CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE
STUDY
In nowadays competitive marketing environment the role of package has changed due to increasing self-service and changing consumers’
lifestyle. Firms’ interest in
package as a promotional tool is growing increasingly. Package
becomes an ultimate selling proposition stimulating impulsive buying behavior, increasing market share and reducing promotional costs.
According to Rundh (2005) package attracts consumer’s attention to particular
brand, enhances its image, and influences consumer’s perceptions about product. Also package
imparts unique value to products and works as a tool for
differentiation, i.e. helps consumers to choose the product from wide range of similar products,
stimulates
customers buying behavior. Wells, Farley
& Armstrong,(2007)
opined that package
performs an important role
in
marketing communications and
could be treated as one of the most important tools of promotion. The primary
function of packaging is to protect the
product against potential damage
while transporting,
storing, selling and exploiting a product and to ensure the convenience
during performance of these activities.
Groundage &
Ostil, (2009) indicates the importance of packaging in the case of grocery, when consumers buy unbranded
products. Seeing that most consumers tend to touch products before purchasing, they treat product packaging as a tool for protecting consumers from contamination, for allowing them to touch products without restraint, without need to avoid smudging their hands. They propose to use packaging with a “window”, in order to allow
consumers to
evaluate
product
by its appearance
at the same
time
reducing
“consumer uncertainty regarding quality by branding the product and labeling it” i.e.
to
communicate to consumer adequate message about product. It could be stating that in length of time a function of identification and communication became of vital
importance especially for
consumer products in the
group of
convenience goods. Packaging
as a tool
for communication
was
investigated by
Gonzalez et al., (2007)
Taking into
consideration that impulsive buying is
proper
to many consumers it could be maintained that “packaging may be the only communication
between a product and the final consumer in the store”. Consequently the role of package in marketing communications increases: it must attract consumer’s attention
and
transmit adequate value of product to consumer in the short period right in the
place
of sale.
The role of
packaging has evolved from
the traditional function of protecting the
product against dirt, damage, theft, mishandling, and deterioration. This functional role is a requirement of all packages. In the modern era, packaging is also utilized as a marketing tool to promote the product, to increase visibility
of
the product on the
shelf, and to provide
information to the customer (O’Shaughnessy 2005). In spite
of
packaging use as a growing marketing tool, marketers still view packaging as a
container. A known marketing
expert, Philip Kotler (2000) defines
packaging as all
activities of designing and producing the container for a product. Packaging draws
the
attention of the consumer at point-of-sale through its attractive
design and color, gives an indication of its contents, package can be a tool in educating the customer. Finally, the package contributes to the overall image of the brand. It is important to remember, however, that packaging is not the only marketing and promotional tool. Meyers (2001:25)
The increasing importance of packaging in the marketing
mix has equaled and
occasionally surpassed product advertising and sales promotion in the past thirty years.
The physical packaging of a
product
can be used
for many purposes, from the manufacturing point to the end users, such as the
protective and promotive
functions where it is called as a “silent protector” Long (2002:52) and a “silent salesman” Pilditch (2003:102).
The packaging not only delivers product information and brand identity, it also visually appeals to consumers and due to its protective function which delivers the product undamaged.
Besides, Packaging
plays an important
role
in helping consumers to recognize
and understand the products.
When consumers go to retailers, they usually see the packaging of products before they can see the products themselves. Therefore, the packaging of products can be an effective tool for promotion in real shops Stewart, (2006:208).
According to Cateora (2002:405), a poorly packaged product conveys an impression
of poor
quality. Supermarkets have many products on the shelves each containing
many items of information and there are very few sales people in a supermarket hence most selling is done through packaging. The modern marketer should then see packaging beyond its traditional
role of holding contents
together but
as
a
promotional tool for his products which is the purpose of
this study.
1.2 PROBLEM
STATEMENT
Despite the increasing popularity of packaging in the promotion of goods and
services, one cannot but agree that there are areas of problems which need to be
studied. Though some business organizations are now using packaging to promote their
wares yet many business organization in Nigeria concentrate their
marketing effort on the traditional elements in the marketing mix in the performance of their
marketing activities. The rate at which wares or products are being advertised, one
may be forced to ask questions bothering on the
use of
packaging.
In the application of marketing mix, many organizations are faced with packaging problems. Some of the packaging problems include; the need to know whether packaging is a good promotional tool. In this regard, packaging alone is not enough for promotion of goods and services. There is a great need to look at other marketing mix elements which usually comes first before packaging, despite the fact that good packaging promotes sales; wrong packaging can lead to the total rejection of goods. Again, packaging affect consumer buying decision, because wrong\bad packaging can make a consumer not to buy a particular product. In this aspect packaging needs to be suitable for each product in order to attract the attention of the consumers and also make them buy. Good packaging also protects the ima\ge of the organization, but some organizations do not have good packaging system, thereby making their products to appear cheap and of low quality. Packaging is not a good compliment or substitute for advertisement though good packaging helps in advertisement.
1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE
STUDY
The
main
aim
of this
research
work
is to
analyze the role
of packaging as a promotional tool in the
marketing of Bottle
Water. The specific objective includes
- To find out if
the packaging of
a product have impact on product quality.
- To ascertain whether brand packaging promote
the
company’s image
to their consumers.
- To analyze the relationship
between product packaging and
consumer buying behaviors
IMPACT OF PRODUCT PACKAGING ON CONSUMER BUYING BEHAVIOUR, CASE STUDY OF AL-HIKMAH UNIVERSITY
