporic consumers’ responses to brands seeking to use visual design to engage with this market. Moreover, future research should explore these design applications in relation to issues of cultural appreciation and appropriation.

The hybrid design compositions identified in this study can provide brand managers with practical tools for navigating the design process when targeting a diasporic segment. The design applications and their consequences are discussed while visually demonstrating how they can be crafted.

While previous research mainly focused on how consumption from the ancestral homeland occurred, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine how hybrid design compositions that combine a diaspora’s ancestral homeland culture and their culture of living simultaneously and to varying degrees resonate with diasporic consumers.