• Formulate a set of concise research questions in relation to a self-chosen case that demonstrates concrete and essential challenges in terms of ensuring well-functioning but fair consumer communication via packaging design.
• Use central concepts and methods presented during the course for analysing the chosen case while considering commercial, communicative, and legal aspects.
• Formulate and motivate concrete suggestions for improving the communicative potential of the product packages at issue in the case.

On a still more diversified retail market, consumers are increasingly left to base their purchase decisions on what the product “says” about itself through words, texts, and images on the packaging rather than on exact knowledge of the product inside. Up to 80% of our daily purchase decisions are made in-store and take us a few seconds on average. This increases the risk that consumers will feel misled by what the packaging “told” in the purchase situation when later comparing it to the product inside or to information gained from other sources or elsewhere on the same package – e.g. when reading “0,4% dried avocado powder” on the back of a product that presents itself as guacamole dip. Assessing the mechanisms behind consumers' decoding of the "cocktail" of verbal and visual stimuli on product packages concerns and combines a number of disciplines such as business law, marketing, design and the cognitive  sciences.
The course builds on ongoing cross-disciplinary research at CBS and will provide the participants with key insights into essential dimensions of the overall subject, a metalanguage in which these can be described and analysed, and hands-on tools for assessing the fairness or potential misleadingness of individual product naming and labelling solutions.The primary focus is on markets within the EU but selected  non-EU marekts will be considered as well, addressing also cross-cultural and legal aspects. A major source of illustration will be commercial food products due to their prominent role both in research and in daily life, but non-food products will be considered as well.

Main elements of the course are:
1. The potetntial of various design features to influence consumer beliefts and decision-making viewed from a fairness perspective.
2. The legal conception(s) of misleading commercial practices and its operationalization. Can "likeliness to mislead" be measured?
3. The semiotic cocktail of product labels. Verbal versus non-verbal design elements, labels, and brands.
5. Consumer and specialist knowledge clashing on the front of package.
6. Semantic potential versus visual attention. What does the consumer look for and what does (s)he make of what (s)he sees?
7. Case-based group work   
8. Test of alternative design solutions across groups.

The objectives of the course are to enable the students to understand, reflect on and apply techniques of fair product-to-consumer communication, minimising the risks of misleading the wide variety of consumer profiles. The perspective is both national and cross-national, combining considerations on company reputation and CSR with a competitiveness perspectives. To achieve this, cross-disciplinary methods will be used, and problems will be analysed from the consumers’ as well as the authorities’ and the industry's perspectives.

• Marianne R. Klimchuk, Sandra A. Krasovec  (2012). Packaging Design: Successful Product Branding from Concept to Shelf. Somerset, NJ: Wiley
• Frewer, L. & van Trijp, H.,eds., Understanding consumers of food products.  Cambridge: Woodhead Publishing..
• Assessing in-store food-to-consumer communication from a fairness perspective: An integrated approach.Smith, V., Clement, J, Møgelvang-Hansen, P., & Selsøe Sørensen, H. 2011.  Fachsprache – International Journal of Specialized Communication, 33(1-2), 84-106.
• Directive 2005/29/EC. Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 May 2005 concerning unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices in the internal market.
• Food Standards Agency. 2007. Review and analysis of current literature on consumer understanding of nutrition and health claims made on food. Food Standards Agency/FSA.
• Spin versus fair speak in food labelling. A matter of taste? Smith,V., P. Møgelvang-Hansen, and G. Hyldig. 2010. Food Quality and Preference 21: 1016-1025.
• Selected supplementary material: journal articles, practical guidelines, websites.