Sonja Kunz

Who they are

Kunz is listed with the University of Vienna, as are her co-authors. The paper first appeared online in 2019 and carries a 2020 issue date, volume 37, issue 7. Beyond this paper, this page holds no biographical detail, and none is guessed.

Key papers

Kunz, S., Haasova, S., & Florack, A. (2020). Fifty shades of food: The influence of package color saturation on health and taste in consumer judgments. Psychology & Marketing, 37(7), 900-912. doi:10.1002/mar.21317.

Key ideas

The paper tests the idea that consumers use visual package cues to judge whether a food is healthy and tasty, and that colour saturation is one such cue. It reports three studies.

Study 1a had 236 participants (120 seeing full-colour pictures and 116 seeing grey versions) rating 20 snack products. Study 1b had 116 university students, 58 per condition, rating 20 drinks. Ratings of healthiness and tastiness were positively correlated in both, and the link was weaker in grey. The paper reports that once the attractiveness of the products was controlled for, the difference between colour and grey in that link was no longer reliable. The grey versions kept brightness unchanged.

Study 2 had 171 participants, each seeing the same 20 drinks in a higher-saturation and a lower-saturation version, each edited by 25 per cent with other colour dimensions held constant. The more saturated versions were rated healthier, tastier and fresher. The health difference was very small, the taste difference small to moderate, and perceived freshness fully explained the health effect and partly explained the taste effect.

All three studies used pictures and ratings, and the products were snacks and drinks. The result stands against Mead and Richerson (2018), who found vivid packaging rated less healthy with chips and nutrition bars. The 2023 review by Steiner and Florack records the conflict and names product category as one possible moderator. See Colour as a Health Cue and Does Green Packaging Look Healthier.

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