Millions is spent each year to ensure that the packaging around products lures us in and entices us to buy them in large quantities.  Some new research suggests however that attractive packaging may have unintended consequences to the long-term profitability of a product.

The research from John Hopkins University suggests that whilst attractive packaging might support a spike in short-term sales of a product, it actually damages long-term sales because people are so enthralled by the packaging that they use less of it, and therefore don't need to buy it so often.

“Consumers become so convinced of the power of a boldly packaged product that they judge they can use less of it,” lead researcher Meng Zhu says. “Conversely, they tend to use more of a product when the packaging lacks strong cues of effectiveness.”

Whilst there has been considerable research into how packaging effects our purchasing choices, considerably less has been done into how it effects usage of those products after we buy them.

“It’s a topic worth examining, given the fact that personal consumption makes up about 70 percent of U.S. gross domestic product,” says Zhu, assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University.

“The results made us wonder whether manufacturers are even aware that their success in promoting a product’s effectiveness might be self-defeating,” Zhu says.

Zhu and his team conducted a number of experiments to test their hypothesis on three products: a teeth whitening product, an insect repellent and a toilet cleaner.

The experiment featuring the teeth whitener, participants overwhelmingly chose the product with the nice package over the one with a bland package.  However they responded that they would use the winning product 42% less often than they would the product with a bland packaging.

The same results were found for the other two products.  On all counts they were perceived as being more effective at their job by the purchaser, but equally they would then use that product more sparingly.  They had something of quality and wanted to make sure it lasted.

Similarly, a bug repellent packaged with a picture of a dead bug was judged more effective than one with a live bug on the box; the participants predicted they would use less of the dead-bug product, compared with the live-bug product they had deemed less powerful.

So what can marketers do?

Obviously this isn't really what marketers had in mind when they designed attractive packaging, so what can they do to ensure good initial sales but also strong repeat purchases?  The researchers offer up a few suggestions for marketers:

1. Deploy packaging cues that stimulate the purchase but don't neccessary imply effectiveness
2. Using effectiveness cues in advertising and outer packaging, but remove them from the packaging around the product itself

The latter strategy seems far better to me than the initial suggestion, but it goes to show how susceptible people are to packaging, especially when they are purchasing things they don't tend to think about in too much depth.

“People tend to be lazy,” Zhu says. “When we’re shopping, we don’t generally study the ingredients on the package. We look for the salient cues, such as brand names and strong images. Those things are easy to process, and whether they’re presented in a bold fashion or not makes a huge difference in how we judge products.”

Of course, as I shared recently, if you want to get the best out of your purchase it pays to give as much thought as possible to the details of how it'll be used rather than thinking in abstract terms about it.