Pre-study in store photo of plastic packaging corners on Threshold wall frames.
SUMMARY
Objective of the study was to understand if a packaging change impacted perceived product quality or purchase intent - a pretty squishy topic if you ask me. This study was the first time that the packaging engineering team led research study design, question development, execution, analysis and reporting to provide a consumer data-driven recommendation to our business partners.
Results of the study proved that 2/3 of participants did not notice the packaging change between stations. This allowed us to conclude that, since the packaging change was unnoticed, it did not impact perceived product quality or purchase intent.
Of the 1/3 participants that did notice the change, over half preferred the protection, rigidity and stiffness the white corrguated corners afforded.
Packaging engineering advised to implement the white corrugated board corners, final approval was granted by the Divisional Merchandising Manager and the packaging change set in-store Spring 2015.
CONTEXT
One of my packaging engineering peers saw an opportunity to improve the in-store experience in Threshold wall frames through updating the packaging material from clear plastic to white corrugated board. The clear plastic had inconsisent quality and execution, causing items to have to be marked down due to broken packaging. The merchandising team was hesitant to allow this change, as they believed the white corrugated board was lower perceived quality and may deteriorate sales. White corrugated board was also used on Room Essentials wall frames, which is a 'good brand', while Threshold was a 'best brand'. Both teams agreed that we should dig deeper into our assumptions to make the best decision for the business.
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Clear plastic corners (top) vs. white corrugated board paper corners (bottom).
METHODOLOGY
Goal was to understand if the packaging change impacted overall perceived quality or purchase intent.
To test this, we created physical stations representing of each of the 2 packaging scenarios (white corrugated + clear plastic) mocked up on identical product. The team recruited 40+ participants to join the study. Participants would answer identical question sets at each station that asked about general product traits and overall quality. As participants arrived, we alternated whether they viewed A first or B first to eliminate bias.
We were looking for participants to notice the packaging. If they did, we would assign either positive or negative sentiment to the comments.
White corrugated corners station.
Clear plastic station.
RESULTS + DISCUSSION
Quantitatively, both packaging scenarios scored similar on the 10-point scale on product quality and purchase intent metrics.
Analyzing the qualitative commentary is where we found the most impactful findings.
1) Packaging drove a higher percentage of overall comments at station 2 (biased) than station 1 (unbiased) - still only 1/3 of participants commented at any point on packaging.
2) White corrugated paper packaging drove less negative conversation overall.
3) Both packaging materials drove negative conversation when participants were biased by station 1.
CONCLUSION
With only 1/3 of participants noticing and commenting on the packaging change we infer that this change does not negatively impact perceived product quality or purchase intent. We would recommend proceeding with the white paper corrugated corners, as they will improve markdowns and data shows they are more liked. We also recommend never to have both packaging materials next to eachother, as when the 2 materials are compared, that is when negative percpetions are formed.
