Yogurt

In his book The Undercover Economist, author Tim Harford notes that firms sometimes deliberately make the packaging of their product less attractive to entice more prosperous consumers to pay for a more expensive alternative that the firm also sells. One example he cites are airport lounges where the often times shoddy environment will prompt some travelers to pony up for access to exclusive lounges run by the airlines.

Another example is found at the local grocery store:

In the supermarkets, we see the same trick: products that seem to be packaged for the express purpose of conveying awful quality. Supermarkets will often produce a store-brand "value" range, displaying crude designs that don't vary whether the product is lemonade, bread, or baked beans. It wouldn't cost much to hire a good designed and print more attractive logos. But that would defeat the object: the packaging is carefully designed to put off customers who are willing to pay more. Even customers who would be willing to pay five times as much for a bottle of lemonade will buy the bargain product unless the supermarket makes some effort to discourage them ... the ugly packaging of "value" products is designed to make sure that snooty customers self-target price increases on themselves.

I thought about this during a trip to Safeway earlier this week. The store recently unveiled new yogurt containers. Judge for yourself whether this is a step up, down or sideways:

New version on right.