What do consumers expect from convenience products?
July 2007 The power of packaging Speakers Alice Louw and Michelle Kimber from the Customer Equity Company, owned by TSN, the largest international custom marketing research company in the world, spoke on the power of packaging. They spoke about the impact that a well-packaged product has in advertising itself at the point of sale, and listed Jean Paul Gaultier and Absolut Vodka as good examples. ‘Packaging can even alter how people perceive the taste of a product,’ says Louw; ‘if it looks good, it is perceived to taste good too.’ Kimber says that the way a product is packaged appeals to different segments of society. For example, to target the elite market, packaging should use cold, dark colours; to target the mass market, light coloured (mainly white) packaging should be used. Typography has an impact too – Times Roman font tends to be used on premium products, while clean, sans serif fonts, such as Helvetica, are used on mass items. ‘Less is more as shoppers will only look at a labe
