Category Ambiguity
Category ambiguity is the explanation Ethan Pancer, Lindsay McShane and Theodore Noseworthy give for an odd result: a product that signals environmental friendliness with a green colour alone, or with an eco-label alone, is judged less effective. Their account is that an isolated cue activates two sets of expectations at once, one about what the product does and one about being environmentally friendly, and the two compete while the buyer decides. The finding comes from three experiments reported in the Journal of Business Ethics in 2017.
What it is
A cue on a package can point to more than one idea. Green can point to nature, to environmental virtue, to freshness or to health. When the cue stands alone, the viewer has to decide which idea the pack is invoking, and the paper's abstract says the two schemas it identifies, functional and environmentally friendly, compete during evaluation.
The studies examined how the colour green and eco-labels, the two cues brands use to signal environmental friendliness, affect perceived product efficacy and purchase intention. Their main result is about efficacy. Using either cue alone, a green colour without an eco-label or an eco-label without green, lowered perceived efficacy. The abstract describes the pattern as the cues being isolated: the penalty appears when one cue is used without the other. Efficacy here means how well the product was expected to work.
The page rests on the paper's abstract as recorded in a bibliographic database. The full text was not read, so details such as the products used, the sample sizes and the size of the effects are not stated here.
In effect
The idea matters for anyone reading a food pack. Green packaging is read through more than one meaning, and the meaning a shopper picks decides the expectation that follows. A reading as nature or environmental virtue brings expectations about the product's character, and a reading as health brings others. A brand that wants one meaning has to consider what the other cues on the pack are doing.
For the question of whether green packaging makes food look healthier, the concept is a caution. The experiments that found a health effect, such as Jonathon Schuldt's 2013 work on calorie labels, coloured an item that carried information about calories. A green colour on a whole pack is open to other readings, and the efficacy penalty shows that one of them can work against the product.
What it does not say
It does not say that green lowers the perceived quality of food. The reported outcome is perceived product efficacy, and the abstract does not name food as the category.
It does not say that eco-labels are harmful. The penalty appears when either cue is used alone, and the authors' discussion concerns how environmental cues should be used on packaging.
It does not establish category ambiguity as a general law of packaging. It is the authors' account of their own three experiments.
Sources
- Pancer, E., McShane, L., & Noseworthy, T. J. (2017). Isolated environmental cues and product efficacy penalties: The color green and eco-labels. Journal of Business Ethics, 143(1), 159-177. doi:10.1007/s10551-015-2764-4. Abstract level, from a bibliographic record; the full text was not read.
- Schuldt, J. P. (2013). Does green mean healthy? Nutrition label color affects perceptions of healthfulness. Health Communication, 28(8), 814-821. doi:10.1080/10410236.2012.725270.