Chen and colleagues studied the nonverbal messages sent by package shapes; their findings are useful to designers more generally. The Chen-lead team determined that “a tall, slender package creates the perception of higher brand status to a significantly greater extent than a short, wide package. Therefore, retailers in the high-end market can stock more products in tall, slender packages to communicate and enhance their positioning. Retailers in the low-end market, on the other hand, face more complicated decisions. Should they stock more products in short, wide packages? On the one hand, consumers who are aware of the retailer’s economic positioning might still prefer a product they perceive to have a high brand status over one perceived to have a low brand status, all other things being equal. On the other hand, for new consumers who know little about the retailer, high perceived brand status may lead to a high estimation of product price, and turn price-sensitive consumers away.”
Huan Chen, Jun Pang, Minkyung Koo, and Vanessa Patrick. 2020. “Shape Matters: Package Shape Informs Brand Status Categorization and Brand Choice.” Journal of Retailing, vol. 96, no. 2, pp. 266-281, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretai.2019.08.003
Sally Augustin, PhD, a cognitive scientist, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com), a monthly subscription newsletter and free daily blog, where recent and classic research in the social, design, and physical sciences that can inform designers’ work are presented in straightforward language. Readers learn about the latest research findings immediately, before they’re available elsewhere. Sally, who is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, is also the author of Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture (Wiley, 2009) and, with Cindy Coleman, The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design (Wiley, 2012). She is a principal at Design With Science (www.designwithscience.com) and can be reached at sallyaugustin@designwithscience.com.