Abstract:

A simple package design is void of horror vacui (.i.e. without too many design elements). The question is – how possible can product naming persuade potential consumers without other attractive design elements such as colour and images? Thus, this study builds on existing body knowledge adapted from FBM. One of the rationales of this study is that product naming in relation to package designs should solve the problems of identification and persuasion. For these problems to be solved, designers work with shapes, colours, typefaces, and other imagery; however, they do not have mastery of product naming. Meanwhile, certain clients are believed to be ready to accept the contribution of the designers concerning product naming or branding of the product. Hence, the product stimuli used in this study are package designs of nonalcoholic beverages whose images are reconstructed using Adobe Photoshop CS6 to reveal the name. These are then exposed to the participants for evaluation and finally analyzed by using scatter plots, independent sample T-test, and one-way ANOVA to study the relationships. Based on the modified FBM (Fogg Behavioural Model) adopted, the correlation between the factors (motivation and ability) has a positive relationship but the strongest relationship happens in names that require less mental task for identification as well as possessing positive or related association. But for novel or strange names, advertising will be necessary. Since the sender and receiver of these visual messages are designers and consumers respectively, designing to fit consumers' prior knowledge, frequent and widespread product advertisements are important to make the product name of simple package design more persuasive. Designers and other stakeholders can adopt a modified FBM model to prove the feasibility of their creative designs in the aspect of imagery and other forms of visual communication such as product names. However, there is a need for further research on this particular subject because this present study is briefly executed through an exploratory study by using existing brand names of selected non-alcoholic beverages. A similar study can be carried out by using both fictional names and existing names for the purpose of comparison.

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