Packaging
Shelf war of products: The score is in the packaging Let’s face it: buyers now are more discerning in choosing which products to buy, ergo spurring on-shelf product competition for buyer’s attention. Can packaging be a deal breaker, asks Angelica Buan in this article.
Packaging is both a protective container and a visual communicator to help consumers make purchasing decisions that fit their preferences
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MARCH / APRIL 2017
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ackaging in a historical perspective has undergone tremendous metamorphosis, from the use of leaves and clay to more advanced materials in glass, wood, paper, metal, plastics and composites. Packaging has also become “politicised”, provoking regulatory and ethical debates: should it be plain and homogeneous, or branded – as in tobacco and cigarette packaging? Should it be paper or plastic for shopping bags in view of the waste management agenda? Should materials be biobased or petroleum-based for packaging, in the interest of curbing marine litter? Throughout those varying stages, what remains constant is that packaging is both a protective container and a visual communicator. The latter enables added valuation to the product and product differentiation that aid consumers to pick their preferences amid an array of – and at times overwhelming – branding stimuli. Trend drivers according to studies In stores, the torrent of packaging colours, labels, nutrition information, and shapes compete for attention of consumers who would usually shortlist preferences by cost or personal bias. Today’s packaging industry allocates more funding for R&D to get ahead in this shelf space competition. Transparency Markets Research (TMR), in its Consumer Packaging Market: Global Analysis 2024 report, reiterates how packaging for the consumer goods industry can help the product look aesthetically appealing for the potential buyer, at the same time, deliver products to the consumer in a “sufficiently sophisticated, safe, convenient, and appropriate manner”. Thus, the consumer packaging market has witnessed a significant rise in R&D efforts to develop innovative packaging materials and product designs. Catering to a new breed of consumers has also seen shifts in the market. According to the Ernst & Young (EY) report, Unwrapping the Packaging Industry, current demographic changes such as the decline of the nuclear