Packaging always needed - downturn or not

When consumers are cautious about spending money, they need to see value for money in the packaging. They need to see what it is they are buying and they need to feel that they have made the right decision.

There is no need to change packaging in the face of recession. In any case, one would always need to retain brand equity and to migrate the history, personality, the antiquity of the brand. To indicate value, packaging can be enhanced by communicating a benefit, previously overlooked, by re-examining the intrinsic, and the ingredients indicating its competitive edge.

Re-examine

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At Strategic Communication Company (Stratcom), we re-examine the ingredients and the proposition; we examine the naming architecture to see if there is anything we can highlight to demonstrate the value of the product, why costs may have gone up and why the consumer has to pay more for the product. It is amazing how many hidden factors can be brought to the fore in the process and featured on the packaging as a marketing tool.

The production line cost does not increase while additional hierarchy of contents is communicated . Naturally, there is a cost to relook the packaging and the value it brings in communicating its benefits to the consumer and reprinting is necessary. There is a cost but it's a one-off, not an on-going cost.

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In any event, plan for price increases so you are not taken by surprise. Stratcom monitors the economic environment, as do our clients, and so we are able to anticipate price increases. If necessary, we can change the brand graphics on the packaging in two weeks at minimal cost, which would be easily absorbed by the probable increase in sales resulting from the enhanced packaging.

Still spending

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Even though interest rates have gone up. consumers are still spending. We find as we upgrade our clients' products, consumers maintain buying and spending and it does not seem as though they are downscaling their lifestyles. We have to keep upgrading to attract the consumer, otherwise, as spending decreases so the economy shrinks, which is certainly not a desirable outcome.

When prices go up, we drive the benefits to the consumers of their purchases , to allow for choice. We constantly try to outwit other brand's packaging to get our clients a return.

Consumer activists sometimes peddle the myth that packaging increases the cost of a product or that in house brands are cheaper than branded products. Unpackaged goods may be marginally cheaper but will probably have sold less than packaged goods because the unpackaged goods escape the consumers' attention.

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Market researcher Nielsen SA recently reported “...house brand sales at most major supermarkets were rising, local fast-moving consumer goods had failed to change the perception of poor quality about ‘private labels'... with the exception of Woolworths food, retailers had not invested enough in marketing, including improved packaging, to alter perceptions, despite product quality that was ‘often very good'.”

It is important for consumers to buy brands that they know and trust, so packaging has to epitomise what the brand stands for.