The Relationship Between Packaging Uniformity and Variety Seeking

This research explores the effect of product packaging uniformity on variety seeking. It is shown that the incidence of variety seeking is greater in product categories where packaging is similar among competitors, and thus the packaging display has relatively low arousal potential, as compared to categories where the packaging is less uniform across brands and therefore has higher arousal potential. Two experiments test and support these propositions. (C) 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.