Anuga FoodTec 2012

There’s No Second Chance to Make a First Impression

What’s true for people is increasingly true for products as well. Looks are an important part of the package. In a crowded shelf space, where competing products have similar pricing and benefits, visual differentiation frequently drives purchase decisions. How a product looks, feels, and smells has become almost as important as how well it works or tastes. That’s because consumers today want even their everyday experiences to have a certain fun factor. This is especially true in developing markets.

The right look and feel is also important when it comes to luring buyers away from competing products and how a product is presented on the shelf can increase its chance of becoming the object of desire of impulse shoppers. Treating yourself to an unplanned purchase has been on the rise, especially in developing markets where discretionary spending has increased among a growing middle class. Repeat customers in more established markets, on the other hand, want to see their loyalty rewarded by being able to locate their trusted product quickly and with ease—so sending the right visual clues is important here as well.

What attracts the eye of a particular shopper depends on cultural preferences, tastes and values, correct fit to product, perceived ease of use and the success with which its packaging communicates relevant safety and content information. That key messages reflect a deep understanding of the target market is becoming ever more important as consumers want even everyday products to reflect their individuality and make positive statements about who they are. As a result, consumers can be quite protective of their brand, as the outrage sparked by a popular brand’s redesign of its juice cartons in the United States demonstrated a couple of years ago. Some critiqued the new packaging for making a premium brand look like a generic bargain or store brand, while others complained that the new look made it more difficult to distinguish among the varieties of offerings or differentiate it from other juice brands. Such attention to product packaging will become only more common as interactive technologies enable consumers to rapidly convey their opinions to marketers. So for a product to compete in today’s market place, it has to look and feel right—both inside and out!

At Anuga FoodTec we will unveil several new packaging options that allow you to address the growing consumer demand for more differentiation and customization.

View all our packages and packaging solutions

Go to the Tetra Pak at Anuga FoodTec webpage