EFFECTS OF DECEPTIVE PACKAGING AND PRODUCT INVOLVEMENT ON PURCHASE INTENTION - AN ELABORATION LIKELIHOOD MODEL PERSPECTIVE

Sep 5, 2026

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Study examines how deceptive packaging claims influence purchase intention under the Elaboration Likelihood Model, focusing on the moderating role of consumers’ product involvement. Participants were undergraduates categorized as highly or lowly involved with M&Ms, then exposed to either a deceptive or nondeceptive package and informed of the deception prior to rating purchase intention. Results evaluate whether highly deceived, low-involvement individuals show greater negative shifts than highly involved peers, supporting model robustness and extending implications to packaging effects.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryPresentations

FormatPDF

Pages5

Reading Time2 min

AccessFree to download

Summary

METHOD

Design and Participants

Manipulations and Measures

RESULTS

Psychometric Check on the Personal Involvement Inventory

Effectiveness of Deceptive Packaging Manipulation

# EFFECTS OF DECEPTIVE PACKAGING AND PRODUCTINVOLVEMENT ON PURCHASE INTENTION:AN ELABORATIONLIKELIHOOD MODEL PERSPECTIVE' ## H.BRUCE LAMMERS Department of MarketingCalifornia State University,Northridge Summary.—From an Elaboration Likelihood Model perspective,it was bypothe-sized that postexposure awareness of deceptive packaging claims would have a greaternegative effect on scores for purchase intention by consumers lowly involved raherthan highly involved with a product(n=40).Undergraduates who were classified aseither highly or lowly(ns=20 and 20)involved with M&Ms examined either a decep-tive or nondeceptive package design for M&Ms candy and were subsequently inform-ed of the deception employed in the packaging before finally rating their intention topurchase.As anticipated,highly deceived subjects who were low in involvement ratedintention to purchase lower than their highly involved peers.Overall,the results attestto the robustness of the model and suggest tha the model has implications beyondadvertising effects and into packaging effects. The Elaboration Likelihood Model of persuasion contends that thereare two paths to persuasion:a central route in which consumers who arehighly motivated and able to process a communication engage in elaborativeprocessing of the central information provided and a peripheral route inwhich consumers who are less motivated or able to process the communica-tion tend to focus on the peripheral,ancillary cues associated with the com-munication,e.g.,the sexy models in the advertisement,the cute puppies,thecelebrity endorsers,and so forth(Petty,Cacioppo,&Schumann,1983).Per-suasion and learning effects which result from central information processingare said to be stronger and more lasting than effects resulting from periph-eral cue processing(cf.Homer &Kahle,1990).A major purpose of the pres-ent study was to test experimentally the Elaboration Likelihood Model with-in the consumers'responses to deceptive packaging claims. In the present study,subjects examined an M&Ms package design andafterwards were informed of the relative deceptiveness of the design.Froman Elaboration Likelihood Model perspective,it was hypothesized that sub-jects who were lowly involved with the product would react more negativelyto a deceptively packaged product than would subjects who were highly in- DECEPTIVE PACKAGING:ELABORATION LIKELIHOOD MODEL 547 volved with the product.This hypothesis presumes that persons who arehighly involved with a product are more likely to discount the deceptivenessof the packaging claims because such cues may be relatively peripheral tothe central,inherent virtues,e.g.,the taste,of the product.Conversely,lowlyinvolved subjects,being theoretically more sensitive and susceptible to pe-ripheral cues than to central product information,should be less likely todiscount the deceptiveness of the packaging claims. ## METHOD The experimental design was a 2×2 with Deceptiveness of Packaging(Low deceptiveness vs High deceptiveness)and Involvement (Low vs High)as the between-subjects factors.Undergraduates(18 women and 22 men)re-cruited from introductory business courses required of all business majorsvolunteered to participate in a study on "candy preferences"and were ran-domly assigned to the Deceptiveness of Packaging conditions.Deceptivenessof Packaging was manipulated by using two authentic package designs forM&Ms.In the early 1980s,M&M/Mars changed their package design toone which included the true claim,“NEW,LARGER PACKAGE”;however,the new package actually contained fewer M&Ms and the content weightwas actually less than the original,smaller package.M&M/Mars quicklydropped the new package design after receiving numerous criticisms fromthe advertising and marketing industry.In the present experiment,subjectswere shown either the original,nondeceptive M&Ms package (Low Decep-tiveness of Packaging)or the “NEW,LARGER PACKAGE”design(HighDeceptiveness of Packaging). After examining t

FAQs

How does product involvement affect responses to deceptive packaging claims?

The study hypothesizes that lowly involved consumers react more negatively to deceptive packaging than highly involved consumers, who are expected to discount deceptiveness.

What experimental design was used to test the Elaboration Likelihood Model?

The design is a 2×2 between-subjects setup with Deceptiveness of Packaging (low vs high) and Involvement (low vs high) as the factors.

How were participants classified into low vs high involvement groups?

Participants completed the Personal Involvement Inventory, and a median split of the inventory scores (Mdn=74) classified them as relatively low or high involvement.

Sep 5, 2026

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