STUDENTS' CORNER - 88

We have seen how packaging as self-servicing tool functions as a marketing initiative.

Next, we will see briefly how packaging helps increase consumer affluence. Consumer affluence means that the customers have enough money to pay for more convenience, appearance and dependability of better packaging.

A good strategic marketing distinguishes different types of customers and tries to satisfy them according to their levels of customer standing.  A casual customer, if he can be called so and a constant customer must receive different kinds of treatment and more importantly, it must be made known to them not offending both the customers in any way.  If a permanent customer is not given any distinct honour, there is a possibility that he might seek to leave the company as its customer.

An affluent customer or consumer like a constant visitor to the company demands attention. In other words, an affluent consumer feels he is important and a valuable customer and he must be recognized as such.  He must feel satisfied to be with you. He must be recognized at every point in the customer lifecycle.  When showing them new arrivals of any product, only those which match their social status and economic affordability must be shown to them.  Anything less than their perceived status will hurt their feelings and sometimes, the hurt may mean parting with him. The affluent customer in short demands convenience.

Convenience means that all the issues relating to them must be solved immediately and also in one place; something like one-stop facility he expects.  He must access so to say to effective ease of doing business with recognition for his status. And the recognition begins with the packaging for his product.  He must be made to understand that all aspects of his product have been given due respect.  The packaging has taken into consideration, for example, the size of the product, the colour and the texture, so on. And he outright makes it clear that paying enough for all such conveniences is not a matter at all.

Packaging also functions like a marketing tool promoting brand recognition among the customers. The very package with its size, color scheme and legends on it under the pictures helps the customer identify the product.  The picture of Taj Mahal or of the Three Roses brings to the mind of the customer the very brand of tea along with the visual ads the companies have floated.  Recognition of the brand of a product suggests successful marketing with focus on the particular segment and its chosen target. After all everything that a company does in relation to marketing must end in business promotion.  Packaging and brand recognition are twins of commercial significance.  Therefore, careful attention is paid to the very fact of packaging.

Innovative packaging exercises a strong pull on the customers. If you go to a mall with the idea of checking packaging in terms of customer attraction, you will find almost every company has taken efforts to have a unique kind of packaging for its products.

We have seen so far how packaging also can be exploited as marketing tool.