Sarah Joy Lyons

Who they are

The paper is listed in the publication database of Nofima, a food research institute. This page holds no further detail about her career, and none is assumed.

Key papers

Lyons, S. J., & Wien, A. H. (2017). Evoking premiumness: How color-product congruency influences premium evaluations. Food Quality and Preference, 64, 103-110. doi:10.1016/j.foodqual.2017.10.006.

Only the abstract and the Nofima publication record were read. The full text was not obtained.

Key ideas

The paper starts from the observation that green is often used in marketing to signal utilitarian and environmental cues, while red often appears on food logos to create arousal and excitement. It asks how congruence or incongruence between package colour and the marketing message affects premium evaluations, drawing on literature in which congruence is usually judged more appropriate but moderate incongruence can raise preference.

Two between-subjects experiments follow. In the first, with a hedonic product, premium evaluations were higher when colour and framing matched: red with a tasting-delicious message, and green with a healthy one. In the second, with a utilitarian product, the pattern reversed, and premium evaluations were higher when colour and framing mismatched.

Black was not among the colours tested, and the abstract names product types rather than specific foods. The paper is used on this site for the structure of its result, that premium followed the fit between colour and message and that the direction of the fit depended on the product, and not for any claim about black.

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