by Bob Trowbridge

Created on: August 19, 2007

If product packaging does not influence consumer buying behavior, then corporations are wasting a lot of money. Companies spend a lot more money on advertising than they do on packaging, but packaging is still considered very important. What colors attract the eye? What images evoke trust or other positive emotions in the buyer? But while packaging may have some influence on buyers the first time around, the experience with the product will determine whether a consumer comes back for more. I may buy a TV dinner because the picture on the cover looks really good, but if the actual product is a pale shadow of that cover picture and on top of that, the dinner doesn't taste good, the manufacturer has lost me as a customer for all of their products.

Consumers are becoming more and more sophisticated as we learn more about quality and pricing. Companies depend upon return customers to survive. Being able to get a customer to buy your product through psychologically and emotionally sophisticated packaging is not going to make you money in the long run, especially when dealing with perishables like food. Not only will people not come back for your product, but they will also warn their friends and family away from your products, all of your products.

Americans have finally figured out that the golden goose is dead and they need to use more care in purchasing products, especially more high-end products. While you might buy a bag of potato chips due to good packaging, you are not going to buy a car, a TV, or any high-end electronics due to good packaging. Packaging will only influence consumers at the low end, such as perishables, inexpensive toys, and impulse buys. And even in these areas, consumers are getting much more sophisticated and are more careful about buying both quality and low cost. Packaging will only get you so far.

The only area where packaging is actually working to make producers more money is in a scam that began a number of years ago and is apparently still alive and well today. Several years ago it was revealed that certain cracker manufacturers were leaving their prices unchanged but were reducing the size of their boxes. This size change was very difficult to detect and if you didn't check the number of ounces, you would think that you favorite cracker still cost the same. More recently, I heard that breakfast cereal producers were doing the same. In the store recently, I bought a half-gallon of ice cream. Whoops! No I didn't. I bought one and three-quarters quarts of ice cream. All the brands I looked at reduced their former half-gallon package to one and three-quarters quarts.

Manufacturers are going to do everything in their power to get you to buy their products, from advertising, to packaging, to deception of every kind. But as money becomes tighter for the average consumer, we are going to look more closely at the quality of the product and the cost. Hopefully this will mean that our manufacturers will begin to spend more of their money on producing quality products at a fair price and less on dishonest advertising and packaging.

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