Seen as green? Assessing the salience and greenness of environmentally friendly packaging cues

Environmentally friendly products become increasingly popular. To be considered for purchase, they must be (1) sufficiently salient and (2) perceived as environmentally friendly (“green”). The current paper investigates whether implicit (packaging material) and explicit (eco-labeling) packaging cues can facilitate such salience and greenness perceptions. We conducted a mixed-method, within-subjects experiment using self-report measures to assess perceived greenness, and mouse tracking as an exploratory measurement method to assess salience. Finally, we explored whether green consumerism, as a personal value, moderates these effects. Results confirm that both implicit and explicit cues that signalize environmental friendliness positively influence perceived salience and greenness. Furthermore, we find that implicit and explicit cues seem mostly independent in affecting salience and greenness perceptions and that green consumerism is no prerequisite for most of these packaging effects to emerge. As such, this research provides important new theoretical and practical insights on the role of packaging in food marketing.