Marketing through packaging

Consumer market grows rapidly every year and the number of competitors among different types of products and goods increases steadily. To standout against competitors, every company tries to invent something new and to get the competitive advantage for providing the product to the end customer.

One of the marketing tools that has become popular and important is packaging and packaging design which allows companies to be different from each other and to have more priorities among competitors.

Packaging now is regarded as an essential component of our modern lifestyle and the way business is organized. Packaging is the enclosing of a physical object, typically a product that will be offered for sale.

In line with the basic aim of packaging, which is keeping the product safe and making the transportation easy, packaging is considered as an effective advertising tool which would promote sale. The role of packaging as a communication tool is becoming more and more important due to factors including the increase in self-service at the point-of-sale and the more complex needs of service related to the product.

Consumers derive the perceived value of a product from a set of intangible elements: information, service (recyclable packaging after use, single portions in a larger pack, etc.), and brand name.

The fundamental communicative function of packaging is evident in its very existence on the pages of magazines, on TV, in shop windows, at points-of-sale, at home, etc., where it communicates merely by being on display. The promotional role of a packaging should be considered. It can be used to attract customers' attention and encourage them to examine the product.

Packaging design is critical in supermarket products, where its most important function is to help differentiation the products and consumer spend less time planning the shopping trip and reading than ever, visual images are crucial to attracting them . Packaging may also present elements with essentially informative and communicative power as well: words, images, colors, shape, etc, which communicate to the consumer in various ways and places, both before and after the shopping experience.

Consumer’s choices and desires are the important elements that drive the marketing process. Consumers are the key factors in planning and implementing packages.

The process of identification includes the process of consumption where customer sets the product within three stages: pre-purchase, purchase, and post-purchase activity. Therefore, the perception and the evaluation of the product, in this case product package, assist customer to make a purchasing decision.
Marketing through packaging