The Impact of Visual Elements of Packaging Design on Purchase Intention: Brand Experience as a Mediator in the Tea Bag Product Category

While packaging design plays a vital role in experience-oriented markets, how multiple visual elements influence purchase intention through brand experience remains unclear. This study addresses this gap by employing innovative orthogonal experiments to examine the complex relationship between the visual elements of packaging design and purchase intention for low-involvement products, integrating both design and marketing perspectives. Through orthogonal experimental design, we developed 14 packaging prototypes as stimuli by systematically manipulating five visual elements (Colour, Graphics, Logo, Typography, and Layout). The framework and prototypes were validated through expert evaluation. Data were collected via a cross-sectional survey from 490 tea bag consumers and analysed using SPSS (version 29.0) for preliminary data processing and Mplus (version 8.3) for structural equation modelling. Our results reveal the direct effects of visual packaging elements on consumer purchase intention. Notably, Colour, Graphics, Logo, and Layout significantly influence purchase intention through brand experience mediation. Importantly, our multi-level analysis of visual elements unveils distinct patterns in how different design levels (e.g., colour harmony, graphic types) affect consumer responses. This study provides novel theoretical insights into how consumers make purchase decisions based on packaging design visual elements, addressing a significant gap in existing research. Unlike previous studies focusing on isolated design elements, our systematic classification and multi-level analysis offer both theoretical insights into packaging design mechanisms and practical guidelines for designers and practitioners.