Marketing Management

Marketing of any product to the customer serves various reasons. First, it communicates the potential customer about the existence of the product in the market. Secondly, it informs the customer about the functions of the product and its content. Trends in the market are continually changing as consumer tastes and preferences change. Various factors and changes in the market have increased the importance of packaging as a marketing tool. These factors include consumer affluence, company and brand image, increase in self-service, and innovation opportunity.

Consumer affluence refers to the ability of the customer to spend a lot of money on a particular product. The increasing customers’ purchase power has influenced their buying behavior. They are willing to spend extra money on a product when the product has the capacity to fulfill their needs. Some of the customers’ needs include convenience, dependability and prestige. Packaging of products can meet these customers needs when properly done. Packaging can ensure that the customer achieves convenience by buying the product. Such convenience can be gained when the package has the right shape and size, which will enhance storage when the customer purchases the product. In addition, a customer can become aware of the product’s dependability by evaluating the package wrapping the product. The package contains information such as the product functions and the ingredients that make up the product. When customers examine a package with this information, they are able to determine how dependable the product is towards satisfying their needs. Affluent customers are concerned with how other people perceive them. These perceptions are based on lifestyle and brands of products consumed. Affluent customers wish other people such as peers and family to have a good perception about them. To achieve this objective, the customer purchases products from brands that reinforce their prestige and self-esteem. Companies willing to tap the affluent market must design their packaging to exude prestige. Therefore, packaging plays a critical role in the affluence market because it can appeal to the customer’s prestige needs.

Packaging can increase a company’s brand recognition (Klimchuk and Krasovec 43). A customer who has previously purchased a particular company’s products and liked them will search for the product again. When the purchase decision is made, the customer searches for the company’s brand through its package. Product packages contain information such as the company’s logo and color combination that is unique to it. To make the customer purchase experience excellent, companies package their products such that the package will be easy to recognize. A concept known as brand loyalty has resulted from customers identifying with products of a company. Brand loyalty is a competitive tool that companies should use. When customers become loyal to a brand, they will always purchase products from the company whose brand they identify with. Even when competitor products are available, loyal customers will always purchase from the brand they trust. To increase the ease of the purchase process, the product packaging is crucial because it identifies the company and its products.

The current market trends indicate that customers are increasingly preferring self-service to assisted service. This change has necessitated the need for supplying customers with the information they need to make a purchase decision. Buying behavior is a complex process that involves many choices. To assist the customer in making the decision, packaging has become essential. The customers who prefer self-service make the purchase decision based on the information on the product package. Therefore, packaging must be done in a manner that will provide the required information to the customer. Moreover, the information provided must be attractive to the customer through proper font size and color. When a package does not provide the customer with sufficient information, the customer may not be able to make the purchase decision, which may lead to sales failure. Therefore, packaging has become essential as a marketing tool, especially in this era where customers use self-service.

Competition for markets has become tight, especially with the advancement in technology and information dissemination capabilities. Organizations have utilized strategies such as product and market differentiation to outperform their competitors. Such strategies have been used extensively and may reach a point where they become obsolete. When this happens, new and innovative means of differentiation will be required. The packaging offers an innovative competitive edge to organizations. Packaging, which can be an internal competence of an organization can differentiate a company’s product from those of its competitors through creative designs. The aesthetic value of design is crucial because it is the face of the organization and its products. Package designs that invoke the feeling of creativity and innovation from customers is likely to lead to purchases compared to a poorly designed package. When a company creates its internal packaging competence, it becomes competitive in ways that cannot be achieved by other strategies.

In conclusion, consumer affluence, an increase in the self-service, company and brand image, and innovation opportunities are the factors that have increased the importance of packaging as a marketing tool. Packaging enhances brand recognition, and increased sales and profits. Moreover, it increases competitive advantage for organizations that excel in improving packaging.

Work Cited

Klimchuk, R. Marianne, and Krasovec, A. Sandra. Packaging Design: Successful Product Branding From Concept to Shelf. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2012. Print.