The Marketer's Handbook: Reassessing Marketing Techniques for Modern Business

PACKAGING

Application: NPD/NSD, Branding Strategy, Sales, Marketing Communication, Post Sales Service

The Concept

For many consumers, packaging is the public face of marketing, capturing the essence of a product or service. It has the ability to tempt, entice, and stimulate desire whilst communicating the functional realities of the offer. It is a blend of hard commercial reality with art and design. This is a vital part of marketing and ought, if there were much credence to be given to them, be another “P” in the four Ps.

Packaging can have several levels: the container for the product itself (Coca-Cola’s bottle), any surrounding consumer packaging (such as the cardboard box a scent bottle is given in), and any shipping packaging. Even the latter can be branded and attractive. This packaging needs to serve a number of purposes: it needs to be functionally durable enough to contain the items purchased, it needs to communicate brand messages and values, it needs to be functionally fit for purpose during use, and it needs to convey modernity. The latter can range from innovative ways to supply the product (like the recent launch of the Heinz baked beans fridge storage container) or matching new values (like the lessening use of plastics in the light of environmental concerns).

The development of good packaging involves a series of crucial and practical decisions. There needs to be ...