SOKOLOVA, KRISHNA, AND D € ORING
489
in the preceding choice tasks. Similarly, in study 4b, the participants likely considered plastic packaging as a com- parison standard across the “plastic” and “plastic þ paper” conditions, because they repeatedly saw plastic-packaged Lays and Tyrrells chips alongside the focal Montperal chips package in the choice tasks. Because the PEF bias emerged when participants were likely relying on the same, explicitly provided, comparison standards, it is unlikely that counterfactual thinking is a key driver of our results. In sum, we find initial evidence against several alterna- tive accounts of our results. However, it is possible that the PEF bias is multiply determined, and we hope that future research will further probe the above and other accounts of the PEF bias. Practical Implications From a managerial perspective, our research provides important insights for companies aiming to boost the per- ceived environmental friendliness of their products. In their responses to a 2022 Deloitte consumer survey on sustain- ability beliefs, over half the respondents said they would consider a product sustainable if it used minimal or recy- clable packaging (Deloitte 2022). Our results reveal a dif- ferent pattern: we find that overpackaged products can be perceived as more sustainable compared to minimally packaged ones when excessive packaging is made of paper. We show that that additional paper packaging increases perceived environmental friendliness across multiple con- texts: for food and non-food products, when both paper and plastic are visible and when plastic is initially hidden and revealed later. As such, our results alert companies to the potential disparities between consumers’ self-reported atti- tudes to overpackaging in general and their evaluations and choices of specific overpackaged products. Relatedly, our findings are of relevance for companies working to increase the objective environmental friendli- ness of their products by reducing overpackaging. As noted earlier, companies such as Kiehl’s and Nestle already elim- inate unnecessary paper packaging in some of their prod- ucts. Other examples include Amazon that recently required its vendors to make their paper box packaging more compact and environmentally friendly (Gasparro 2019) and British supermarket chain Tesco, which launched a trial to eliminate needless toothpaste packaging for private label and national brands (Tesco 2022). These initiatives can curtail the environmental harm from single- use paper production and disposal and reduce the ecologi- cal footprint from product transportation. Yet, our research suggests that these initiatives need to come in conjunction with front-of-pack labeling to boost consumers’ environ- mental friendliness perceptions and choice. More gener- ally, companies should not assume that consumers will readily incorporate reduced amounts of packaging into
their judgments. Rather, consumers need additional com- munications about companies’ minimal packaging initia- tives to make more sustainable product choices. Next, our results have implications for companies aim- ing to boost the objective environmental friendliness of their packaging by eliminating plastic packaging and switching to paper-only packaging. Our choice-based con- joint study 4a shows that when consumers choose between an ostensibly more environmentally friendly paper- packaged option and a less environmentally friendly plastic-only- or plastic þ paper-packaged option, they see greater disutility in plastic-only packaging. By extension, they are also willing to pay a greater premium for paper- only packaging when it is presented alongside plastic-only packaging than when it is presented next to plastic þ paper packaging. Taken together, these results suggest that paper-only brands may be able to attract more consumers and command higher premiums if they position themselves against plastic-only alternatives, as opposed to overpack- aged plastic þ paper options. Relatedly, we show that min- imal packaging can benefit companies using paper-only packaging. For them, superfluous paper packaging creates additional costs without improving consumers’ environ- mental friendliness perceptions (study A, web appendix D), rendering minimal packaging more attractive. Finally, our findings have implications for package-free retailers, such as Precycle in the United States and Pieter Pot in the Netherlands. Objectively, these stores are more accurately characterized as package free, as they do not feature any single-use packaging, with consumers getting their produce in reusable containers. However, these retailers can also be described as plastic free because they avoid single-use plastics. Our results suggest that the “package-free” positioning, one currently adopted by Precycle, for example, may not be as effective as “plastic- free” positioning, because consumers may not consider additional packaging as problematic and instead focus on minimizing the proportion of plastic in their purchases. To conclude, superfluous packaging, where unnecessary paper is added to plastic packaging, is common across product categories and geographic markets. Companies may use additional paper packaging to communicate greater environmental friendliness and naturalness of their products or to avoid the potential costs of packaging adap- tations under minimal packaging. Critically, our research shows that, driven by the PEF bias, consumers may reward companies packaging products with unnecessary paper, showing higher willingness to pay and greater choice pro- pensities for overpackaged items. Thus, it is important to develop interventions that can correct consumer percep- tions of environmental friendliness and make them more likely to choose objectively environmentally friendly products. This article attempts to bring attention to consumer per- ceptions of environmental friendliness, to biases in these
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker