To serve health-conscious consumers manufacturers and retailers offer an increasing number of healthier options. Smaller package sizes is one example.
Problem is consumers tend to view small packages as a ’small sin’. They just open an extra package.
Kleine verpakking gaat eerder open dan een grotere.
door: Rita Coelho do Vale, Rik Pieters and Marcel Zeelenberg
in: Journal of Consumer Research
helemaal lezen: journals.uchicago.edu
dat kost: 10 dollar
Nowadays, consumers are more health-conscious than ever. When searching and choosing products in a supermarket or grocery store, it is not uncommon to see consumers checking the nutritional content of different products, choosing light or diet versions of existing products, paying attention to certification marks (e.g. ‘Ik Kies Bewust’) or choosing smaller versus larger packages of unhealthy items.
The increasing importance of the health-conscious consumer segment led manufacturers and retailers to offer an increasing number of healthier options. For example, extending a product line to include smaller package sizes (cigarettes sold in packs of 10 instead of 20, smaller ice creams, individual packages of cookies) enables a firm to (1) increase sales by satisfying the needs of the healthy consumers but, also, to (2) transmit an image of social responsibility to the market.
Yet, recent research shows that people often underestimate the cumulative effects of small sins and, hence, become less vigilant and careful when consuming products from smaller versus larger packages.
This finding was obtained by Rita Coelho do Vale, Rik Pieters and Marcel Zeelenberg in a series of experimental studies where they show that consumer beliefs and behaviour, regarding small packages, do not coincide.
Higher price
On the one hand, consumers believe that smaller packages of tempting products help them avoid over-consuming such products. In fact, there is evidence that, as a strategy aimed at self-imposing consumption restrictions, consumers are even willing to pay a price premium for smaller packages. On the other hand, small packages actually lead health-conscious consumers to consume more of these tempting products.
In one of the experiments the authors asked half of the participants to complete a series of questions on satisfaction with their body shape and dieting concerns. The other half had to participate in an unrelated study.
The authors put a bowl with about 400 grams of potato chips next to the computer on which they were evaluating the ads, and monitored their consumption decisions. For half of the students the bowl contained two large chips packages of 200 grams each, while for the other half it contained nine small chips packages of 45 grams each.
Participants were less likely to open a large pack than a small one. Moreover, those participants who had filled the body- and diet-related questionnaires consumed significantly less chips when the package they opened was large rather than small.
The psychological explanation for this phenomenon is that consumers tend to view small packages as a ‘small sin’ and, hence, reduce their self-control barriers and self-vigilance, leading them to over-consume.
En waarom moest ik dit lezen?
- Offering products in smaller packages can backfire in terms of consumer welfare, it can undermine, rather than help, their objective to avoid over-consuming unhealthy products. This is particularly true if the consumer opts for several small packages rather than one larger one with the same total quantity (e.g. a box with four packs of three cookies each instead of a box with twelve unpacked cookies). Otherwise having a lower quantity of a tempting product at home can still help the consumers regulate their consumption.
- Policy-makers can think on ways to make this tendency apparent to consumers and to guarantee that health-related certification labels do not convey wrong messages to consumers.
- Manufacturers can also convey an image of a socially responsible company if they try to educate the consumer for this effect. A possibility, in the case of food-related items, is to include, in each small package, nutritional information not only about the package itself but, also, about multiple packages and eventually a comparison with a large package size (e.g. ‘this package contains 150 Kcal’, ‘two packages contain 300 Kcal’ and ‘four packages contain 600 Kcal, the same as a large package!’).
First, this should help the consumer activate self-control concerns and vigilance. Second, I believe this should be perceived by consumers as a responsible attitude from the company and end up benefitting the company’s image, consumer satisfaction, loyalty and, consequently, profits!
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