You Can't Always Tell a Book from Its Cover: Effects of Packaging Visual Cues on Consumers' Perceptions

This research examines the relationship between visual cues on product packaging and consumers’ estimates of the contained amount. In two experiments, first we find a “see small, expect more” and a “see virtue, expect more” effect, according to which smaller pictures and virtue products both lead to estimates of larger content whereas the number of product units depicted on the package is irrelevant. Second, we add verbal information about the package contents and find that the effects of pictorial stimuli and product type hold, but that content expectations reverse between virtue and vice products, with the presence of verbal information switching off the “see small, expect more” effect for virtue products.