Consumers preferences for particular designing levels appear to be almost the same for both segments; therefore they

are almost the same as in the unsegmented case that examined before. Consumers of both segments prefer to see the product itself through a transparent part of the package. The existence of this transparent part has a positive partworth of 0,749 and 0,669 in the two clusters respectively. Also consumers prefer the Curvy/ round shape for the juice packages since the part-worth of it is 1,774 for the involved segment and 1,762 for the uninvolved. The image of a landscape has also positive partworths for both segments too (0,537 and 0,669 respectively). While involved consumers appear to have a slight preference for the red colour (part-worth 0,065), uninvolved ones are indifferent between green and red colour since the part-worth is 0,000. These results are shown in Table 14.
Table 15: Mean score for each juice package design attribute level and cluster - ANOVA test Attribute Levels Mean score F Sig. Cluster 1 Cluster 2 Colour Green 5,44 5,48 0,010 0,91 Red 5,48 5,46 0,003 0,96 Shape Square 4,86 5,00 0,090 0,76 Curvy/round 6,05 5,93 0,081 0,77 Visibility Transparent 5,71 5,63 0,028 0,86 Not Transparent 5,21 5,30 0,039 0,84 Graphics Image of the product 5,28 5,29 0,001 0,97 Landscape 5,64 5,64 0,000 0,98

46 In order statistically significant differences between the preferences of the two segments to be identified, an ANOVA test was employed on the data of the average evaluation score for each level (see Table 14). The test indicates that there are no significant differences between the two segments in terms of design levels evaluation, neither at a significant level of 95% nor at 95%. 6.3 The effect of healthy eating lifestyle The fourth research question was about the effect of different healthy eating habits on consumers preferences for food package design in terms of the healthiness expectations that it generates. The approach that be employed to answer this question was the same as in the product involvement case. We used the health factor items of the Food Related Lifestyle research tool in order to segment the market in terms of healthy eating habits. Cluster analysis that based on data from these items provided a two cluster solution with a cluster of 69 consumers and another of just 4. (see Table 16). Thus it was considered meaningless to proceed further, conducting the conjoint analysis on such unbalanced segments. Almost all the participants in the survey belong to the cluster of healthy eating fans. The mean scores of this cluster for all the three items reach the upper end of the seven point Likert scale. The other cluster consists of just the 5% of the sample. Actually participants appear not to be differentiated in terms of their healthy eating lifestyle.
Table 16: Segmentation based on healthy eating habits Cluster 1 (N=69) Cluster 2 (N=4) F Sig. I prefer to buy natural products, ie products without preservatives. 6,44 2,00 96,491 0,00 To me the naturalness of the food that I buy is an important quality. 6,40 1,75 122,791 0,00 I try to avoid food products with additives. 6,10 3,25 15,259 0,00

47 7. DISCUSSION This study aimed to investigate the linkage between healthiness expectations of food products and the design of food packages. Particular research question were set and an

experiment with real prototypes was conducted in order the research questions to be answered. The whole attempt was based on the Total Food Quality Model that links intrinsic and extrinsic food quality cues with quality expectations. The first question is about the importance of the different package design attributes in terms of the healthiness expectations that they generate to consumers. The experiment that conducted with two different products, a food cereals and a beverage fruit juice indicates that the most important attributes for the design of the package of a healthy food product are the shape of it as well as the visibility of the product through the package. The shape received an importance rate of 37,44% for the cereals and 56,79% for the juice, while visibility received 39,81% for the cereals and 23,21% for the juice. The other two attributes that examined appear as less important in both cases. The type of image/graphics takes the third place for cereals package design as well as for juices, with an importance of 12,80% and 18,57% respectively. Surprisingly, colour appears to be the least important, it received an important rate of 9,95% for the cereals and 1,43% for juices. The literature review suggested colour as a very important factor for food package design, but this study indicates the opposite. The reason for this could be the way that stimuli were designed and the relative importance of the other attributes that examined. At the previous research section of this study the special issue of colour was mentioned. Now the special issue of shape should be mentioned. Previous research indicates that the shape is an important package design attribute, but as it seems at least in this survey, it acts as a super attribute. This can be resulted not only by the high importance that it receives in this experiment but also by the discussion with the participants. Most of them made a comment for the package shape not always about the core meaning of shape but in general for the package type. It can be said that in this survey the shape attribute actually represented also the package type as well as the construction materials of it. This attribute is the one that make the stimulus touchable in the eyes of consumers, is the one that acts in three dimensions.