Understanding the Impact of Color on Supplements

Understanding the Impact of Color on Supplements

The Challenge

Our client is working towards the removal of artificial colors from a healthcare supplement product line, with the goal of creating a more ‘natural’ product.
1.  Obtain feedback on an initial production line with more natural colors
2.  Understand potential issues that may arise with these changes in colors

Our Approach

We conducted a Central Location Test to evaluate six different variants, including the Current. Aside from standard hedonics, we included just-about-right measures, so we could conduct Penalty Analysis to determine where to optimize in terms of color and size, if need be.

Following the product evaluation, peel-off In-Depth Interviews were conducted to obtain additional understanding around the colors.

What We Learned

Purchase Decision Factors (in Priority Order) are:
Brand – Trust is key
Efficacy – Should do what it says it does, particularly if gender or age specific
Size – Should both look easy to swallow and be easy to swallow
Color is not necessarily important. Most consumers could not recall what the color of
their supplement was.  Still if encouraged to choose, consumers had some color preferences:

supplement purchase decision factors

Insights to Action

Current consumers strongly believe in the brand’s reputation and efficacy. So while the brand is “internally” pressured to make this change, a change “within reason” will not deter brand usage – as
trust in the brand overrides the color of the tablets.

Further, current consumers already believe the tablets to be natural, so while the company desires to state this on the package as a benefit, it may cause consumer concern and lead consumers to question their prior experience with the product.

Overall, there is not much concern in making this switch, but there are some issues around specific colors, which came out in the qualitative interviews…

Want more?  View the case study.