Influência de fatores extrínsecos ao produto no julgamento hedônico e percepção de sabor de cafés especiais

Abstract

The multisensory attributes of the packaging of a food product create sensory and hedonic expectations and its main focus is to attract the consumers‘ attention. The various elements and characteristcs contained in the packaging may affect the selection and/or judgment of the product. In this way, two studies were carried out: the first aimed to assess whether the colour and/or shape of the design elements on the labels of specialty coffee packaging would influence the sensory and hedonic judgments by amateur consumers; and the objective of the second study was to investigate whether the typeface of packaging labels on specialty coffee would influence the sensory and hedonic judgments by amateur consumers. In the two experiments, the participants first evaluated their expectations of coffee acidity and sweetness only by looking at the labels on the coffee package. Subsenquently, they rated their experiences of the same attributes when tasting a cup of coffee, in addition to rating their liking and purchase intent. In each study, the same coffee was served to all participants. Both followed a between-subjects experimental design, that is, each participant assesed only a single coffee packaging and the data were analysed using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). In the first experiment a 2 × 2 factorial design was used, for the evaluation of four different types of labels (green or pink, round or angular). For the second experiment, two different types of labels were developed, varying between roundness and angularity of typeface. The results of study I demonstrated that both colour and shape significantly affected consumers' sensory expectations, but had no significant effect after tasting on sensory rating regarding the specialty coffee. It was also observed that the interactions between colour × shape affected the hedonic measures, since the coffee associated with the congruent label (angular/green and round/pink) received higher liking and purchase intent ratings than the coffee associated with incongruent label (angular/pink and round/green). In study II, it was observed that the angular typeface increased expectation and perception of the coffee acidity, as well purchase intent ratings. However, contrary to the frequently suggested correspondence between sweetness and roundness, no association was found between the round typeface and sweet taste ratings. Therefore, these results demonstrate the importance of the visual attributes of packaging to define sensory expectations and affect the perception of specialty coffees.