The allure of the bottle as a package: an assessment of perceived effort in a packaging context

Purpose: This paper aims to assess the impact of perceived effort related to packaging on overall product evaluations. Perceived effort, defined as the consumer’s perceptions of how much manufacturer effort that lies behind an offer, is assumed to contribute to evaluations by signaling unobservable characteristics of an offer. Design/methodology/approach: Three between-subjects experiments were conducted with soft drink bottles, which were subject to variation in perceived effort. Findings: The results show that perceived effort was positively associated with overall evaluations. The results also show that the impact of perceived effort was mediated by product quality perceptions, which indicates that effort signals quality. Originality/value: Perceived effort has to date not been examined in the packaging literature. The present findings thus imply that models of packaging characteristics and their impact on consumers would benefit from including the effort aspect.