Gendall Philip, Eckert Christine, Hoek Janet, Farley Tessa, Louviere Jordan, Wilson Nick, Edwards Richard
Department of Marketing, University of Otago, Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand.
Marketing Discipline Group, University of Technology Sydney, Business School, Ultimo, New South Wales, Australia.
Tob Control. 2016 Nov;25(6):641-647. doi: 10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2015-052488. Epub 2015 Oct 5.
Tobacco companies question whether standardised (or 'plain') packaging will change smokers' behaviour. We addressed this question by estimating how standardised packaging compared to a proven tobacco control intervention, price increases through excise taxes, thus providing a quantitative measure of standardised packaging's likely effect.
We conducted an online study of 311 New Zealand smokers aged 18 years and above that comprised a willingness-to-pay task comparing a branded and a standardised pack at four different price levels, and a choice experiment. The latter used an alternative-specific design, where the alternatives were a branded pack or a standardised pack, with warning theme and price varied for each pack.
Respondents had higher purchase likelihoods for the branded pack (with a 30% warning) than the standardised pack (with a 75% warning) at each price level tested, and, on average, were willing to pay approximately 5% more for a branded pack. The choice experiment produced a very similar estimate of 'consumer surplus' for a branded pack. However, the size of the 'consumer surplus' varied between warning themes and by respondents' demographic characteristics.
These two experiments suggest standardised packaging and larger warning labels could have a similar overall effect on adult New Zealand smokers as a 5% tobacco price increase. The findings provide further evidence for the efficacy of standardised packaging, which focuses primarily on reducing youth initiation, and suggest this measure will also bring notable benefits to adult smokers.
烟草公司质疑标准化（或“无装饰”）包装是否会改变吸烟者的行为。我们通过估计标准化包装与一种已证实的烟草控制干预措施（即通过消费税提高价格）相比的效果，来解决这个问题，从而提供标准化包装可能效果的定量衡量。
我们对311名18岁及以上的新西兰吸烟者进行了一项在线研究，该研究包括一项支付意愿任务，在四个不同价格水平下比较品牌包装和标准化包装，以及一项选择实验。后者采用了特定于替代方案的设计，其中替代方案为品牌包装或标准化包装，每种包装的警示主题和价格各不相同。
在每个测试的价格水平上，受访者购买带有30%警示的品牌包装的可能性高于带有75%警示的标准化包装，并且平均而言，他们愿意为品牌包装多支付约5%的费用。选择实验对品牌包装的“消费者剩余”得出了非常相似的估计。然而，“消费者剩余”的大小因警示主题和受访者的人口统计学特征而异。
这两项实验表明，标准化包装和更大的警示标签对成年新西兰吸烟者的总体影响可能与烟草价格上涨5%相似。这些发现为主要致力于减少年轻人开始吸烟的标准化包装的有效性提供了进一步证据，并表明这项措施也将给成年吸烟者带来显著益处。
