Featured image credit: PA Images
I know what you're thinking. 'Why the fuck are researchers spending their time looking at what the most disgusting colour is?! THERE ARE DISEASES THAT NEED SORTING!'.
Well, calm yourself. It's all good. The reason behind the research is actually incredibly beneficial to humankind.
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The team spent three months finding the ugliest colour so that they could put it on cigarette packets to put off potential buyers. Although, as a former smoker myself I can tell you, I would happily smoke a cigarette off the floor if my cravings were bad enough. Judge me, I don't give a fuck.
Market researcher Victoria Parr, from research agency GfK Bluemoon, headed the project. She told The Brisbane Times: "We didn't want to create attractive, aspirational packaging designed to win customers ... Instead our role was to help our client reduce demand, with the ultimate aim to minimise use of the product."
The research agency took 1000 regular smokers and ensured that their age range was wide - between 16 and 64 to be precise. The results of the participants surveyed indicated that 'drab dark brown' packages had the lowest overall appeal. They also agreed that they looked like they'd contain the lowest quality cigarettes which would cause the most harm.
The shade that won the prize for being the grossest though was....
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Pantone 448C!
Credit: GfK Bluemoon
Ms Parr said that the colour "was commonly described as 'death', 'dirty' or 'tar' without any positive adjectives".
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So there you go. Anyone else thinking that they have a few t-shirts in this colour? Ha! Me neither...
Words by Mel Ramsay
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