Message in a Bottle: An Exploratory Study on the Role of Wine-Bottle Design in Capturing Consumer Attention

This study aims to investigate the influence of wine-bottle design and the position of labels on consumers' visual attention in digital contexts. Two within-subjects experiments combined with implicit eye-tracking measures were implemented in Italy. The visual attention of twenty-four participants was measured using areas of interest metrics while being asked to view two differently shaped bottles in three orientations. Subsequently, four examples of each bottle type were displayed, positioning an organic logo in different areas. Attention and interest measures were captured and analysed using a factorial repeated-measures ANOVA. The results show that the shoulder is the bottle's first and most fixated part. Significant differences in participants' attention and interest were found according to the interaction of bottle type and bottle part, as well as bottle part and orientation. Furthermore, exploring the inclusion of an organic logo on different bottle parts provided consistent results. Wine producers and marketers could benefit from bottle anatomy and morphology to identify the best place to display essential information to capture the consumer's visual attention and interest.