VISUAL COMMUNICATION AND BRAND DESIGN IN MARKETING COMMUNICATION AND THEIR IMPACT ON CONSUMER PURCHASING DECISIONS: REACTION TO PACKAGING DESIGN

Abstract:
The study focuses on analysing consumer reactions when evaluating food packaging with different objective values. Its aim was to examine how visual design elements are reflected in consumer decision-making and how they influence the customer journey – from initial attention capture to conscious quality evaluation. The research responds to the broader question of the power of marketing in shaping the perception of product value and confirms that packaging design also acts as an autonomous communication element within the customer experience. The experiment, based on findings from the field of consumer neuroscience, was conducted on a sample of seventeen respondents who evaluated five pairs of products (premium versus cheaper variants) in random order. The combination of a questionnaire and eye-tracking measurements made it possible to observe the difference between what consumers say and where their attention is directed. Fixation-based metrics
confirmed that while premium packaging attracted attention later, it held it longer and more steadily, which corresponds to deeper cognitive processing of information (Evans, 2008; Pieters & Wedel, 2008). In contrast, cheaper designs evoked faster, emotional impulses, but these were shorter in duration. The findings show that consumer behaviour is the result of a combination of affective and cognitive mechanisms, with visual stimuli playing a key role in the early stages of the customer journey. In this context, the power of marketing manifests itself not only in rational arguments, but especially in the ability of design to evoke implicit trust and emotional resonance. The integration of neuromarketing and declarative methods has proven to be an effective approach to understanding decision-making processes in the visual marketing environment.