Sustainable Water Package

Consumer Perception and Challenges for Designers

Resumo

Every year, an average of 1000000 litres of mineral water are sold in Portugal. An amount of plastic waste from the bottles, caps and labels arises ecological problems. Sustainability became a reality, and many consumers began with positive attitudes around this, such as environmentally friendly activities and purchasing of green products. But about water packages, how do consumers perceive sustainability? Is package design susceptible to influence the consumer sustainable perception? To find out, a survey was developed, and was applied online to two hundred and sixty-six people. In the first moment, the product stimuli are the shape water package and its label of the 1,5 litres water package of the five most sold water brands. The attributes analysed were the material/form, graphics, and package information. Respondents were invited to rank each package individually. In the second moment, a new stimulus price was introduced. The Material/Form attribute respondents consider Serra da Estrela the most sustainable package. In terms of Graphics and Package Information, Penacova was the brand considered most sustainable. When the prices are showed to respondents, the brand intention to buy, is Penacova. This work brings some theoretical and practical implications. For literature, it brings news contributes about package design attributes and their influence in terms of consumer perception. For brand managers and/or product managers the findings show how graphics attributes can influence the consumer perception and help designers to develop the best labels to communicate to targets.