Visual Communication Elements in Fresh Milk Labels: Investigating Purchase Decision-Making Processes in Australia Nazanin SAFI ABADI Bachelor of Graphic Design School of Art and Design Faculty of Creative Industries Queensland University of Technology Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Design (Research) 2016 Dedicated to the most wonderful parents in the world & to my beloved husband for all their love, endless support and encouragement. Keywords Food Packaging Label; Freshness; Healthiness; Hermeneutics; Milk; Naturalness; Semiotics; Social Reality; Thematic Analysis; Visual Communication; Visual Packaging Elements; Visual Communication Elements in Fresh Milk Labels: i Abstract The importance of food packaging has been increasingly seen in both developed and developing countries since the second half of the 20th century. The purpose of this research is to investigate the relationship between visual communication elements in a package label, their related marketing strategies, and the perception of the consumer in relation to their purchase decision-making. It specifically looks into milk packaging in Australia as a product that is widely purchased across regions, social backgrounds and age. This study, therefore, examines the potential of visual design to define positioning strategies to attract specific consumer groups at the point of sale. This investigation is based on the semiotic analysis of visual design elements in existing milk labels as well as those created during a participatory design workshop with consumers. Here participants play the role of designer and hence are given the opportunity to express their creative ideas via designs. The findings from the semiotic analysis are compared to the analysis of participant designs, generated through exploratory design sessions where participants were invited to design their own labels for milk products. By doing so, this study looks into both the designer’s understanding of the visual symbols as well as the users/consumers perceptions of how those symbols could be used to represent specific values. While the insights provided here are not generalizable they may offer increased understanding about and for the design of, milk packaging. ii Visual Communication Elements in Fresh Milk Labels: Table of Contents Keywords ......................................................................................................................................................................... i Abstract ........................................................................................................................................................................... ii Table of Contents ....................................................................................................................................................... iii List of Figures ............................................................................................................................................................... vi List of Tables ................................................................................................................................................................ vii Statement of Original Authorship .......................................................................................................................... viii Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................................................... ix CHAPTER 1:INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................ 13 1.1 Research Background and Motivation ...................................................................................................... 15 1.2 Description of Research Problem: Point of Sale Decision-Making .................................................... 16 1.3 The Rationale of This Study ......................................................................................................................... 17 1.3.1 Construction of Social Reality ......................................................................................................... 18 1.4 Research Questions ....................................................................................................................................... 19 1.5 Overall Aims of the Study and Contributions ......................................................................................... 20 1.6 Research Scope and Limitations ............................................................................................................... 20 1.7 Research Methodology and Approach ..................................................................................................... 21 1.7.1 Exploratory Design Sessions ........................................................................................................... 23 1.7.2 Selection of Case Studies ................................................................................................................ 24 1.7.3 Selection of the Participants for the Exploratory Design Sessions ........................................ 25 1.8 Thesis Outline ................................................................................................................................................. 25 CHAPTER 2:THE CONTEXT OF PACKAGING ....................................................................................................27 2.1 The Need for Packaging .............................................................................................................................. 28 2.1.1 Linguistic Information ....................................................................................................................... 29 2.1.2 Visual Information .............................................................................................................................. 29 2.1.3 Common Themes in Food Packaging: healthiness, naturalness and freshness ................. 31 2.2 The Roles of Packaging ............................................................................................................................... 33 2.2.1 Packaging as Product Representative .......................................................................................... 33 2.2.2 Packaging as Marketing Tool .......................................................................................................... 35 2.3 Packaging and Purchasing Behaviour ...................................................................................................... 36 2.3.1 Packaging Attributes Influencing Purchase ................................................................................. 36 2.3.2 Consumer Attributes Influencing Purchase ................................................................................ 43 2.4 Summary ......................................................................................................................................................... 45 CHAPTER 3:THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ......................................................................................................... 47 3.1 Semiotics ......................................................................................................................................................... 48 3.1.1 Categories of Signs ........................................................................................................................... 49 Visual Communication Elements in Fresh Milk Labels: iii 3.1.2 Structural Relation of Signs ............................................................................................................. 49 3.1.3 Visual Social Semiotics ..................................................................................................................... 49 3.1.4 Semiotics and Packaging ................................................................................................................. 53 3.2 Hermeneutics ................................................................................................................................................. 54 3.2.1 Circles of Understanding ..................................................................................................................55 3.2.2 Hermeneutics and Packaging ........................................................................................................ 56 3.3 Cognitive Models of Meaning ..................................................................................................................... 57 3.3.1 Structures of Individual Mental Models ........................................................................................ 58 3.4 Summary and Implications ......................................................................................................................... 60 CHAPTER 4:RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS ........................................................................................... 61 4.1 Research Design ............................................................................................................................................ 63 4.2 Data Collection .............................................................................................................................................. 65 4.2.1 Data Collection: existing labels (Instance 1) ...............................................................................